On the question of whether art and politics can be productive bedfellows, artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey (the subjects of this baggy but wise documentary) show it’s all about the grassroots. Literally; among the works highlighted here are the grass coats that put Extinction Rebellion (XR) on the front pages during London fashion week in 2019, and the giant photosynthesised portraits in turf they have been making for 30 years.
Such indelible images are worth their weight in marketing gold to today’s green crusaders. But the ecological cause has long been integral to Ackroyd and Harvey’s art, down to its conception and fabrication; a fusion of art and science that harks back to the Enlightenment, when the intelligentsia dabbled in a bit of everything. Impaling diseased ash trunks with porcupine-like spines, or dissecting a beached minke whale carcass to crystallise its skeleton, their work has a naturalist’s field knowledge and rigour.
