AUGUST 2024
Ep. #36 of The Urbanaut Podcast, presented in collaboration with Urbanautica.com. In this thought-provoking episode, we are joined by the renowned British environmental photographer, Andy Hughes. Andy’s compelling body of work challenges the viewer to reconsider the ethical implications of environmental imagery, particularly in the context of plastic pollution.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu96i5LNO-M

APRIL 2024
Mysterious Clean Island by Andy Hughes portfolio shortlisted call 'Urbanautica Institute Awards 2023', 2023
Category: Anthropology and Territories
https://urbanautica.com/portfolio/mysterious-clean-island/2727
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MARCH 2024
Hughe's film titled 'Inner Migration' had its premier at The Milan Machinima Festival MMXXIV. The festival was thrilled to announce its highly anticipated programs for the 2024 edition, showcasing the best in machinima art from around the world. The festival — which takes place in person at IULM University between March 11 - 15 2024 — featured four unique programs: Auteur Theory, Game Video Essay, Made in Italy, and Slot Machinima. Read more here: https://milanmachinimafestival.org/blog
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JANUARY 2024
Burton Art Gallery and Museum announces the appointment of Andy Hughes as our 2024 environmental artist award. The commission will include the creation of a video artwork (Machinima) and research that aims to extend and create alternate perspectives around climate change and pollution.
Link to dedicated blog/diary page
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OCTOBER 2023
Four surfers, (three visual artists and a writer) join together at Porthmeor studios, overlooking the beach to co-curate a reflective and speculative exhibition/event. The project gathers and entangles rich and strange flotsam and jetsam of visual forms, salvaged poetry, and sound. The creative thinking of the project has risen through the sharing of surfing sensoria and ecocriticism (environmental concerns) and flows through the exhibition to conjure future visions of the ocean. Sea Fever was originally a surf art exhibition event at Tate St Ives for its launch programme in 1993 with the participation of Surfers Against Sewage who were founded that year. Our project reflects back to that time of heightened consciousness and environmental activism but brings a current spirit of the abyssal fantastic to this site on Porthmeor Beach. Read review here: http://www.solasart.co.uk/writing.html
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JULY 2023
Portrait of Alison included in the exhibition 'I Chose This' at https://newlynartgallery.co.uk/activities/i-chose-this/ More than 50 artworks, which have been on loan to nine primary schools across West Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly through Think, Talk, Make Art, a major schools and teachers project. The works on display were selected by children at each of the nine participating schools from the Arts Council Collection and Cornwall Council Schools Art Collection to create in-school galleries. The children involved in choosing the works made their choices collaboratively, through careful consideration and lively discussion. Artwork selected spans the 20th and 21st centuries and encompasses painting, print and sculpture. Artists featured, include Bryan Pearce, Barbara Hepworth, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Jeffrey Steele, Alan Lowndes, Victor Passmore, alongside many others.
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JUNE 2023
Andy will be attending the Surfers Against Sewage Plastic Free Awards 2023
https://www.sas.org.uk/updates/plastic-free-awards-celebrating-environmental-champions-from-around-the-uk/
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APRIL 2023
Andy will be a guest speaker at Swansea University’s Go Green Week, which welcomes four contemporary creatives, working internationally and each exploring environmental concerns and the ways in which we can tackle environmental issues. From sharing ecological stories to encouraging activism, the arts play a vital role in our collective and individual understanding of our natural world and our role within it.
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NOVEMBER 2022
Jeju Biennale commissioned new works for 2022. Four video works and two installed large circular Polycarbonate images are currently being exhibited on the main Island of Jeju and also on Gapado Island [16.11.22 - 12.02.22] Please click the exhibitions link to see more.
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OCTOBER 2022
Gapado Artist in Residence, hosted an open studio event to show the work of the 6 resident artists in 2022. This exhibition presented the process of recording the tasks laid before them while facing the traces of the scars inflicted on nature and their recovery from the artists’ point of view. It was an opportunity for the public and other visitors to explore and understand the methodology and artwork created by artists based on their 6-month artist residency.
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MAY 2022
Andy Hughes is currently one of five international artists living and working on the tiny island of Gapado, South Korea. During the next 6 months, he will be creating artworks entangled with various notions of the real, the surreal, surfaces, the ocean, circulatory systems, plastic waste and energy. Hughes was nominated by Clarrie Wallis (Director of Turner Contemporary), other jury members were from MoMA and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea. See this link: http://www.gapadoair.kr/
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APRIL 2022
Andy's work is included in the new book Photography and Environmental Activism, Visualising the Struggle Against Industrial Pollution
by Conohar Scott, published by Routledge. This publication maps out key moments in the history of environmentalist photography, while also examining contemporary examples of artistic practice. Historically, photography has acted as a technology for documenting the industrial transformation of the world around us; usually to benefit the interests of capitalist markets. An alternative photographic tradition exists, however, in which the indexical image is used 'evidentially' to protest against incidents of industrial pollution. By providing a definition of environmental activism in photographic praxis, and identifying influential practitioners, this publication demonstrates that photography plays a vital role in the struggle against environmental despoliation.

