Month: October 2025

Heritage, Art and Community Collaboration

Artist Julien Masson shares a recent community collaboration with artists, residents and businesses, which uses recycled garden furniture, instruments and miscellaneous timber found locally to create public art that reflects a mix of cultures and transform public spaces.

900 words: estimated reading time = 3.5 minutes

This series of bespoke artworks — a site-specific mural community collaboration, created in partnership with a cafe, a group of artists and local residents — creates a prominent terrace space in Southampton’s city centre. Our design and construction process is rooted in sustainability and inclusivity.

I worked on this as part of a core team, including fellow artist David McDiarmid, and in partnership with Mettricks café, to transform what was a blank canvas. Our aim was to turn a highly visible but rather bland area into a dynamic and creative focal point.

Community collaboration: showing public art using recycled furniture and piano parts with paint, Mettricks cafe, Southampton's cultural quarter
‘Music in the city’: recycled furniture and piano parts with paint, Mettricks cafe, Southampton’s cultural quarter

The murals feature a bold, contemporary design using vibrant cut-out letters and abstract shapes. These aren’t new materials; they are recycled pieces of timber found locally and donated by residents.

We consciously take materials that might have been tossed aside — from broken garden furniture and instruments to miscellaneous timber — and turn them into something special. This encourages everyone to think creatively about waste and promotes recycling.

A collaborative community process

Working on these collaborative projects often starts with initiating a conversation with local businesses and, often facilitated by their staff, we typically send out a call for material donations.

The community’s response is usually incredibly generous: local people donate wood and domestic items that would otherwise be destined for the skip or the bonfire. Our goal is always to keep these materials as local as possible, like a neighbourhood contemporary survey.

Community collaboration - showing artists in action.
Community collaboration – artists in action

The donations we receive are very varied: chairs, an old table, piano keys, shelves, a chimney surround, clocks, barometers, garden fences, and coat hangers, just to name a few. These pieces are not just raw material, they fundamentally dictate the form and character of the final artwork. I see it as a positive challenge to weave as many of these disparate elements into a cohesive whole.

We generally favour solid timber and plywood for durability, and what is interesting is that each donated item brings its own story to the final work. This presents a unique challenge, especially when trying to preserve wood that may have been exposed to the elements or damaged before being painted or varnished. Navigating these imperfections, however, adds a rich layer of authenticity, ensuring the work is genuinely true to the place where it is created.

Essentially, nothing goes to waste. Even the smallest off-cuts are saved and will find their way into future artworks.

Beyond the materials, the community shapes the ideas. I also run public consultation sessions where local residents and business staff offer input and suggestions. While it’s rarely possible to include every idea, I genuinely love the notion of people discovering their own small suggestions or personal memories hidden inside the finished piece, like a secret message hidden in the work.

The collaborative process is, of course, a mixed bag of challenges, with the back-and-forth dialogue of working with others being as challenging as it is rewarding. That said, I believe this partnership approach forces everyone involved to maintain a generous and open-minded stance, encouraging a less controlled, more spontaneous way of working. It’s a wonderful way to keep the individual ego in check and the creativity flowing.

Community spirit & public art

‘Bigging up Southampton’: upcycled timber and paint, Southampton’s Guildhall Square.

The bright colour palette is a direct reflection of the rich mix of cultures in the neighbourhood, while the design subtly integrates local heritage elements. Making the artwork accessible is important to us. Each piece is modular and tactile, incorporating varied textures and depth. This ensures the piece is readable by touch, a feature supported by a team member who organises touch tours for the partially sighted.

The artwork turns an otherwise bland space into an eye-catching feature that offers interest both at a distance and up close.

‘Land Ahoy’, upcycled timber, furniture and paint. Southampton Forward commission in collaboration with the Community of RedBridge and the Ship Inn.

Like our previous public pieces, this mural is modular and easy to repair, ensuring its longevity. We hope to continue this organic growth by adding more layers in the coming months, allowing the artwork to develop its own unique identity. Our team, primarily composed of dedicated members from The Keepers Artists Collective, alongside supportive local businesses, proves that with a little investment and community spirit, ambitious public art is entirely achievable.

We look forward to bringing similar work — giving locals something they can truly be proud of — to more neighbourhoods across the city.

Find more

The Keepers Artist Collective is a non-profit group of artists based in the city of Southampton, Hampshire, including Julien Masson and David McDiarmid. The 8 artists come from different backgrounds and disciplines, and share an interest in creating art, community-based art projects, and supporting other artist networks.

