The Art of Climate Action - Netwalking to Net Zero

Hi, I'm Frances Fogel, your host.

I am a local resident and a carbon-literacy-qualified Art Historian, community host and Story Strategist (I'll explain all that when we meet!)

I am delighted to be providing this event as part of Barnet Council's inaugural #ClimateActionMonth (BCAM), which takes place from 10 June – 7 July 2024. It extends beyond London Climate Action Week in June, in collaboration with community groups, to help position Barnet as one of London’s most sustainable boroughs and achieve our target of becoming a net zero carbon borough by 2042.

Mine is a free "NetWalking" event for fellow Barnet residents, who will be comfortable taking a two hour walk.

Join me at 10:30am outside "picturesque" Kenwood House in good walking shoes to tackle Climate Change through an art history lens. We will end up near to Wildwood Rd, with relatively easy access to Golders Green station (and we might pick up a bit of litter along the way if we see any, so please do bring a little bag).

WHY KENWOOD

Kenwood became what would be described in 1838 as ‘beyond all question, the finest country residence in the suburbs of London’.

We will travel though landscape and time, talking about Kenwood's world-renowned collection of paintings by artists like Vermeer, Rembrandt, Gainsborough, Turner and Constable and how the latter two artists - in particular - responded to the Industrial Revolution in this country.

We will take a turn around the manicured gardens and glorious parkland designed by Humphry Repton, past Modern British sculptures by the likes of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, mooch past the Dairy (and talk about fashion) and up through the far more wild woodland of the Heath Extension. We will end up near to Wildwood Road, with relatively easy access to Golders Green station.

WHAT IS BEAUTY?

The aim of this walk is to consider what beauty means in this day and age, and why it matters.

We have grown up with a sense of the 'pastoral idyll' of England's green (and yellow) and pleasant (and pastured) land, tidy hedges and cut grass. Indeed, Hampstead Garden Suburb - with its historic churches listed houses and award-winning gardens - is the epitome of suburban perfection, the countryside on which is was built having been repurposed for utopian and inclusive social wellbeing.

Today, though, we must reconsider what beautiful and purposeful means. We must consider rewilding our country and take note of a pre-industrial era when artists, writers and thinkers worried about the speed at which industry was taking over nature.

We will consider, with empathy, what our grandparents considered to be good and beautiful, walking and talking about what we might do differently today. And we will think about why farms are needing to pivot their income and repurpose their land in order to help this country reach its Net Zero goals.

The aim of BCAM across the borough of Barnet is to promote and help engage local residents with sustainable topics in an accessible and creative way.

I've been inspired to host this event thanks to my Better Bolder Braver community members, Ellie Lloyd-Jones and Chris Kenworthy's immersive Netwalking events up in Cheshire and thanks to my recent Carbon Literacy training with Annie Soulsby.

I am hoping to foster discussion around sustainability and environmental causes through the lens of art history and against a tranquil backdrop (amidst growing eco-anxiety that we are at risk of letting get in our way).

I hope this will provide a powerful, interesting and hopeful approach to talking about the collective effort we can make in Barnet toward a more Carbon Literate, Net Zero future.

The council has established partnerships for BCAM with other local partners such as Middlesex University (where I studied Graphic Design) and the RAF Museum, the website of which has a tribute to my grandfather, Gerald Fogel - a longtime Barnet resident and lover of Kenwood and gardening, who - before designing his own house in Church Mount in The Suburb - was a brave RAF pilot who fostered in me a love of art and Art History.

So this one's for you, Grandpa.