NATURE
We are raising our voices for climate justice
Photo: Johannes Plenio
Award-winning homelessness charity Streetwise Opera joins the chorus of voices calling for urgent action on the climate crisis.
Inspired by memories of towering forests, glistening rockpools and the moon’s quiet pull over the tides, Nature invites audiences to experience the climate crisis not as an abstract issue, but as something deeply personal. This project, with music by Handel, Delibes, Dvořák, Rimsky-Korsakov and Britten, features pop-up performances in London, Manchester and Nottingham throughout March.
Artists. We have been working with Aga Serugo Lugo, Lucy Bradley, Rob Gildon, Lucia Vernon-Long and Valentina Ceschi in London; Tim Lole, Victoria Gray, Ben Cahn and Sophie Thorpe in Nottingham; and Jonathan Ainscough, Marie Claire Breen and Matt Roughley in Manchester.
Performances
Nature included a series of performances during Spring of 2025.
On 18 March we performed at Lakeside Arts Outdoor Amphitheater, at the University of Nottingham.
On 26 March we had two performances in Manchester, one at the National Trust’s Castlefield Viaduct and one at Manchester Museum, at the University of Manchester.
On 29 March we performed at the Southbank Centre in London.
The final Nature performance was on 18 May at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in London, during the Community Open Week 2025 at Kew Gardens.
Photos: Rey Trombetta and Rowan Padmore
Talks
We are releasing a series of online talks between people working full-time on creating awareness of the climate crisis and Streetwise Opera performers.
Lydia Meryll of MEEN Manchester Environmental Education Network and Anna Bunney, Curator of Public Programmes at University of Manchester, discussed how we can make Manchester more environmentally friendly – combining policy changes, community involvement and innovative technology; how we make people listen and care; and what can be done to stop or reverse climate change.
Jon Lewney, Countryside Manager at the National Trust, Danielle Sample, Carbon Neutral Engagement Officer at Nottingham City Council and Jack Smith, Green Health & Wellbeing Manager at Surrey County Council, discussed what we can do to protect the environment, how we can support young people in the midst of the climate crisis, and where they see nature in five years time.
Lily O’Connor, Community Producer at Kew Gardens, and Gale Burns, Greenpeace speaker, discussed what we can do to protect the environment, what we can do to make everyone aware of the need to protect vulnerable nature, the impact of direct actions such as boycotts in achieving change, and how we can take back power from the 1% and achieve change.
Frontline work
Parallel to our weekly workshops at Southbank Centre, Manchester Central Library and the Nottingham Playhouse with people with lived experience of homelessness, we are working in a series of frontline homelessness settings – hostels, day centres and support services – to explore what Nature means to people experiencing homelessness.
This includes The Passage, Westminster; St Mungo’s, Hither Green; The Friary, Nottingham; Refugee Roots, Nottingham; Back on Track, Manchester; and Albert Kennedy Trust, Manchester.
The artists leading these projects include composers Electra Perivolaris, Michael Betteridge and Sam Poppleton, baritone Ben Cahn, harpist Rachel Gladwin and poet, writer and African drummer Michelle Mother Hubbard.