Art is used to trigger climate conversation at pioneering Norfolk Gallery

In our latest podcast, we talk to gallery director Veronica Sekules about how artists are fundamental to encouraging us to talk about the environment.

An inspirational writer and gallery founder has put climate change front and center of her pioneering art project in King’s Lynn.

In episode 14 of our Salix podcast, The Decarbonisation Dialogue, Veronica Sekules reveals that whilst the artists she shows at GroundWork Gallery don’t have to be environmentalists, she ensures climate change is never far from the discussion.

GroundWork Gallery is dedicated to two issues – art and the environment. The work shown encourages us to explore how art can help us respond to our changing environment and imagine how we can shape its future.

Veronica established GroundWork Gallery in 2016 after more than 30 years working in the art world. The building sits on a flood plain and has hosted more than 20 shows as well as winning several awards since it opened.

Veronica’s love of art was first triggered at the age of four, when her grandmother took her to the National Portrait Gallery, London, and she stood riveted by a portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, imagining herself inside the scene.

Maintaining her love of the arts, after university, it was a formative interim job working for Friends of the Earth where she learnt about impactful ways to influence, as well as all things environment.

Ever since, Veronica has been able to bring together her passion for both the arts and the environment.

In our podcast Veronika tells how this formative experience at Friends of the Earth impacted her leadership style.

She said: “It made me think very much about how influence is made, how one needs to work from the bottom up and top town to have an effect and it’s affected my entire career and how to organise things.” 

Veronica is also known for her work at Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, where she was first a curator, then head of education and research and deputy director. From there she ran many international and local projects. She has also worked as an independent consultant. From 2005-6 she was on secondment to Tate Britain to manage the early stages of the Visual Dialogues project for young people.

Although Veronica once thought about becoming an artist herself, she has always enjoyed provoking a conversation and working within communities.

She added: “There is a huge role to play in talking about art and responding to it. It’s a responsibility that everybody has or ought to have because it is through that, that the beautiful things and important things that artists make, then we get an intelligent response.

“Art can help people think about change, artists are very good at being lateral thinkers and not going for the most obvious, but pointing out things that are, or have been neglected, for example thinking about weeds rather than chrysanthemums.

“It is about influencing people to think openly about things and about the environment and thinking about climate change. Thinking about climate change, we have to think about the environment very broadly and very deeply. It is not just about reaching net zero, although reaching net zero includes that.”

Veronica began GroundWork Gallery by inviting two big names from the art world, Richard Long and her much admired friend, the late sculptor Roger Ackling, to show.

Neither artist claimed to be environmentalists.

It is important to Veronica that although her artists do not have to be environmentalists, the work should be ethical and not cause harm to the environment. 

She said: “The work has to be relevant but doesn’t need to be about the environment.”

GroundWork Gallery is housed in a 1930s building that has a variety of uses, including being used as part of an artist residency programme as well as a holiday let which helps maintain a regular income.

The artists’ residency programme has been a huge success and receives a large number of applications, proving a real asset to the community.

In every part of the project, it has been important to Veronica to be sustainable, using local materials and labour to breathe new life to the site.

Veronica credits inheritance from ‘grannies’ and ‘aunts’ which allowed her to acquire the space – their kindness and generosity never forgotten.

She said: “This little industrial building was available, opposite the Custom House, perfect position in King’s Lynn, but actually yes, right on the river. 

“As an investment it’s hopeless because one day it will be washed away! But that was one of the imperatives, making it about the environment and also the fact that it is on a flood plain, it’s not allowed to be lived in on the ground floor.”

She found a local builder who was keen on using repurposed materials – old scaffold boards, a scaffold handrail, and cleverly recycled plastic in bathrooms. All locally sourced materials, high quality and sustainable. The result is a stylish, creative and comfortable space.

Veronica has yet to find a sustainable substitute for bubble wrap, that is waterproof and keeps items safe.

Everyone is welcome to visit the gallery.

She added: “We talk to everyone who comes in.

“We get an increasing number of people dropping in, we make a point of being friendly, that is an important signal to send.

“Everyone has something to say about the environment and the weather is a good opening for that, so we can always steer the conversation.”

GroundWork Gallery is open Wed- Sat – 11am to 4pm, other times by appointment.