Hughes work is discussed in Chapter 4: Plastic Taxonomies and the Symbiotic Real
Abstract:
This chapter takes as its subject the issue of marine plastic pollution by profiling several artists who collect taxonomies of plastic waste to raise awareness of this looming ecological threat. Chris Jordan's ‘Midway: Message from the Gyre’, and Mandy Barker's wry depictions of plastic waste in her series ‘SOUP’ provide a basis for understanding Timothy Morton's notion of 'hyperobjects', which suggests that there is no 'away' when it comes to the disposal of waste. Instead, we are bound to share a symbiotic future of co-existence with marine plastic pollutants. Furthermore, Ian Hodder's notion of 'entanglement' and cultural dependency on commodities provides a basis for understanding Andy Hughes’ sensuous photographs of plastic waste. Finally, Ana María Guerra's series ‘Future Fossils’, illustrates the extent to which microbiota are now co-existing with micro-plastics in the biosphere as a means of survival. The photographs of Hughes and Guerra draw attention to the idea that not unlike marine animals, humans are also trapped within a web of plastic pollution.

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NOVEMBER 2021
Guest panellist at 'The Ocean and Me'. Royal College of Art Grand Challenge event 2021

Red Creek exhibition curated by SolasArts: Andy Hughes and Peggy Atherton
 A pop-up exhibition at the historic Porthmeor Studios, St Ives, Cornwall.
http://www.solasart.co.uk/solasarts_whats_on.html
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OCTOBER 2021
Sea, Sand and Soil’. Curated by Professor Liz Wells at the Pingyao International Photography Festival in China.
China’s most prestigious photography festival, featuring images from more than 50 countries each year in indoor and outdoor venues across the UNESCO-listed ancient city. Andy Hughes, Mandy Barker, Gina Glover were the three artists included in the exhibition.
Andy Hughes and Liz wells were selected for an award as one of the 'best' international exhibits.
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SEPTEMBER 2021
Andy's Machinima film Plastic Scoop will be showing as part of FUTURES2021 (in Plymouth).
Taking place Europe-wide, European Researchers’ Night is dedicated to explaining research through fun and interactive learning. More than 300 cities across 30 European countries will be taking part in the event on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 September 2021. FUTURES2021 is funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101036029.
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JUNE 2021
Andy wins the Surfers Against Sewage Creative Award 2021.
CEO and head judge Hugo Tagholm said: “As the clouds of the pandemic start to lift, it is time to celebrate these environmental heroes, champions and community leaders. They are the ones turning a problem into an opportunity to reshape the world around us for a more sustainable, brighter, greener future. Kudos to everyone playing their part, from the beachfront to the boardroom. Today is your day. This decade is your decade. This is the decade of change.”
www.sas.org.uk/news/campaigns/
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MARCH 2021
Andy has been awarded Cultivator Skills Development Grant
Funded by HM Government, Creative Kernow, Cornwall Council, Arts Council England, European Union Structural and Investment Funds
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OCTOBER 2020
A work by Andy Hughes (Portrait of Alison) is on show at Falmouth Art Gallery as part of the Cornwall Council Schools Collection. This is a significant art collection which includes work by artists such as Barbara Hepworth, Alfred Wallis and Patrick Heron. The calibre of the collection reflects Cornwall's significance in the art world from the Nineteenth Century to the present day. The majority of this work forms the Schools Art Collection which was started in 1961.

