Climate crisis - raising awareness at Glastonbury

If you are lucky enough to be going to Glastonbury Festival this year keep an eye out for the fantastic banners produced by our art students as part of Oxfam’s ‘Climate Crisis’ campaign.

Students from both our Witney and Abingdon campuses began the project by researching what climate crisis means and what impact it has at a local and global scale. The results were then portrayed in two 2 x 3.5m banners, using a variety of mediums and processes, which express the students’ thoughts, feelings and opinions on this critical issue.

This is the second project the art department have worked on with Oxfam; we were invited to participate this year following the huge success of the college’s collaboration with Oxfam on the ‘Families Together’ project in 2021. ‘Families Together’ highlights the plight of families already traumatised by war and being forced to leave their homes then having to be separated in their country of refuge. Art & Design/Music Curriculum Manager, Lewis Saunders, explains: “The ‘Families Together’ campaign was the charity’s response to the issues raised by the ‘Museum Without A Home’. This is a collection of artefacts gifted to Syrian refugees when they arrived in Greece after escaping from the war in their home country”. This unique museum honours the generosity of ordinary Greek people who responded to the humanitarian need of the 800,000 Syrian people forced to flee their homes in 2015.

We are delighted and extremely proud that our students are actively using their creativity to raise awareness of such important issues and their banners will be displayed around the Glastonbury site throughout the festival.