Andy collaborates and supports various creative and arts-based organisations, academic and education organisations, charities and NGOs. Get in touch to learn more, share and collaborate. He is also a founder of the http://www.solasart.co.uk/ educational platform.
Gapado AiR Residency Air Talk and Workshop, 2022
During his residency in South Korea, Andy worked with a community of beach cleaners (ploggers) from Jeju Island called Plastic Free Jeju. This group is made up of islanders who meet regularly to carry out events, talks and beach cleaning. He asked their Founder, Kyeong, to tell him a little about their work and history to date.
'Look closer, there is a lot of garbage. The black rocks on the volcanic island of Jeju are full of waste. I set up Plastic Free Jeju to take action with citizen support. We hope to change mindsets here on the island. Although Jeju is famous for its drinking water, the consumption of bottled water by local residents is increasing. The garbage problem caused by this is very serious. Plastic bottled water is one of the most common types of garbage found in roadside bushes and beaches.
'Our group Plastic Free Jeju started in 2019. We pick up trash with the citizens and try our best to spread the Plastic Free Jeju campaign. Now, every weekend, we organize beach cleaning and urban plogging. Children participate in the plogging activities together, and together we perform our Plastic Free Jeju campaign song with them. I think picking up trash is important, but a lifestyle that doesn’t throw out trash is even more important. To do that, we need changes in our lives. I want Plastic Free Jeju to be a campaign that talks about life changes required for a sustainable global environment and leads our actions. I want to make a positive impact on citizens, and government agencies, and help support others spread the word here in South Korea'.
Kyeong ah, Founder of Plastic Free Jeju
Coastscape Workshop Gapado Village Hall, South Korea, 2022
Coinciding with his artist-in-residence exhibition at Gapado AiR, Andy Hughes integrated a ‘Making a Coastscape’ workshop event with invited guests including young people from Jeju province in South Korea. Making a Coastscape is a visual method workshop he co-created with partners whilst working on the project Coral Communities. The method enables facilitators to elicit resilience data from ocean communities. To frame the workshop and introduce his own work, Hughes' explained his long-standing fascination with plastic pollution, the beach and arts activism.
He also discussed a number of his projects: from the discovery of floating debris as a young surfer in the 90’s to his expedition in Alaska and more recently, exploratory work made whilst living on Gapado Island for six months. After the talk, all the attendees left the building to gather materials from waste washed ashore on the remote volcanic island. On their return, they all placed various objects in the large aquarium sited in the main exhibition room.
Link to more information
Coinciding with his artist-in-residence exhibition at Gapado AiR, Andy Hughes integrated a ‘Making a Coastscape’ workshop event with invited guests including young people from Jeju province in South Korea. Making a Coastscape is a visual method workshop he co-created with partners whilst working on the project Coral Communities. The method enables facilitators to elicit resilience data from ocean communities. To frame the workshop and introduce his own work, Hughes' explained his long-standing fascination with plastic pollution, the beach and arts activism.
A heritage project focused on the River Tamar within The Tamar Valley National Landscape (a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) . The goal of the project is to co-produce stories about the river by involving young people, and capturing their feelings and perceptions through arts-led workshops and pop-up heritage displays.
Andy Hughes traveled to Mauritius to work with TAGSCAPE and Plymouth Marine Lab on the project Coral Communities. Coral Communities looked at how to improve the resilience of communities and coral reefs to changes anticipated as a result of climate change; an issue of huge global importance as hundreds of millions of people rely on coral reefs to provide essential services such as food and coastal protection. His role was to participate in an arts-led pilot with other facilitators to experiment with eliciting resilience data from various communities. Hughes introduced fine art methods of assemblage as well as photography as a creative discipline rather than as a tool of scientific enquiry or recording.
'The Pyramid Project' - is part of a larger collaboration between Rio Nuevo Chocolate, Notpla and photographer Andy Hughes and Theo Edkins, Rio Nuevo’s resident in-house graphic designer.
Riverscape: Tamara Heritage-led Stories 2023 / 2024
A heritage project focused on the River Tamar within the Tamar Valley National Landscape. The goal of the project is to co-produce stories about the river, involving the local community and capturing and exploring their feelings and perceptions through arts-led workshops and pop-up heritage displays. As a creative facilitator Hughes played a key role bringing to the team novel and established ways beyond traditional methods of collecting, recording and responding to the key themes of the project. .
Hughes prefer the term 'making' rather than 'taking' when using lens based media - it is a process of facilitating co-production techniques giving voice to the participants to ensure a collaborative and inclusive approachWorking with Calstock CP School and Tavistock Youth Cafe is a key way to involve younger members of the community and instill a sense of connection to the heritage of the River Tamar. The first workshop took place at two medieval sites at either side of the river Tamar, at Cotehele Quay in Cornwall and the second at medieval Buckland Abbey in Devon.
Coral Communities, Mauritius
Andy Hughes traveled to Mauritius to work with TAGSCAPE and Plymouth Marine Lab on the project Coral Communities. Coral Communities looked at how to improve the resilience of communities and coral reefs to changes anticipated as a result of climate change; an issue of huge global importance as hundreds of millions of people rely on coral reefs to provide essential services such as food and coastal protection. His role was to participate in an arts-led pilot with other facilitators to experiment with eliciting resilience data from various communities. Hughes introduced fine art methods of assemblage as well as photography as a creative discipline rather than as a tool of scientific enquiry or recording.
