It’s time for The Department of Artecology #4 and this time we are getting awkward and talking the numbers!
We are unpicking that pesky techno-managerial acronym, the ‘KPI’ or ‘Key Performance Indicator’ looking at the performativity of data through…performance.
Governments, local authorities, businesses, your line managers are looking for the ‘evidence’ in order to act but how much is enough and, do we really have an information gap or an action gap? What numbers do The Powers That Be need to see - figures towards economic growth or tree growth? Oh and by the way…how do we respond to the demand for impact with diminishing budgets £££?
How do we handle the demand to ‘demonstrate impact’ when the real ROI we’re seeking is a cessation of climate breakdown and increase in biodiversity? How do we move beyond the timeframe of the financial year to accommodate the long-term, far-sighted work needed and devise new measures of success beyond quantified, measured (and often financial) units.
Dancing around the data; pirouetting around powerpoint-less-ness; acting and taking-action around environmental acts, join me for an afternoon thinking through new shapes of impacting and evidencing. This session is specially programmed to coincide with my week long seeding space residence at @LondonPerformanceStudios.
Session Pack
Welcome Artecologists!
Thanks so much for your interest in our fourth research club meeting: KPIS
Below you’ll find some additional useful info and details of what to bring - everything is optional but highly encouraged to help you make the most of your time in the session.
1 — Essential info
2 — Club members
3 — What to prepare
4 — Consent form
1 — Essential Information
Date: Friday 9 May 2025
Time: 2-4pm
Location: London Performance Studios, Penarth Centre, Penarth St, London SE15 1TR
Google maps link: https://g.co/kgs/7L21MoY
Nearest stations: Queen’s Road Peckam, South Bermondsey
Doors will open around 1.45pm so folk have time to make a tea and get settled before we will start promptly at 2pm. The main entrance to the building is through the glass doors on Penarth Street/
Contacts : beckyl.lyon@googlemail.com, 07828644678
If you have not already shared dietary requirements or accessibility requirements please do so by Wednesday 7 May so I can make provisions.
2 — Club members
Once again, we have a fantastic group in the room!
Click the plus arrow to drop down for more detail:
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She / Her
I'm a strategist working at the intersection of climate, creativity & culture. As creative lead at Purpose Disruptors, I support advertising, media and marketing communities' transition towards an ecologically thriving world. Current interventions include the Agency for Nature, the world's first agency dedicated to building love for nature, and Good Life 2030, which aims to shift narratives around what a good life can look like in a climate-altered world.
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She / Her
https://www.elasticfiction.co/
https://www.instagram.com/elastic_fiction/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/becky-lyon/
Becky Lyon is an English-Jamaican artist and researcher from London. Her practice is committed to recalibrating relationships to nature and strategising more liveable worlds. She’s interested in sensory and bodily knowledges as a way of reclaiming our relationship to place and resisting harmful power dynamics. Her work takes the form of tactile objects, hand-made moving image, sensory installations, audio experiments and publications. Her physical work is activated by a facilitation practice that invites audiences closer into dialogue and creates space for theory to emerge. Recent projects have included exploring 'Britishness' through the spread of the ‘invasive’ Muntjac deer (Microscope Gallery, 2024); a heat-reactive installation for visitors to embody the uneven distribution of rising temperatures (RAINBOWCUBE, 2024) and a performance for London’s polluted waters (Metroland Cultures, 2024). She runs Ground Provisions, a ‘schooled-by-the-forest’ for adults and The Department of Artecology, a space for transdisciplinary conversations about transforming the conservation sector. She has an MA Art & Science from Central Saint Martins and an MA Art & Ecology from Goldsmiths University of London. She is researching for her PhD Goldsmiths: “Performing objects, tactile data, sense-ative documents and feelwork: touch as method for critical ecological stewardship in England”. She is a volunteer ranger for London National Park City active across Barnet, Brent and Harrow and side-hustles as a consultant and trends researcher for global brands.
