An innovative research project exploring the climate impact on our natural landscapes with the communities who live there through immersive arts experiences
Collusion is working with artists and partners including Norwich University of the Arts and the Broads Authority to create new artworks that consider not just the history and current situation of a place or the communities that live there, but also its future, to speculate and suggest future narratives, concepts and ideas that sees places, for example, lost or adapting to new circumstances.
Working with five artists, the project seeks to explore how innovative tools including 360 cameras, data, and Norwich Uni’s Immersive Visualisation and Simulation Lab can support and build community engagement with their environment, fosters understanding and care. The resulting artworks may also address social and mental anxiety around climate change by postulating imaginable futures co-created with communities that allow them to see beyond the damage of today and the coming changes.
Phase one of this project (2023-24), focused on three areas via a series of two-day labs:
- Communities: Identifying good practice approaches to creating artworks, which support the health and wellbeing of communities.
- Data: Exploring use of geographically referenced datasets such as historic maps, large scale aerial LiDAR surveys and underwater bathymetry surveys.
- Tools: How cutting edge new technologies such as 360 LED walls, projection domes, spatial sound and volumetric capture systems might support delivery of high quality, high impact experiences.
This phase involved additional partners Anglia Ruskin University and the University of East Anglia.
Phase two (2025-26), currently underway, is supporting the development of a series of projects, with five artists embedded as Research Fellows at Norwich Uni.
- Artist and Filmmaker Kate Flurrie will co-create a digital art installation exploring Cromer’s chalk reefs and its impact on the local community and the climate, creating a future imagined world of the reef.
- Meitao Qu will develop a film in Unreal Engine examining personal stories connected to the decommissioning of the Hewett gas field off the coast of Great Yarmouth.
- Chris Allen will co-create a digital multimedia artwork centring intergenerational conversations about climate, landscape, and heritage.
- An-Ting & Ian Gallagher will develop a live audio-visual performance sampling the sounds of fish and other underwater life from the Norfolk coast.
In May 2025, as part of Norfolk & Norwich Festival, the artists presented a mixture of work in progress and existing work adapted for the Immersive Lab to learn about presenting work in this new facility. The final artworks will be presented at the Lab as part of Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2026, as well as being shown in other locations including community settings. Full information to come in 2026!
