Beyond the biosphere: team

Beyond the biosphere

Sitting on the wall of The Bay: Team Artecology on taking their unique blend of practical conservation and public engagement from their ‘bunker’ Yaverland office out to Bromley and beyond

By Emma Elobeid Picture Julian Winslow

I’ve come to the quietly unassuming headquarters of Artecology – a site where lichen is left to live and moss is allowed to multiply – to put faces to the force behind some of the Island’s most feelgood community festivals. From Under the Pier to

Discovery Bay and Hullabaloo, bringing people and places together in nature is what Ian Boyd, Nigel George, and

Claire Hector (collectively: Artecology) do best. Over a cup of tea, to the call of Casper the Lion and roar of resident sand martins, our conversation leaps from bug hotels to bigger things.

“It’s great that you can walk down to the beach and dip your toes in the biosphere,” explains Nigel, with a nod to the blue beyond. But it’s also about understanding that biodiversity knows no borders, and the team are passionate advocates for the biosphere beyond the brand: “It’s important to remember that the biosphere extends so much further out into the sea,” explains Ian. “Yes, it’s parochial – and that’s a good thing – but the Island’s biosphere has leaked out into a whole area around it in a way that’s really quite extraordinary.” Much of Artecology’s work involves exporting their expertise; as a result, public realm and corporate clients from around the country are increasingly looking to the Island for advice on all things ecology. Over the last ten years Artecology have taken their Island-conceived biodiversity projects to a huge range of urban and built environments: from a giant bio-receptive sculpted graffiti wall in Newcastle city centre and liveable green space landscapes in Southampton social housing estates to the installation of their awardwinning intertidal habitats along urbanised shorelines, from Gibraltar to Glasgow. Most recently, the Artecology team delivered Wild Glades, a two-day online family-focused festival themed around biodiversity and sustainability. Supported through interactive video content by a diverse range of Island contributors, the event centred around the transformation of a once-forgotten rooftop of The Glades – a shopping centre in the London Borough of Bromley – into a thriving wildlife haven. Collaboration comes easy to the Artecology team; it’s what they do. Claire explains: “There’s so much talent on the Island. It’s not all about Greta

“The Island’s Biosphere has leaked out into a whole area around it in a way that’s really quite extraordinary.”

Thunberg or David Attenborough; it’s about real people which is crucial if you’re going to engage. We have this entire raft of artists, makers, inventors, musicians, animators, scientists and naturalists; and they’re all just here.” Taking this talent and enthusiasm for people and place to a very urban, very busy retail and hospitality complex of The Glades shows just how the biosphere can stretch. “What we do isn’t exclusive, or part of some strange eco elite,” explains Ian. “Biodiversity is for everyone, not just those already living it.” And though, surrounded by sea thrift and seagull song, we are living it, Sandown Bay is also the perfect metaphor for the way in which projects like Wild Glades allow biodiversity of thought to grow. “When you provide just enough information in just the right way,” Ian says, “something curious and interesting happens: an ecosystem of ideas begins to develop around these little tiny bits of interventions.”

Showing, not telling, is the Artecology way. And, in doing so, momentum and thoughts are given space to build and settle of their own accord; much like the sand that shifts in from the Bay behind – restoring and constantly recreating both the roadside dunes of The Lost Duver, and the way we think about the places we live.