Here at HOME we fully engage in green conversations and practices with our staff, visitors, and partners. We believe that one of the best ways to do this is through exciting and innovative programming that pushes boundaries and poses important questions about our actions and the future of our planet. We have a key role to play in demonstrating leadership through championing best practice and amplifying creativity that supports an environmentally sustainable future – that’s why we’ve declared Climate Emergency.
Across theatre, cinema, visual arts and engagement we’ve established an Art & Environment team and we’re actively seeking out and producing events and activities that raise awareness of issues of sustainability, social responsibility and the environment. Through our thematic choices, production methods and our practices we can play our part within a vital and vibrant creative ecology. We support artists and companies to drive forward their own sustainability ambitions both practically and creatively with our Sustainable Rider.
Our Film programming consistently features independent cinema with subject matter that gets to grips with hard-hitting topics. We’ve hosted UK Green Film Festival and confronted the global problem of plastic with special screenings and Q&A events. From biodiversity to eco-systems, natural resources and the catastrophic impact of monocrop farming in Argentina, we make space for difficult conversations and challenge the status quo to give focus to climate emergency. You might have spotted our environmental trailers and green tips in our cinema screens and around our building too.
In Theatre, our designers are able to create new sets from recycled or repurposed objects that can be stored or shared to be used again in future productions. Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran addressed how digital technology is complicit in social apartheid and gentrification and how consumerism and greed contribute to carbon emissions. Me and My Bee addressed the plight of pollinators whilst touring sustainably, and Antarctica brought the sounds and scenescapes of the southern oceans to our stage.
Our Visual Arts team commission, curate and deliver exhibitions, artist films and events that provide our visitors and communities with opportunities to get involved. As part of The Return of Memory exhibition, artist Callum Cooper worked with the Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry in St Petersburg as well as allotment groups and horticultural students from across Greater Manchester to grow food from seed culminating in a Russian-themed celebratory feast. We’ve also shown David Bethell’s magical wooden sculptures, with the timber being reworked time and again, repurposed into new creations and contraptions. We’re also committed to the 100% repurposing and redistribution of gallery installation materials and only recover materials at their end of life in accordance with our waste policy.