Julien’s previous posts for ClimateCultures include The Call of the Forest, which describes a residency in the New Forest, an environment that juxtaposes natural and human worlds, and Julien’s choice there of a physical paint medium to represent the digital realm that often distances us from the natural.

Julien Masson
Julien Masson
An artist whose works are all, in some way, related to technology and our relation with it and wishes to expand notions of what is art.
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Finding the Tipping Points with Thrutopian Fiction

Sustainability researcher and writer Denise Baden discusses the challenges of thrutopian fiction — writing stories to entertain, raise awareness of effective climate action and inspire sustainable behaviours — and her latest thrutopian novel, The Philosopher and the Assassin.

1,645 words: estimated reading time = 6.5 minutes

In his recent ClimateCultures post, Rod Raglin casts doubt on the claims of thrutopian fiction to set out a roadmap to a better future — “writing our way to a future we’d be proud to leave to the coming generations”, as thrutopian champion Manda Scott puts it. In his article Rod sets out the practical, political and economic realities that would need to be addressed before we have any chance of a better future. Many of these seem intractable and the charge levelled at the thrutopian fiction produced so far is that it fails to address these. Another charge is that when it tries to, it comes across as “more didactic than entertaining.”

Rod is right that it is very difficult to write fiction that is both entertaining and will raise awareness of climate policies that are likely to work and/or inspire more sustainable behaviours. I know because I have tried it.

Showing the cover of 'Habitat Man', a novel by Denise Baden.
‘Habitat Man’, by Denise Baden (2021)

Thrutopian fiction — changing behaviours

The first draft of my novel Habitat Man was appalling — everything I wanted the reader to know went in and it was didactic and clunky. I needed to write it then edit it out, just to get it out of my system. But by the final draft, I believe I pulled it off. An award-winning radio drama writer liked it so much she asked to put it in for a BBC Radio 4 adaptation and it got to the final round. It was the best seller in my bookshop for two years and reviews on Amazon are genuine and enthusiastic. In terms of behaviour change, research found that of 50 readers surveyed one month after finishing the book, 98% had adopted more pro-environmental attitudes and 60% had adopted at least one of the green alternatives mentioned in the book. These ranged from simple things like home composting and wildlife-friendly gardening, to campaigning. You can see the results in a link in the notes below.

Another novel, Visco, winner of the 2020 Green Stories novel competition sets out a quite plausible means by which a new society emerges from an old one. David Fell, himself a sustainability consultant, tells the story of a music festival on a small island within the UK that sets up a side festival for those who need care and their carers as part of an inclusivity drive. When the music ends, no one wants to go home and so they don’t. Step by step and overcoming one challenge after another, a more sustainable community based on the values of care emerges, attracting even the wealthy and powerful to its cause. Importantly, it’s also a damn good read!

I would claim that every story in the anthology No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save Our Planet is thrutopian fiction. Several have been expanded into other forms. For example, one story imagined the ocean being given nation status and was developed into the novel Fairhaven, written by chemical engineer Steve Willis and writer Jan Lee. This sets out in fiction form a roadmap to how Malaysia could mitigate and adapt with respect to climate change.

The Philosopher and the Assassin: the evolution of a work

Another short story in the anthology was written as a standalone novella The Assassin, which is available also an audio book and as a play, Murder in the Citizens’ Jury. It imagines eight people in a citizens’ assembly debating climate solutions. The whodunnit element provides the drama and mystery. The context raises awareness of this emerging form of participative democracy, which I believe is an essential first step to real change. It also allows climate policies to be explored from the perspective of a variety of people, each of whom relates to them in different ways. Murder in the Citizens’ Jury was performed in 2024 in a sellout run, and later, a school put on an abridged one-hour version. It was interactive and the audience voted for their favourite climate policies. The director told me people were still debating the ideas days later. You can see reviews, details and feedback at the Green Stories link in the notes below.

Professional theatre companies can access it via Lazybee scripts, but it’s available royalty-free for any school/college drama groups and amateur theatre companies to stage if they approach me direct.

