For Arts Council England and Julie’s Bicycle’s Annual Report 2024-25, we feature over 70 practical examples of cultural organisations taking climate action including in depth case studies like this one. Check out the full interactive report.
Sunderland Culture brings together some of Sunderland’s leading cultural venues. They deliver the programme in National Glass Centre, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens and Arts Centre Washington, as well as working with communities across the city. Their mission is to improve life for everyone in Sunderland through culture.
Their work inspires environmental awareness, community wellbeing and climate action, through a combination of creative programming, education and community engagement.
The Mowbray Park Community Garden
The Mowbray Park Community Garden was established in 2023 with £180,000 in funding from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, managed by Sunderland City Council. The garden was developed as a response to community needs for an inclusive, welcoming green space within Sunderland’s historic Mowbray Park. Designed in partnership with OASES (Outdoor & Sustainability Education Specialists) and Just Let Your Soul Grow CIC, the project promotes wellbeing, learning, and connection with nature.
Volunteers, schoolchildren and residents have shaped the garden, planting wildflowers, herbs and crops such as strawberries and spinach. The garden features a mix of edible crops, herbs, and flowers, selected based on community input and a need to support native wildlife species. Regular maintenance and planting activities are supported by local volunteers, helping people of all ages learn practical horticultural skills in a friendly, supportive environment.
Weekly gardening and wellbeing sessions offer hands-on learning in horticulture, mindfulness, and community-building. “Wellbeing Wednesdays” combine yoga, parent-friendly fitness, and mindful gardening, while “Mowbray Movers” promotes physical activity and social connection for over-50s.
The garden supports mental health, social inclusion, and skills development. It provides a peaceful, accessible space where people can connect with each other and with nature, right in the heart of the city.
As one visitor observed,
All of these people here today, all of these children, think they are learning how to take care of plants, and really they are learning how to look after themselves.
Other participants describe feeling “calm,” “happy,” and “relaxed,” with several referring to the space as “a little escape in the city.” Others have commented on how the project helps children understand nature and the seasons, with one family writing, “me and my family love coming to the community garden, it’s such a lovely environment, the staff looking after it are doing an amazing job we love all the activities they do here.”
Strengthening Collaborative Approaches
The project’s collaborative approach has strengthened local partnerships and enhanced cross-departmental working within Sunderland City Council. The Community Garden makes a clear contribution to all three of Sunderland City Council’s City Plan themes (dynamic, healthy, vibrant) – creating a dynamic and vibrant place in the city centre where people can make connections and take part in activities that benefit both their physical and mental health. The Council’s Parks Team, Environmental Services, and Learning Team now work closely with Sunderland Culture staff, aligning the initiative with broader citywide strategies for health, biodiversity, and sustainability. Other council teams also add value to Sunderland Culture’s exhibitions and events programmes, for example, the Low Carbon Team to deliver events like Eco Fest and the COAST team to deliver nature themed activities at the Museum and support re-interpretation of our Wildlife Gallery, World’s Alive.
Stephen Jardin, City Centre Team Leader at Sunderland City Council, described the transformation as “absolutely phenomenal,” crediting the shared effort between partners for its success.
The Council’s ongoing development of a shared Nature Recovery Strategy with neighbouring authorities and the introduction of a Good Food Charter further reinforce shared goals. Sunderland Culture acts as both a creative and civic partner, helping translate policy ambitions into tangible community experiences.
A Commitment to Creative Environmental Programming
Sunderland Culture’s programming across three major venues enhances cultural engagement with sustainability, positioning Sunderland as a city that integrates environmental values into everyday cultural life.
Arts Centre Washington: Eco-Theatre and Local Creativity
Arts Centre Washington actively commissions and programmes performances exploring environmental themes. Productions like The Hidden Garden by Theatre Company Blah Blah Blah and Greenfingers by Fladam Theatre Company blend storytelling with ecological and social commentary. The Hidden Garden tells the story of a man seeking sanctuary and a boy facing food insecurity who bond through urban gardening. The work is a moving exploration of migration, food poverty, and community resilience. Greenfingers promotes inclusion and joy through the metaphor of a school garden, connecting growth and acceptance with ecological renewal.
The Centre also supports exhibitions by local artist groups such as Sunderland Indie, whose Earth Requiem exhibition used visual art to confront environmental degradation and inspire reflection.
National Glass Centre: Reflecting on Climate through Art
Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens integrates environmental perspectives into its interpretation of collections, connecting art, natural history, and local identity. From October 2024 to February 2025, the Celebrate Different Collective – a group of young arts leaders aged 13 to 25, collaborated with curator Justine Boussard on a guided tour reinterpreting museum artefacts through an “eco-lens.”
Objects like a stuffed walrus head, a Bronze Age axe, a coelacanth fossil, and even a Tamagotchi game were used to explore humanity’s shifting relationship with nature. The tours, delivered by the young people during the Bright Lights Youth Arts Festival, encouraged visitors to reflect on how society has become disconnected from the natural world. This work is now informing Sunderland City Council’s bid for National Lottery Heritage Fund support to redevelop the Museum and reimagine its collections through ecological storytelling.
The forthcoming Going Places: Green Spaces, Shared Places project will expand on this theme, co-creating touring exhibitions with young people and communities. Partnering a network of UK institutions including the National Memorial Arboretum, Dales Countryside Museum, Arlington Court and National Trust Carriage Museum, the project will connect local stories of green space and environmental identity to a national dialogue on climate and heritage.
As staff working in the cultural sector we recognise the vitally important role that Museums, art galleries, parks and gardens can play in supporting visitors and our local communities to reconnect with nature and engage with environmental issues in creative ways, leading to discussions and debates and sparking ideas for individual and community action to prevent climate change and increase biodiversity.
– Jennie Lambert, Public Engagement & Learning Manager
Images: Header image: Plant Explorers, photo by Jennie Lambert / Image 2: Climate Action Day, photo by Jennie Lambert / Image 3: Eco-lens tour, photo by Jennie Lambert.
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