Coral Communities, Mauritius
For further information see these links -
https://www.ecogeographer.com/projects/coral-communities/
The Commonwealth best practice showcase -
https://thecommonwealth.org/case-study/case-study-coral-communities-building-socio-ecological-resilience-coral-reef-degradation
Rio Nuevo // Notpla // Plastic Free Seaweed Packaging
'The Pyramid Project' - is part of a larger collaboration between Rio Nuevo Chocolate, Notpla and photographer Andy Hughes and Theo Edkins, Rio Nuevo’s resident in-house graphic designer. The Pyramid Project is both a practical attempt to reduce our reliance upon single-use plastics and a physical demonstration of the way in which we like to do business. An exploration of creative design and innovative packaging solutions in response to the plastic waste challenge our generation faces'.
By partnering with Andy Hughes, an award winning Cornwall based photographer, and Notpla, a start-up collective of scientists, chemical engineers and designers who have developed a fully biodegradable, non-toxic seaweed-based plastic-alternative, we’ve been able to develop an exciting ‘proof-of- concept’ product that we hope will play a part in the pursuit of a future without plastic waste. Working together with Andy and Notpla we’ve developed ‘The Pyramid’. A project which draws upon the collective expertise of both our in-house team at Rio Nuevo and our new partners.
About Notpla
Announced by David Beckham, Notpla won the Earthshot Prize in the category of 'Build a Waste-Free World”. The Earthshot Prize is a £1,000,000 global environmental prize to discover, accelerate and scale ground-breaking eco-solutions to repair and regenerate the planet.
‘The Pyramid’ is comprised of two parts: a fully biodegradable, seaweed-based Notpla container and a beautifully designed origami outer shell which showcases work by Andy Hughes and Theo Edkins, our own resident graphic designer. Breaking down in a manner not unlikea regular piece of fruit or vegetable matter, the seaweed- based interior of this product was a part of this project that we worked incredibly hard to get right. Thanks to our friends at Notpla, we’re proud to present our customers with a limited edition, completely plastic-free product that functions well and looks great while avoiding many of the hidden environmental pitfalls that are commonly associated with more traditional bioplastics. Designed to function as an alternative, eco-friendly container for our speciality drinking chocolate, ‘The Pyramid’ is an exciting step forward in our attempt to lower the impact that our packaging has upon both the planet and the people who share it. By housing our drinking chocolate in a container that reduces our plastic footprint, provides a food-safe barrier for our product and, crucially, looks great, we believe that we’ve made a small but important contribution towards solving a problem that affects all of us.
We hope that ‘The Pyramid’ will be the first of many such collaborations, and that it will inspire other businesses to take similar steps to come up with practical, innovative solutions to the problems that both ourselves and the natural world face. We believe that collaboration, innovation and ethical decision-making can lead us towards a better brighter future; we’re excited to share this part of our journey with you.
Ruritage Project, Turin, Italy 2018 and 2019
Andy Hughes travelled with Dr John Martin and Ecogeographer to Turin for the third edition of the International Summer School – Learning by Game Creation – organized by a Joint Project of the Politecnico di Torino and University of California. Andy worked in a cooperative role supporting a new visual method developed by Ecogeographer and Plymouth University. The project turns rural areas into laboratories to demonstrate Cultural and Natural Heritage as an engine of regeneration. Looking across the world, rural communities tell us the story of a thousand of years long collaboration between nature and human society. In a time of constant new challenges, rural communities must grapple matters beyond protection, but grasp the opportunities – and understand the potential – springing from their diverse and dynamic heritage.
‘As our group collaborated to create our miniature landscape, we used our bodies and verbal language; our miniature landscapes expanded our gestural and verbal communications into inscriptions. This inscription as a miniature landscape reflected the ways we relate to our material world through our mediated intersubjective context.’
Lili Raygoza, Culture and Performance M.A./Ph.D Student UCLA | Anthropology B.A.
https://www.ecogeographer.com
https://www.ruritage.eu/
Society and Sea Conference, Greenwich, London
Andy supported Ecogeographer and Plymouth Marine Lab to install and document a series of workshops and a pop-up exhibition at the Greenwich Maritime Centre during second international conference on the theme ‘Society and the Sea’, September 2018.
“News stories about the ocean and the coasts regularly make the headlines yet paradoxically there are also concerns that sea-blindness is a problem and people are not aware of the fundamental importance of the ocean. The aim of the GMC is to engage multiple stakeholders in an exploration of the value of the ocean and how that can be recognised, communicated and harnessed to contribute to the health, wealth and wellbeing of society. This requires using perspectives and developing partnerships across academia and industry and engaging in creative conversation about the ocean, coasts and their values for sustainable development”.
Dopper Changemaker Challenge, London, 2019
Andy was one of four judges for the 2019 Dopper Change Maker Challenge. Innovative projects can change the world. Crystal clear water, in every ocean, from every tap. That’s Dopper’s goal. The Dopper Changemaker Challenge was an opportunity for students across the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany and Nepal to change the world with their research related to polluted water and plastic waste with the potential to win grants, bespoke mentoring, and sector networks, helping them bring their innovative solution to life.
More than three decades ago, Surfers Against Sewage emerged as a direct response to the distressing condition of the British coastline, originating from the surfing community itself. In 1990, Andy Hughes connected with the organization, documenting their inaugural protest in London through photography (images above). Since that momentous encounter, Hughes has maintained an ongoing collaboration with Surfers Against Sewage, offering support and actively engaging in their endeavours right up to the present day.
Andy has worked with many organisations nationally and internationally including:
Plymouth Marine Lab
Surfers Against Sewage
Champion Speakers
Cornwall and Devon AONB
Ruritage
Impact Hub, London
Ecover
Christie's Education
Blue Mind
European Centre for Human Health
Sustainable Earth Institute
Defra
Tate Gallery
Raw Foundation
Tate St Ives
Jeju Culture & Art Foundation
Drag & Drop Website Builder