Thrutopian fiction: showing the cover of 'The Philosopher and the Assassin', a novel by Denise Baden (2025)

Inspired by the success of the theatre production, and wanting to reach a larger audience, I’ve included the ideas from the play as a story within a story in a novel, which was published by Habitat Press on 1st October: The Philosopher and the Assassin. A script version won the 2024 Writing Climate Pitchfest, and it is literary fiction: think campus novel meets moral philosophy meets murder mystery! The goal is thrutopian — it aims to entertain and suggest some of the key leverage points that could tip us in the direction of a sustainable future. Here is a brief description:

There’s no more important job in the world than educator, and no subject as necessary as moral philosophy. The trick is getting the students to turn up. So, when the Dean proposes the controversial concept of education entertainment, Professor Iris Tate goes all in with a moral philosophy course based on a whodunnit that all assume is hypothetical — a murder in a citizens’ assembly on climate. A variety of characters provide an entertaining source of ethical dilemmas, but what the students don’t know is that the ultimate dilemma is very real, and their conclusions will have far-reaching consequences.

Reviews so far have been reassuringly positive:

“At once a commentary on the looming responsibility of the climate crisis and our ever-shrinking opportunity to enact meaningful change, and a far from conventional whodunnit, the book plays with the notion of what is moral and what is right. Complicit in the book’s central sprawling philosophical dilemma, the reader finds themselves judge, jury and executioner in the case of the century. While the novel tackles prescient and troubling themes and poses difficult questions (how far should we go for the greater good?), it does so with a sense of dry humour and a delightful eye for the absurd. Above all, the warmth and resilience of its ineffable protagonist suffuses the narrative and, as the story ends, we struggle to leave her behind. Not only is this a timely, thought-provoking and essential story in an age of urgent, innovative climate action that demands the attention of us all, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Funny, memorable, characterful and original.”

— The Literary Studio

“Denise Baden’s campus novel/whodunnit is so much more than just an up-to-the-minute academic locked-door mystery, it’s a philosophical treatise wrapped in an exposition of the polycrisis, embedded in a love story, threaded through with alternative democracy and grounded in explorations of grief, motivation and drive. Full of sharp ideas, subtle humour and grounded in the harsh realities of our world, you’ll come away with a whole new understanding of our world and what it takes to change it!” 

— Manda Scott, author of Any Human Power and Boudica series. 

“If facts are ignored, fiction may be our next best hope. With its story-within-a-story, The Philosopher and the Assassin cranks up the dramatic tension around whether we will achieve the carbon transition, or not. Ultimately, a surprisingly hopeful read.”  

— John Elkington, author of Tickling Sharks: How We Sold Business on Sustainability

“A sharp, witty take on the climate crisis – from someone who knows what they’re talking about.”

— Wren James, founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League

Rod, I welcome your feedback!

I’d love to meet some fellow ClimateCultures members and readers, so if you’d like to come to the The Philosopher and the Assassin book launch in Winchester, UK on 11th October, you will find details below. 

Find more

Denise’s novel The Philosopher and the Assassin was published on 1st October. The book launch is on 11th October in Winchester, UK: details and booking here.

Denise mentions Manda Scott, whose novel Any Human Power (2025) is published by September Books. Manda discussed thrutopian fiction and more in a recent episode of the Life Itself podcast, and she and Faith Tilleray run the Accidental Gods podcast and programme “exploring how we can create a future that we would be proud to leave to the generations to come.”

You can find thrutopian stories and features at Bending The Arc — “towards a thriving future on Earth”, and Green Stories runs a series of writing competitions across various formats to solicit stories that showcase what a sustainable society might look like.

Denise’s novel Habitat Man (2021) and her novella The Assassin are published by Habitat Press and are available in paperback and as ausiobooks amd eBooks on all major platforms, including Amazon (where you will find the reviews Denise mentions). Denise summarises the research into readers’ responses in Habitat Man in Research on her website.

Visco by David Fell, No More Fairy Tales: Stories to Save our Planet (edited by Denise Baden and Steve Willis), and Fairhaven by Steve Willis and Jane Lee, are also available on all major platforms. You can find reviews and information about the performances of the play Murder in the Citizens’ Jury here.

In his ClimateCultures post, Thrutopian Fictions: Ways to a Better Future?, fellow writer Rod Raglin asks if thrutopian fiction’s solutions-focused approaches to our climate predicaments address the real challenges: how to overcome our reluctance to make the sacrifices needed to get through the hardest times and towards a better future?

Denise Baden
Denise Baden
A professor of sustainability and a writer, who founded the Green Stories project to create a cultural body of work that entertains, informs and inspires transformation ...
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