The art of sustainability: a green reading of sculpture on campus
Sustainability is no longer just a buzzword but woven into daily life. Reusable cups and careful recycling have become everyday signals of being green. Yet at the University of Birmingham, sustainability runs far deeper than lifestyle choices. It shapes research questions, campus design, transport systems, public art and the stories we tell about ourselves. For Green Week, the sculpture trail offers an unexpected way into this wider picture. What if these artworks are not simply landmarks we pass on the way to lectures, but companions in a conversation about climate, justice and responsibility?
Aston Webb carved figuresBegin by looking up. Above the Aston Webb building, carved figures of Beethoven, Shakespeare and Charles Darwin share the same architectural space. They are part of a single tableau that brings culture and science into dialogue. Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony translates the experience of walking in the countryside into music that expresses calmness and clarity of mind. Nature becomes a source of renewal rather than a backdrop. Shakespeare’s landscapes are rarely neutral. In Macbeth, the blasted heath reflects political violence and moral disorder, echoing the upheavals of land use and enclosure in his own time. Environmental damage and human ambition intertwine. Darwin, observing finches, forests and even earthworms, revealed how life flourishes through interdependence. His attention to soil health and ecological balance underpins much of today’s sustainability science. Taken together, these figures suggest that caring for the environment is not only a technical task but a cultural and ethical one.
FaradayAs you move through campus, energy comes quietly into focus. Eduardo Paolozzi’s sculpture Faraday celebrates discoveries that now sit invisibly within our walls and wires. Electromagnetism powers laboratories, lighting and low carbon transport. Faraday’s science is embedded in the everyday rhythms of campus life. Yet he also recognised the social consequences of industrial progress, speaking out against pollution in the Thames. Encircling the sculpture, lines from T. S. Eliot’s Dry Salvages evoke rivers flowing through human experience. The pairing reminds us that innovation is never isolated. Individual insight feeds collective systems, and sustainable technology must be guided by a sense of shared responsibility.
Mermaid FountainWater draws the story onward. The Mermaid Fountain entwines folklore with environmental care. In myth, springs and wells were protected by guardians who understood that clean water sustained communities. Today the mermaid has become a symbol of marine activism, drawing attention to plastic pollution and rising seas. The playfulness of the sculpture sits alongside urgent climate realities. That tension continues in the Green Heart, where a rill recalls Birmingham’s canal heritage while supporting biodiversity and climate resilience. Swallow hotels and beehives animate the space, transforming water from industrial utility into shared ecosystem. The nearby bronze Pump Room Door, repurposed from the fountain in Birmingham city centre, frames this new landscape. Past intentions flow into present action, demonstrating how reuse and adaptation are central to sustainable design.
The WrestlersEnergy, water and atmosphere are not abstract forces. They shape bodies as well as buildings. The Wrestlers captures this insight in bronze. Dedicated to Professor F K Bannister, a pioneer of thermodynamics at the University, the sculpture embodies balance, tension and motion. The same laws that govern the figures’ implied struggle enable trains to arrive efficiently at University Station and regulate how buildings manage heat. They also govern our own metabolism. Sustainability depends upon understanding these flows and respecting their limits. The sculpture becomes a meditation on equilibrium, asking how we might balance consumption with conservation.
King George IA little further on, the equestrian figure of King George I offers a longer historical perspective. During his reign, scientific societies flourished, studying plants, weather and agriculture during the cooler period known as the Little Ice Age. Early observers began documenting pollution and environmental change in urban settings. That curiosity about climate has evolved into contemporary research such as the BIFoR FACE experiment, where a living forest is exposed to elevated carbon dioxide to understand future conditions. The statue stands as a reminder that environmental inquiry is not new, but part of an ongoing tradition that links past observation with present responsibility.
Red StackRed Stack shifts the focus from history to representation. Bold and visually distinctive, it is the first sculpture on campus created by a female artist, Shaikha Al Mazrou. Its presence invites reflection on climate intersectionality. Environmental harm does not fall evenly. Women, low-income communities and marginalised groups often experience the most severe impacts, from heat stress to displacement. At the same time, these communities are frequently at the forefront of climate activism and adaptation. Approaching sustainability without attention to gender and social inequality risks reinforcing the very structures that drive ecological crisis. Red Stack can be read as a prompt to widen participation in research, policy and cultural life. Diverse voices generate more imaginative and just solutions. Climate resilience must be socially grounded as well as environmentally informed.
Walking the sculpture trail during Green Week becomes less about ticking off sculptures and more about tracing connections. Music, literature, physics, folklore and social justice intersect across campus. Sustainability emerges not as a single initiative but as a way of seeing. It asks us to recognise that culture shapes behaviour, science informs responsibility and equity determines whose futures are secured.
You can find resources to help guide you to these sculptures through Sculpture through a green lens. Stroll around campus and see how many you can spot.
Text by Ruth Warhurst, History of Art MA 2024/25