Welcome to the final episode in our Green Politics podcast! This season has brought in academics, activists, and consultants to discuss what climate change means for the UK, where to really locate the problems, and who takes responsibility for fixing them. In this last episode, however, we move away from the strictly political and towards the artistic.
Our guest this week is the multi-sensory artist and sculptor Wolfgang Buttress. If you have visited Kew Gardens, you may have come across his work: the Hive. With installations in Singapore, London, Milan, Tokyo, and elsewhere, Buttress joins us to discuss the motivation of his art and how it aims to connect us with the natural world.
From the contrast of his upbringing in Birmingham and then Cumbria, our conversation begins with the question: is art political?
We then focus on his specific installations, particularly Bees: A Story of Survival in the World Museum, Liverpool. Here, his installations connect sight, sound, smell, and movement to showcase the role that bees play in our lives and how fascinating they prove to be as a species.
Our conversation then turned to discuss our society’s connection with nature and what listeners should take away from his art. His answer was to feel more deeply and to appreciate that we are already connected to nature, whether we realise it or not.
Be sure to follow Wolfgang’s work here and listen to the full episode here.