3 October 2025 | The House, Sian Berry

‘Vivid and insightful’ Sian Berry reviews ‘Ackroyd & Harvey: The Art of Activism’

An intimate portrait of two internationally renowned artists as they attempt to galvanise humanity into action over climate change, Fiona Cunningham-Reid’s thoughtful documentary made me nostalgic for less authoritarian times

This feature-length documentary is the product of award-winning director Fiona Cunningham-Reid’s attempt to capture the 2019 launch of ‘Culture Declares Emergency’ through the prism of two of its founding members, the internationally renowned artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey. With filming interrupted by the pandemic, she picks up and continues to follow the journey of their personal lives and activism to the present day.

Shot in a thoughtful, observational style, for some the measured tone might seem to clash with the dramatic scale of the themes. However, as a recent binge-watcher of the BBC’s Arena archive, it served me just fine.

Leading the launch of Culture Declares Emergency as part of the XR (extinction rebellion) insurgency, Ackroyd and Harvey have the artistic stature to win the Tate Modern directors’ permission to mount a visually stunning invasion of the museum’s vast turbine hall by activists led by a white horse ridden by a woman adorned in cloak of grass.

And the rest of their work profiled here is just as arresting. For decades, the couple have illuminated ecological injustice using natural forms and materials in visually gripping ways that are constantly, and consequentially, very beautiful. Their signature material is grass, with which they grow clothing, clad buildings, and even germinate photographic portraits. 

“I was impressed by the pair’s willingness to have deeply personal conversations in front of the camera”

They are very smart. Interviews on nature protection and ecology never come across as superficial, and I will make use in future of Heather’s observation in one public speech, that their medium of photosynthesis is “the only real economy there is”.

The surge of climate activism from Ackroyd and Harvey, alongside the strains of the pandemic, appears to sap them, and the second half of the film looks much more closely at their personal struggles and artistic differences. I was impressed by the pair’s willingness to have deeply personal conversations in front of Cunningham-Reid’s camera, as she returns to them in subsequent years.

In terms of their XR work, there is so much insight to be gained here about events that were only a few years ago – but divided from today by a sea change in authoritarianism towards civil disobedience.

In 2019, Ackroyd and Harvey used their privilege to grow space for creative activism on a new scale and, overarchingly, this film made me nostalgic. For a world where Quaker meeting houses could be used to plan roadblocks without being invaded by Special Branch, and where Black street poets, white-haired grandparents, nervous queer teenagers and well-to-do artists could find easy, convivial common cause on the streets.

It contains a vivid portrait of a central London in April when – for days and days – samba drummers and a grand piano blocked and entertained each end of Oxford Street, while spoken-word artists shared a mic with Emma Thompson on a pink boat in the middle. 

As legal activist Paul Powlesland reflects: “It wasn’t just turn up, march and go home.” It was far deeper, and of course it had to be stopped.

It was no surprise to find in the credits a dedication to: “All the peaceful, non-violent Earth activists arrested, convicted and imprisoned under UK government anti-democratic, anti-protest legislation.”

Siân Berry is Green MP for Brighton Pavilion

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/sian-berry-ackroyd-harvey