Solar Artworks
Participatory solar artworks developed through The Art and Energy Collective
Overview
Participation and public imagination
We Are All Connected
mudac collection
A pioneering area of practice
During my time working with The Art and Energy Collective, I helped pioneer a series of solar artworks exploring the relationship between renewable energy, public participation, ecology and cultural imagination.
These projects experimented with solar technology not only as infrastructure, but as creative material - asking how renewable energy systems might also become sites of storytelling, participation, gathering and collective reflection.
Developed through collaborations with artists, community energy organisations, festivals and public participants, the works explored how creativity could help make energy transition more visible, participatory and emotionally resonant.
At a time when conversations around renewable energy were often dominated by technical and policy language, these projects explored how artistic practice might help people connect more deeply with the cultural and emotional dimensions of transition.
Energy as relationship
Much of modern energy infrastructure remains largely invisible within everyday life.
We consume energy constantly while rarely encountering the systems, materials and ecological relationships behind it.
These projects explored how creative practice might help reconnect people with energy as something shared, ecological and deeply connected to collective futures.
The work invited audiences to encounter renewable energy through participation, curiosity, playfulness and public interaction rather than abstraction alone.
Solar technology as creative material
A central strand of this practice involved working directly with solar panels and renewable technologies as artistic materials.
Through etched solar surfaces, interactive installations, light-responsive artworks and participatory design processes, the projects explored how renewable technologies might hold narrative, symbolism and cultural meaning alongside technical function.
The works combined elements including:
solar technology
participatory design
public engagement
ecological storytelling
collective making
interactive light installations
community collaboration
The projects asked:
“What happens when renewable energy infrastructure becomes part of our cultural and imaginative lives rather than remaining hidden technical systems?”
Many of the projects were developed through collaborative and participatory processes involving communities, artists, energy practitioners and public audiences.
The work explored how renewable energy projects might create opportunities for participation and collective imagination rather than simply delivering technological change to communities from above.
Through workshops, collaborative making and public engagement activities, participants were invited into conversations around energy transition, ecological futures and collective responsibility.
Sunlight Gathering
One major project explored how interactive solar artworks could create spaces for gathering, participation and conversation around community energy and collective futures.
Developed collaboratively with Plymouth Energy Community, the project combined solar-powered lighting, etched solar imagery and participatory making processes to create installations that invited people to gather and interact together.
The work explored themes including:
collective energy
renewable futures
public participation
ecological connection
community imagination
energy democracy
shared public space
The project invited audiences to encounter renewable energy through beauty, curiosity and shared experience.
Another significant project developed through The Art and Energy Collective was We Are All Connected, a participatory light artwork created in collaboration with Energy Capital and the West Midlands Combined Authority to support the launch of their Smart Energy Strategy.
The project explored the idea that energy systems are fundamentally relational - shaped by connections between people, infrastructure, resources, environments and collective decision-making.
Developed as an illuminated participatory artwork, the piece invited audiences to reflect on interdependence, shared futures and the invisible networks that connect communities through energy systems.
The work sought to create a more human and emotionally resonant encounter with ideas surrounding smart energy transition, moving beyond purely technical narratives to explore questions of participation, connection and collective responsibility.
We Are All Connected was exhibited at the Dazzle Light Festival and later presented at an industry event hosted by Regen in conversation with Chris Stark in London, bringing the work into dialogue with audiences from across the energy sector.
The project reflected an ongoing strand within the solar artwork practice exploring how creative experiences can help open space for reflection, dialogue and imagination around the future of energy systems.
A significant moment within this body of work came when one of the solar artworks developed through The Art and Energy Collective was acquired by mudac in Switzerland as part of their collection connected to the Soleil·s exhibition programme.
The work transformed a solar panel into an etched visual surface exploring the relationship between solar energy, ecology and artistic practice.
The acquisition represented an important recognition of renewable energy technology as not only functional infrastructure, but also as material for artistic and cultural exploration.
At the time these projects were developed, there were relatively few examples of participatory artworks working directly with renewable energy technologies in this way.
This strand of practice explored how renewable infrastructure might function not only technically, but culturally - creating opportunities for participation, imagination and public connection around renewable futures.
The work helped contribute to wider conversations around the role of creativity within energy transition and public engagement.
Continuing influence
While I do not currently develop large-scale solar artwork commissions, this body of work continues to influence my wider practice and thinking.
Many of the questions explored through these projects remain central to my work today:
How do people emotionally connect with transition?
What role does creativity play in shaping public imagination?
How can participation deepen relationships between communities and systems?
What kinds of cultural experiences help people engage differently with ecological futures?
These projects continue to inform my interest in participation, collective imagination, ecology and the cultural dimensions of transition.
Reflections
The solar artworks developed through The Art and Energy Collective explored the possibility that the energy transition is not only about replacing technologies, but also about transforming relationships.
Relationships between people and infrastructure.
Between communities and energy systems.
Between imagination, participation and collective futures.
The work asked whether renewable energy might become not only something we consume, but something we gather around, participate in and culturally imagine together.