FAQs - The Grantham Climate Art Prize

The Grantham Climate Art Prize is an award for young artists to communicate messages about climate change, piloted with support from: Professor Peter Kennard, celebrated photomontage artist and professor of Political Art at the RCA; Dr Alice Bell, co-director of leading zero carbon campaign group Possible; and, Alison Tickell, the chair of Julie’s Bicycle, a charity that supports the creative community to act on climate change. This year we will also be involving Turner Prize winning artist Helen Cammock as our patron.

Art has the potential to inspire minds and touch emotions in a way that science alone often finds challenging. We felt an exchange between artists and scientists would be a worthy endeavour, and might lead to a fuller, wider appreciation of climate issues and how they can effectively be explained. We hope this prize will draw local communities together behind positive action.

Young people aged 12-25 in Great Britain. This can be as a group such as a school or a club or as individuals.

Any individuals must be within the age range at the time that their entry is submitted.

Upload your artwork in the entry form along with your information: https://octopus.typeform.com/GranthamArt

The prize winners will receive £250 cash and their artwork replicated as a mural in the city that they applied to.

Winners images will also be featured on billboards in and around London (courtesy of Octopus Energy) for a week around COP26.

See full terms and conditions here

There will be 7 separate murals in Brighton, Glasgow, Hackney, Leicester, Nottingham, Rochdale, Stoke-on-Trent.

All winning designs will be repurposed to fit onto London OOH billboards, courtesy of Octopus Energy.

You do not need to live in any of the cities to be eligible to participate (although you must reside in Great Britain). The city name refers to the location where the winning design will feature as a mural.

The city you choose should influence the type of endangered species you feature in the artwork. The artwork should also have local relevance. See our instructions PDF for more information available for download here

The recommended age range to enter this competition is age 12-25.

Our partners UK Youth 4 Nature stand for young people and future generations being given a voice in political conversation. Therefore this competition is meant to provide a platform for young people who are often marginalised from these discussions.

If you are a little younger and would still like to enter, please do - we'd love to see your design.

*We have extended the competition to 9am on 4th October 2021.

The competition runs from 1st September 2021 and 23:59 on 24th September 2021.

• Creativity and originality
• Inclusion of at least one UK species that is endangered/ vulnerable/ under threat: Does the design feature one of the key species from the competition list for the location?
• Local relevance: Does the design reference the local community / area
• Positive message: Design provides a message of hope on climate change/ biodiversity
• Deliverable/Impactful: Can the image be reproduced effectively by the artist as a wall mural?
• Clarity of message: Is the message of the art work clear?

The winners will be chosen by a panel of judges from Imperial College London and selected artists and scientists from Natural History Museum Real World Science Network, UK Youth for Nature and one representative from Octopus Energy. The judge’s decision will be made on or before 1 October 2021. The decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.

The shortlisting judging panel consists of members of the Grantham Institute, a representative from Octopus Energy, experts from the Natural History Museum's Real World Science network, and UK Youth for Nature. The final decision with be made by a a senior member of the Grantham Institute and a local panel from the area - including the Local lead partner and mural artist for each designated site.

Wherever you live in the UK, you are surrounded by different habitats from ancient forests to wetlands, bogs and human-made canals. Each one supports a diversity of locally important plants, animals and other living organisms. They sustain each other and humans are part of that ecosystem too - but many UK species and habitats are threatened by human activities, including climate change. They need our help now.

We believe this is a positive and uplifting way to raise awareness about local nature and wildlife loss and rally community action. We hope entrants will promote positive, hopeful messages in their art in order to highlight the change that is still positive to protect our local biodiversity.

Seven winners will be chosen and their art will be repainted as murals on walls in eight separate British cities including Nottingham, Leicester, Brighton, Stoke, Hackney, Rochdale. You don't have to be living in a particular city to enter that group.

We will also share the winning images and some of the best entrants in our press release, social media accounts and on the Octopus and Imperial website as well as in local art galleries and at COP 26.

All winners mural images will appear on billboards in and around London for a week around COP26 in November.

Try submitting your photos using another web browser (for example Chrome, Safari, Edge etc).

If this issue continues, please double check that the file size of the images is below 10MB - and if all else fails, please complete the form without uploading the photo and then email it to us separately at art@octopus.energy with your full name and email address for reference.

The Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment at Imperial College London plans to work with young artists to produce designs for a series of outdoor murals to raise awareness on climate change.

We are partnering with UK Youth for Nature, the UK's leading youth-led network calling for urgent action to address the loss of nature and wildlife, who are working on a Wild Walls campaign which is a series of murals across the UK to highlight the loss of nature and wildlife.

We are also working with the Natural History Museum’s Real World Science network of partner museums across the UK to promote this work through photographic displays in regional museums.

At Octopus Energy we are delighted to be involved in the Grantham Climate Art Prize by offering sponsorship, funding for the mural costs and support in hosting the competition.

The competition is free to enter.

Brighton: Charlie Rallings

Glasgow: Ciaran Globel and Conzo

Hackney: Michelle Meola

Leicester: Artist provided by Graffwerk Projects

Nottingham: Anna Wheelhouse

Rochdale Bushra Sultana

Stoke-on-Trent Grega Greaves