Find out more about the history of the school's art collection.
https://www.cornwallmuseumspartnership.org.uk/cornwall-council-schools-art-collection/
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OCTOBER 2020
PlasticScoop will be shown at the Animator Film Festival in Poland, part of Between a Video Game and Animation.
Video game technologies are elbowing their way into the world of animated films. What’s the difference between a game and a film? After all, both of them appeal to our audiovisual perception. Sit back and enjoy a collection of animations made using technologies developed with computer games in mind. They can be seen as gameplay videos or conversely, as films that could be a game. The program also presents a game world in which one of the films was made.
More Information and tickets : https://animator-festival.com/en/show/miedzy-gra-a-filmem-filmy-na-silnikach-gier-wideo/
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MARCH 2020
Andy attends the 30th Anniversary of Surfers Against Sewage and meets HRH Prince of Wales who becomes Patron of Surfers Against Sewage.
https://www.sas.org.uk/news/his-royal-highness-the-prince-of-wales-becomes-patron-of-surfers-against-sewage-as-the-charity-celebrates-its-30th-anniversary/
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PlasticScoop will be shown at the MILAN MACHINIMA FESTIVAL, in Milan, Italy. This festival has been showcasing avant-garde and experimental game-based videos - also known as machinima - produced by international filmmakers and artists. The third edition will once again take place at IULM University in Milan, Italy between March 09-13 2020 during Milano Digital Week. See >>>>> https://milanmachinimafestival.org/
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JANUARY 2020
A week-long celebration of the rich research landscape that impacts our world with world-leading academics and experts. Topics such as: How is the Arts and Humanities responding to environmental and ecological challenges? What role might they play in productive interdisciplinary collaborations? Returning for the third year, the annual festival showcases the outstanding research carried out by staff at the University in collaboration with colleagues and partners locally, nationally and internationally. Andy Hughes and Dr Mandy Bloomfield will present infomation about the project PlasticScoop.
https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/whats-on/research-festival-art-culture-environment
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NOVEMBER 2019
The film PlasticScoop will be showing at the Cornwall Film Festival 17 November and at Porthmeor studios, St Ives 29 November.
Book here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/
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OCTOBER 2019
Andy Hughes presented a Keynote talk at Havas, London in collaboration with the IPA’s EffWeek (15th to 18th October 2019), the annual global initiative championing effective marketing focusing on the role of sustainability in marketing services, and its contribution to campaign effectiveness.
https://www.promomarketing.info/ipm-confirms-final-line-ipa-effweek-sustainability-event/
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SEPTEMBER 2019
Plymouth University releases PR film to promote PlasticScoop film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H553cQKoc6E
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JULY 2019
Andy receives a Plymouth University Sustainable Earth Institute's Creative Associates Award 2019. These projects awards aim to explore novel and innovative ways of communicating research and develop a portfolio of case studies of the different creative approaches possible.
https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/research/institutes/sustainable-earth/creative-associates
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JUNE 2019
Andy was one of five judges at the Dopper Changemaker Challenge.
The Dopper Changemaker Challenge started in the Netherlands in 2017, but in 2019 the challenge went going global. Amsterdam (for Dutch and Belgian students), Berlin, London and Kathmandu. Innovative projects can change the world, crystal clear water, in every ocean, from every tap. That’s Dopper’s goal.
https://dopperchangemakerchallenge.com/
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Andy Hughes is represented for speaking engagements through Champions Speakers.
Champions Speakers represent the world’s most influential motivational speakers, sector-specific specialists, event hosts and corporate entertainment. A family-run business serving over 4000 events in 43 countries worldwide, we place top-class talent at your fingertips. A founding member of the European Association of Speakers Bureaux (EASB), we were handpicked by Sir Richard Branson as 57th in The Sunday Times’ Fast Track 100 and featured in the London Stock Exchange’s 1000 Companies to Inspire Britain.

https://champions-speakers.co.uk/speaker-agent/andrew-hughes