In Conversation with Lana Locke: Art and sustainability

As time passes, new technologies such as AI become an integral part of the art industry.

As a result, questions and reflections about the ecological involvement of those tools arise. Lana Locke, a London-based sculptor and filmmaker, has created workshops in partnership with University of the Arts London’s public and community engagement programmes. In conversation with NEW WAVE, she talks about her goals and actions in terms of sustainability, accessibility and feminism.

Lana Locke - A Feral Plot, Camberwell Space, Camberwell College of Arts, UAL, Image by Lana Locke and Melanie Jackson, 2025

Can you start by introducing yourself and your practice?

“My practice is rooted in sculpture but is also cross-disciplinary; I was self-taught for a number of years before I went to art school and did an MA at Chelsea College of Arts, part of University of the Arts London (UAL). I hadn't done an undergraduate in any subject and had quite a traditional sculpture practice at that point, which then opened up through my postgraduate education. I then went on to do a PhD, again at Chelsea College of Arts, which led to me teaching and becoming a senior lecturer at Camberwell College of Arts, which is also part of UAL. 

As my work evolved I started to think about how it has been a very interesting political time period, which made me question our political navigation of art, both in terms of public funding and markets. The activist aspects of the works were first in the forms of street protests where I would make sculptural installations, trying to protect and reclaim sites that were subject to gentrification. More recently, it has been unfolded into my film practice and into thinking about both feminism and climate activism.”

Can you talk about your residency ‘A Feral Plot: Making Sculpture and Other Strategies for Survival’ in Camberwell Space?

“The residency takes my research back to sculpture and is particularly about looking for more sustainable ways of making art, as well as the dilemmas and complexities of negotiating the materials. For example, clay and cast metal, have a heavy carbon footprint because of the firing and casting processes having to reach high temperatures. which organisations like Coles Castings, who I worked with during my Arts Council Developing Your Creative Practice grant, are addressing through their innovative furnace run on recycled vegetable oil. On the plus side,  once made, metal and ceramics  are durable, non-toxic, and have a long shelf life. Conversely, other materials I have been working with like mycelium are, by themselves, biodegradable, but their casting process involves a lot of single-useplastics.”

Within your residency, you tried to bring people to connect with materials. Do you think that the personal connection between people and the raw materials is important to bring them to climate awareness?

“Yes, members of the local community, as well as schools, have come in and engaged with these materials in the studio. I encouraged visitors to think about the everyday urgency and requirements of dailypractice, but also what to do with the materials afterwards; do you keep it, fire it, rewet it and put it back to use for the next person? It’s a very simple way to start a conversation around widely used materials and those decisions we make on a domestic level. 

And also, how those small acts sit in terms of wider politics and governmental behaviours. It's important to reflect on the power and voice that we have as individuals, but also culturally within overarching power structures.”

Lana Locke - A Feral Plot, Camberwell Space, Camberwell College of Arts, UAL, Image by University of the Arts London 2025

You also mentioned that accessibility is an important part of your workshops, can you develop?

 “It’s a big motivation for doing the workshops; to make an institutional space like the Camberwell College of Arts more accessible to a wider community. It forces us to think about the role of an institutional art college in London.

It’s important to reflect on who's invited in and who has access to those spaces. How to get people through the door and how to reach across that threshold to make a space more welcoming to someone who may not regularly go into art spaces, let alone an art university. That issue is shared by the wider public engagement team in Camberwell Space and is also one of the values of Camberwell  College of Arts itself. So that's an ongoing project of thinking about the place of an institution within a community.

My project was in part about keeping that connection with the school and engaging with schoolchildren. I was introducing them to my projects, letting them engage with charcoal, with clay, or simply drawing on the walls. But most importantly it was about creating a space where they felt welcome and included; a place where everyone can belong. In short, trying to disrupt that sense of who belongs to university or institutional art spaces.”

Can you talk about that fusion of climate activism, accessibility in the arts and social issues that take place in your workshops?

“Yes, that goes back to money as I was trying to articulate in terms of my background and wider concerns; what can we do when there is so much that is inherited in terms of financial implications of attending a university but also the disproportionate privilege to access the arts, because of culture and education?

