Power In forms part of Sea Change, commissioned and produced by the Royal Docks Team in collaboration with University College London (UCL) and curated by Invisible Dust, which has invited leading researchers and academics to collaborate with global contemporary artists to create four new artworks that respond to this year’s theme of sustainability and climate action.

We live in an age of polycrisis: environmental destruction is accelerating, sea levels are rising, and warfare continues to rage across the world. In the UK, the so-called energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had powerful repercussions, with a significant proportion of the population forced to use warm hubs instead of being able to heat their own homes. But the entanglement of fuel prices and day-to-day living costs causes additional impacts; from now unaffordable foodstuffs to labour shortages and health issues, the effects of the energy crisis spill far beyond domestic boundaries. 

This project is a collaboration with Dr. Julia Tomei, an Associate Professor at UCL who focuses on energy equity, justice, and the provision of modern energy services to the financially poor. Her research examines local and community engagement with renewable energy technologies, and ways that energy interventions can be tailored to meet end users’ needs.                                                                                                 

Together, they ran workshops with Royal Docks residents enrolled in an ESOL course at Royal Wharf Community Dock, in order to learn how they perceive their immediate environment, and how the cost of living crisis has affected their day-to-day lives. The diversity of experiences and cultures was crucial to the project, as their views shaped its outcome. Together, they considered energy supplies in their home countries, compared to what is now available to them in the UK, and debated the cascading effect of the current energy scarcity on their overall wellbeing.

These conversations led to the creation of a new temporary installation, Power In, located on a pedestrian bridge in Thames Barrier Park. It is visible to passers-by as well as to those travelling on the DLR through Pontoon Dock station. Made up of windsocks - simple indicators of wind direction and strength - the installation uses low technology to display fragments of workshop conversations, collective energy-access concerns, and information on relevant academic research. The installation is accompanied by 18 ideas to transform the energy sector, authored by workshop participants. These ranged from car pooling and community fridges to sharing energy saving ideas with wider groups and allowing citizens to use mini tools to harvest household energy.

An audio postcard made by sound artist Lucia Scazzocchio from Social Broadcasts was made especially for the piece.

You can also learn more about the project in the London Festival of Architecture’s Building Sounds podcast. 

The project was supported by:

Curator: Jeanine Griffin Assistant Curator: Mala Yamey Royal Docks Team Creative Programmer: Sarah Barrow Royal Docks Team Creative Production Assistant: Uzma Gulbahar Production Lead: Mandy Janes UCL Associate Professor: Julia Tomei UCL Engagement team: Rosamund Murdoch and Lizzie Baddeley Structural engineering: Momentum Engineering Windsocks handmade and painted by: Kari Levie

Photo credits: Tian Khee Siong and Your Royal Docks Video credit: Alexandra Boanta