Is art activism, or is activism art? In this insightful new documentary from Fiona Cunningham-Reid, we see two creatives who view the practices as distinctly intertwined.
★★★★☆
The Art of Activism charts the catalogue of its titular stars, British artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey, from the 1990s to present day. With disparate beginnings—hers in performance art, his in materials and sculpture—the two began working together before their eventual marriage. The film tells of their fertile creative partnership, lasting even through a recent divorce, with a focus on the climate activism which made their pieces so distinctive.
The film is a perfect introduction to the pair’s ethos. While there is plenty of interview footage with the artists themselves, an effusive commentary by art critic Louisa Buck helps to guide unfamiliar viewers through their catalogue. And being a documentary, it offers some interesting insight into the vocational aspect of an artist’s life. Ackroyd and Harvey often talk of budgets and commissions that have enabled certain pieces in a refreshingly honest manner. Nonetheless, it is a collective anger about the state of our planet which brings the pieces to life.
Ackroyd and Harvey themselves are fascinating subjects. Cunningham-Reid opens the film by showing them at home, working on a project based around animal conservation. They bicker and laugh, but remain resolutely driven by a collective sense of responsibility. An underseen aspect of the pair (in cinematic representations, at least) is their belief in art as an intersectional tool. A wonderful early moment shows their residency at the David Attenborough Building in Cambridge, with sculpture and interactive displays; a timely reminder, especially to a British audience, that art and science are mutually beneficial sectors which severely lack the opportunity—and funding—to join forces.
Another strength of the film is using well-judged interviews to explain the experiential aspect of Ackroyd and Harvey’s works, in a way that videos can’t do justice. With a pointed clip of the two being asked on Richard & Judy, “what’s the point, this isn’t art”, Cunningham-Reid deftly proves naysayers wrong. By the time we have reached 2019, with horses being led through the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern as part of a public protest, the full and outspoken support of Tate director Frances Morris makes it clear that the live experience of these pieces is exactly their power.
And it is the recent upswell in awareness around climate change that then becomes the film’s focus, the period around 2019 of worldwide protests led by activist group Extinction Rebellion (XR) which fuelled Ackroyd and Harvey’s creativity. Following the success of their living sculptures, which evolved from covering an abandoned South London church with seeds into large-scale photo negatives using light starvation to tint a grass canvas into a spectrum of green and brown, they made a cloak. A deceptively simple idea: one piece of fabric thoroughly coated in sprouting grass seeds, with the XR hourglass logo stamped into the back, that could become the silent figurehead at a protest or march. It has become the duo’s most widely discussed work.
The film matches the piece’s reputation by positioning it as a symbol of Ackroyd and Harvey’s success—as Morris says, it’s both so beautiful and out of place that it can’t help make us think. In representing the threat to life through living plants, and tackling as multifaceted a subject as climate change through a single object, the cloak conjures all of the pair’s key themes at one glance: an image which evokes the very cause that they were fighting to raise awareness for. Above all, the pair are creative figures, not pamphleteers, and the work speaks for itself.
The Verdict
As a dual portrait, The Art of Activism is a respectful introduction to these artists’ work, which becomes an argument for a more conscious and collective approach to culture. While clearly coming from a place of admiration, Cunningham-Reid’s well-chosen interviews illuminate Ackroyd and Harvey’s process, while introducing their most impactful pieces to new audiences.
Words by Max King
Ackroyd and Harvey: The Art of Activism is available in UK cinemas from 19th September
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