Our sustainable approach
Working in harmony with nature is central to everything that we do at Wild Rumpus. We also create events which are unique to the places they’re in, which means we have to find imaginative ways to create installations and artworks for our events whilst still being environmentally responsible.
In 2023 we’re exploring what it means to make bold resolutions! To look ahead to the ways we dream of working, and stake our claim on that future. We imagine every inch of all of our installations being made from reclaimed or recycled materials. We imagine festivals where the whole audience arrives by bike, on foot, or by public transport. We imagine a zero waste workspace. We imagine a Wild Rumpus community of audiences, volunteers, artists and contractors with their hearts set on a regenerative future. As an organisation we are constantly evolving to ensure our ways of working are sustainable.
Rowan Cannon, Director at Wild Rumpus, says ‘It’s central to our work that we’re always questioning the impact that we have on the planet, and how we can tread more gently – which is often really hard work!
To work sustainably we have to ask ourselves the difficult questions (and accept that this often means uncomfortable answers) around the materials we use, the partners that we work with, how our kit and team travel around the country.’
Palace of Light
In December 2022, we produced ‘Palace of Light’ at Hampton Court Palace, which told the story of Henry VIII’s heraldic beasts. Every element of the trail was created using reclaimed or repurposed objects, or was made with new, responsibly-sourced materials. Sustainability lead, Aileen Ging began this project by looking at the following areas.
- Travel / Transport
- Energy
- Food / Drink
- Materials / Waste
- Biodiversity
She says, ‘‘The event at Hampton Court Palace was a client-led commission, which offers a set of challenges for us when approaching environmental sustainability. There are existing parameters we must work within – for example the site’s power supplier, we can’t control whether they have a green tariff, or what food traders are on site and what they serve.
We therefore focus on the things that are within our direct sphere of control such as transportation of kit and people, materials procurement and afterlife, and how the things we make will impact on the biodiversity of the site we’ll be working on.
In the future, I would love for us to be able to work with our clients on other aspects of these winter light trails, beyond creating décor, sculptures, and live event production. This would enable us to take our learning from the summer festivals, in terms of operations, and work with them to make the whole event as environmentally sustainable as possible.’
Our team of artists created many elements of the trail from reclaimed materials and household objects. Michelle Reader made three glittering unicorns from found materials including trampoline frames, bicycle wheels, cages from desk fans, old CDS, the ends of aluminum cans, and kitchenalia. Jen Patterson and Lee Boggs built an enormous dragon head from recycled plastic from takeaway trays, and even used bottle caps for dragon teeth.
Art created from recycled materials can be joyful and fun – it doesn’t have to be serious.
The future
As we begin to plan future projects, we are committed to keeping sustainability front and centre so that the way we work, and the stories that we tell, leave our audiences full of optimism for a future in which we connect with nature to change the world.