Ackroyd & Harvey: The Art Of Activism
Film Screening
Saturday 22nd November 2025
When does practice become protest? Or protest, poetry?
Award-winning documentary filmmaker Fiona Cunningham-Reid presents an intimate portrait of internationally acclaimed artists Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey, who work at the intersection of art, activism, biology and ecology.
Uncompromisingly preoccupied with the climate and ecological crisis, Ackroyd & Harvey’s work has become a rallying cry for the environmental movement, winning them international acclaim and a global following. With some of their pieces standing in prestigious galleries and others embedded in nature, their work not only references the natural world, but also regularly employs it. The film offers singular access into the lives, work and partnership of the artists, and their quest to shake humanity into action on climate catastrophe – whatever the personal cost – including their collaboration with Extinction Rebellion, and co-founding the movement Culture Declares Emergency.
Meticulous and thoughtful, this careful study of a lifelong creative partnership asks questions of where art and hope – and love – stand in our very uncertain world.
Venue details: TBA
This is a British Board of Film Classification (BBFC): 12A
Trailer: https://youtu.be/3g2cQsFxfQw
Any questions about the event or the venue please email: flourishpeterborough@gmail.com.
We are partnering with Gateway Film Festival to bring this film to Peterborough.
Synopsis
Ackroyd & Harvey: The Art of Activism is the latest film from award winning documentary maker Fiona Cunningham-Reid, offering intimate and singular access into the lives, work and partnership of Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey.
Intrinsically bound up in protest, the film follows the pair collaborating with Extinction Rebellion, and co-founding the movement, Culture Declares Emergency. Their work is uncompromisingly preoccupied with the climate and ecological crisis, and has become a rallying point for the environmental movement. It's won them international acclaim, but the film leaves us in no doubt — they'd be creating it whether the world was watching or not. Some of their pieces stand in prestigious galleries, others are embedded in nature. Their work not only references the natural world, but also regularly employs it.
The artists use photosynthesis in their multi-award winning photographic work: light projected through a negative image onto grass grown from seed. Complex images are created on a molecular level in blades of grass through the production of chlorophyll, evoking notions of passing time and transience.
The film is a rollercoaster of impermanence. Ackroyd & Harvey's work is often organic and therefore fleeting; their decades long relationship tilts and fractures over the course of the film, and the world they're trying to protect goes through seismic social shifts.
In the end, the freshly dissolved couple sit together and meticulously and thoughtfully pick over the bones of a lifelong partnership, unable to predict what their new status means for either their work, or personal lives.
Director's note
I'm often asked "what kind of films do you make?" and find it tricky to come up with a neat response. Probably, "a movement or an individual that captures and inspires my curiosity". I've made films on Biodiversity, Regenerative farming, the British aristocracy and Colonialism, Sydney's underworld and Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras, Wine-making in France, and many more.
A documentary is a journey into the unknown: the story you first conceive of is often not the one that emerges after years of filming and daunting challenges. Yet we film-makers relish the sharing of stories, to bear witness and to show the world in an alternate light.
Inspired by the euphoria around Greta Thunberg's Schools Strike for Climate, and Extinction Rebellion's International uprising in 201 9, I joined this extraordinary groundswell of defiance. I wanted to add my voice. It soon became clear that participating in protests with a like-minded community of all ages wasn't enough: I needed a prism through which to tell this story.
When I met Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey, who co-founded Culture Declares Emergency in 2019, I saw at first hand the vital role art can play in raising awareness and shifting perspectives. I had my prism.
Culture Declares persuaded cultural institutions and artists up and down the country to declare climate emergencies and to examine working practices, cut emissions, reduce waste, investigate supply lines and seek justice,working towards regenerative change. Even the UK Parliament caved in and became the world's first to declare a climate emergency.
These heady victories were not to last. The government did not legislate a single law to mitigate the climate crisis. The UK fragmented into Brexit arguments. Covid followed. It was as if a giant balloon had lost its air. The world almost came to a halt and the government seized the opportunity to introduce and impose the most draconian anti-protest laws in British history.
Our little film-making group, as if mirroring the world's gloom, went through overwhelming health and personal issues. The artists 30 year relationship broke-down, I and my partner went through cancer scares, my editor's husband died. I put down my camera.
The natural world, however, enjoyed the respite offered by the pandemic over two stilled years. It was that glimmer of hope that saw us emerge from our respective cocoons. Ackroyd & Harvey had new commissions and despite marital tensions continued to work together. We decided to start filming again. My wonderful editor, Catherine Arend, wanting distraction from mourning her husband was keen to engage with the film. Her intelligence and clarity saw the potential of the many, many hours of accumulated material and moulded it into what I think is an inspirational and intimate film about art, climate and hope in our very uncertain world.