Rachael Champion
 

Working across Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, artist Rachael Champion is our inaugural ANCHOR artist in residence. Through research, workshops and a final onsite artwork, Champion is working closely with our sustainability team to investigate and amplify their work, examining how the NHS can work towards sustainability and radically challenge imbedded damaging practices. 

Rachael Champion makes site-specific artworks that explore the physical, material, and historical relationships between ecology, industry, and the built environment.  Coalescing at an intersection between biology, geology, and architecture, Champion addresses the corporeality of the materials we extract, transform, and consume and how these actions affect the physical characteristics of landscapes and ecosystems.  Her artworks probe the layered and complex relationships between industry and nature, believing that an interconnected understanding between the natural world and the built environment is essential for addressing the challenges we face in confronting climate change.

ANCHOR is a new series of annual artist residencies, inviting artists to collaborate with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust's sustainability team, clinical staff and patients. 

The NHS is responsible for roughly 4% of the UK's carbon emissions. At present, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust creates around 100 tonnes of CO2 emissions every day, from heating, cooling, lighting, operating equipment and cleaning its buildings. Additionally, a further 300 tonnes per day is created through emissions associated with our supply chain, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, alongside personal travel of NHS staff. 

The climate crisis is having a hugely detrimental impact on health outcomes globally. Conditions such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and asthma have key links to air pollution, alongside a increasing number of young people presenting with complex allergies. Mental health problems associated with climate anxiety are also becoming increasingly common, particularly with younger age groups.

The Trust's sustainability team is working on a series of innovative projects seeking to tackle the climate crisis, working towards the NHS commitment to becoming carbon net zero. 

The ANCHOR residency programme will invite artists and collectives to work closely with the team, investigating projects, analysing the relationship between the climate crisis, health and mental health, and creatively amplifying the ongoing green plan in the Trust.