My project was in part about keeping that connection with the school and engaging with schoolchildren. I was introducing them to my projects, letting them engage with charcoal, with clay, or simply drawing on the walls. But most importantly it was about creating a space where they felt welcome and included; a place where everyone can belong. In short, trying to disrupt that sense of who belongs to university or institutional art spaces.”

Do you believe that a more eco-friendly way of making art should be taught in art institutions? 

“Yes, absolutely. I would hope that it’s already a policy for most institutions. I know that in our painting programs there is already better awareness of not using solvent in the studio or using water-based cleaning products when you’re working with oils. When it comes to sculpture, I’ve also witnessed different initiatives engaging with ceramics. 

I've really benefited from the expertise of one of the head technicians called James Duck; he was really helpful in advising beyond just the material itself;  for example, initiatives he's instituted within the workshop include scraping down the spray booth where students spray glazes and making that into a reclaimed glaze pigment. Meanwhile, in the foundry in  mould-making, there's an initiative to crush up and reuse the moulding material. More broadly, UAL is ranked in the top 10 greenest universities across the UK and is committed to embedding sustainability across teaching and practice through its Climate Action Plan. But yes, the setting needs to be thought of at every level and embedded into our culture at institutions across the UK. ” 

Lana Locke - A Feral Plot residency at Camberwell Space, Camberwell College of Arts (2025). Image by Rene Lazovy

Today we talk a lot about AI and how it is taking more and more importance in society but also in the art world. Do you think that in terms of art practice, sustainability and AI can coexist? 

“I think it's such a tricky area and also something I've particularly thought about in terms of the perceived problems with making sculpture. With ceramic or metal, we can very clearly identify where and when the energy is spent or used, whereas with AI, I think it's quite shocking how few people realize the water and the energy it takes just for it to help you write an email, let alone create artworks. There are also many unseen energy costs like the remote storage that is an ongoing element of AI.

I think it's a really problematic area. I'm sure it will be part of negotiations for the future. But exactly how that will happen is going to be very complicated.”

To you, what exactly is the role of women in terms of eco-friendly art practices?

“I think that for myself, it perhaps comes through as a feminist lens, in terms of how I relate from my own position that is direct and embedded in experience. or What I mean is that the way I think in my daily life, how it speaks more widely to what others are doing, and what we can do collectively. And in terms of practicalities, what can we do better? How can I collaborate with others, rather than dictating what others should do But that standpoint doesn’t necessarily follow normative i gender lines. 

I suppose also in terms of my PhD, where I've really had a lot of feminist and new materialist ideas around thinking horizontally of our position with non-human others, animals, plants, that could be translated back into my art practice and how I communicate my concerns around the climate in my filmmaking and sculpture practice.”

Lana Locke - A Feral Plot residency at Camberwell Space, Camberwell College of Arts (2025). Image by Rene Lazovy 

Do you think that women artists are more sensible to sustainability than their male colleagues? 

“I wouldn't want to generalise in terms of gender. I've certainly felt really empowered to work with other female artists; I collaborated with artist Melanie Jackson on the publication that launched the residency, I collaborated with Henny Burnnett in my research with mycelium as well as Sarah Pager, my PhD student. So that was something that we did together and I felt really nurtured by it. But as I said then I've also learned a lot from male colleagues such as James Duck, the ceramics technician, David Cross, who's a research colleague at Camberwell, Chelsea and Wimbledon Colleges of Arts at UAL, who is perhaps more forceful in saying ‘this is what the university should do and this is where we're going wrong’, which is very different to my approach but nonetheless does demonstrate a sensitivity on his part.”

If you could give your younger self some advice, what would it be? 

“Do a foundation, do an undergraduate degree, don't wait. I've had a very rich journey, but I think everything got so much more interesting for my art practice and for my thinking once I engaged with the institution. I think although there are heavy costs involved to take on that journey, it continues to be valuable in my art making practices and what art can say in terms of wider thinking, cultures, and politics.” 

Lana Locke - Image by Charlotte Warne-Thomas