Spike Green Futures Week: Big Dreaming

Spike Island is excited to announce Spike Green Futures Week: Big Dreaming, in partnership with the Hotwells and Cliftonwood Community Association (HCCA).  

Taking place from Monday 2 to Friday 6 March 2026, Spike Green Futures Week is a programme of events, activities and interventions by Spike Island’s community of artists and our neighbours, championing environmental sustainability and empowering our community to take action. 

Spike Island is committed to tackling the climate crisis by aligning our activities, values, and operations with environmental responsibility. In 2024, Spike Island embarked upon Spike Green Futures, a campaign to become carbon neutral by 2030 in line with Bristol City Council’s ‘Mission Net Zero’. In 2025, we supported HCCA to develop a Community Climate Action Plan as part of Bristol Climate & Nature Partnership’s Community Climate Action Project. This ambitious, city-wide programme funded by the National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund, demonstrates the important role communities can play in achieving the city’s climate and nature ambitions.  

Spike Green Futures Week builds upon these initiatives, encouraging both the Spike Island community and our Bristol audience to think beyond raising awareness about climate change, focussing on the positive actions that we can take as a creative community to inspire a more sustainable, equitable future. 

The week-long programme of events will centre around creative responses to environmental sustainability, including installations, knowledge exchange sessions, mending workshops, carbon literacy training and more, bringing together our hopes and dreams for the future of Spike Island, both as a sustainable centre of arts and culture, and as a neighbourhood.  

This new programme includes the following events:

Monday 2 March

Talk: Connected Actions, Sustainable Neighbourhoods–Hotwells and Cliftonwood Community Association

with Anna Haydock-Wilson and Emma Peddie 
Learn more about the work that local people are doing to improve the environment for people and nature, such as community gardening, active travel campaigning, litter picking and more.

Reading Group: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers 

with Utopian Book Collective 

A reading group on Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (2015) followed by a discussion about utopian worlds and more-than-human connections.  

Tuesday 3 March

Workshop: Mending Session  

with Jo Ball and Sharne Tasney 

Join artists and Spike Island Associates Jo Ball and Sharne Tasney to learn simple mending skills and give new life to your much-loved items.

Wednesday 4 March

Ecotones: For the Birds 

with Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp and Hermoine Spriggs 

A participatory evening led by curator and writer Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp, reflecting on her year-long Engagement programme, Ecotones: Where the Urban and Rural Embrace.

Thursday 5 March

Talk: What Could It Be? Arts and Architecture In Community Climate Action with Birmingham City University MA Architecture students, Professor Rachel Sara and Anna Haydock-Wilson 

A showcase of creative work by the current Birmingham City University (BCU) MA Architecture cohort, inspired by Bristol Harbour and James Lovelock's Gaia theories and highlighting the value of community arts projects in expanding the possibilities for climate engagement.

  

Friday 6 March

Community Social: Seedling Swap and Gardening Session 

with the Spike Island gardening group  

An open invitation to spend time outdoors, share resources and participate in a community gardening session.

All week

Exhibition: Tidal Bodies 
Tidal Bodies is an exhibition of work from within Spike Island's community of artists, curated by Ruby Taylor, exploring geo-personal exchange between artists making work at Spike Island and our neighbouring waterways: the River Avon and Bristol's floating harbour.

Display: Arts and Architecture In Community Climate Action
A showcase of creative work by Birmingham City University (BCU) MA Architecture students Jordan Addy, Isobel Barrett, Charlotte Bebb and Jack Holt, inspired by Bristol Harbour and James Lovelock's Gaia theories, highlighting the value of community arts projects in expanding the possibilities for climate engagement.