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She / Her
Becky Miller has worked in Defra’s Farming and Countryside Programme since 2022. She was the first service designer to work in the UK’s cross-government Policy Lab (2019-2022), and previously worked on MHCLG’s Local Digital Collaboration Unit (2018-2019). Before joining UK Civil Service, she worked in a range of service organisations and small businesses including London’s Union Chapel music venue and a ski school in France.
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Lisa was named in Campaign magazine’s Top 10 most influential people in advertising for her work on climate awareness and action within the industry. With over 20 years’ experience, she’s held leadership positions client-side and in creative agencies, working with Coca-Cola, Marks & Spencer, Unilever, innocent, WWF and more. In 2019 she co-founded Purpose Disruptors to ‘help the industry transform to only create work in harmony with our natural world’. She is the Co-creator of Agency For Nature, a pop up agency working for nature as its client and a regular speaker, awards judge and advisory board member.
@agencyfornature @purpose_disruptors
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He / Him
https://nationalparkcity.london/
Louis (Lou) is passionate about regenerative design and building resilient communities. As a consultant he works with the Carbon Free Group on rewilding sites in Sussex & Kent as well as in London as a director of several sustainability projects including The River Roding Trust, the Cob in the Community natural building practice and as an associate of the SEADS.network. In 2015, he graduated with an MSc/Dip in Urban Regeneration from the Bartlett, UCL. He was awarded the Santander Universities Community Contribution award and was a finalist in the Mayor of London/Siemens Low Carbon Entrepreneur Prize.
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She / Her
My name is Priti Mohandas and I am a postdoctoral researcher at KCL working on a project that explores how precariously housed migrants are adapting to climate change (through art based engagement) and how climate adaptation governance can be rethought through the experiences of migrants. I have a background in architecture, and then completed my PhD in Urban Geography at the University of Cambridge, looking at the intersections between housing, inequality and masculinities. I also have experience in the development sector having worked for the UN-Habitat Climate Change Team, as well as local NGO's in South Africa and India as well as collaborations with activist groups.
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Rachel is an award winning interdisciplinary artist, researcher and creative educator. She has toured nationally and internationally, and publishes and presents regularly in academic and non-academic contexts. She co-founded the artist-led collective Active Ingredient (1996-2013) and the commercial games company Mudlark Production Company (2007-2011) and co-produced a series of British-Brazilian environmentally engaged interactive art projects (2007-2017). She completed a Doctorate in Computer Science looking at ways that artists engage the public with climate data and has worked as a Research Fellow at Horizon Digital Economy, Manifest Data Lab, Central St Martins UAL and as an Associate Lecturer in Information Systems Design, Birkbeck College.
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She / Her
A Senior Strategist that specialises in the interconnection between business transformation, Impact and brand building. Having worked with a bunch of clients across global FMCG brands, like L'Oreal, Mars, Danone, through to organisations in the climate/conservation space, like the WWF, ClientEarth etc. I'm well-versed in tackling sticky sustainability/impact issues through the lens of communications.
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She / Her
I'm a Programme Manager at London National Park City, where I manage the Small Grants Programme. The micro-grants will support around 100 Ranger-led projects focused on nature connection and urban greening across London, my role is to report on their impact to our funders, alongside sharing insights and learnings.
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They / Them
I am a collaborative designer, researcher and creative based in Manchester. At Policy Lab I work to bring public voices into policymaking, to design for transformation, and to make evaluation a process that holds us accountable to our values rather than arbitrary measures of success. Beyond work I am a vegetable grower, textile artist, and enthusiastic community member.
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She / Her
I am a specialist in climate change adaptation for the natural environment, and I work to place nature, our life support system, at the centre of climate action. I am also exploring how creative and storytelling approaches can help engage on the nature and climate emergency and how this interacts with inclusivity, equity and environmental justice. I am a qualified coach and am working on how the coaching approach and a focus on well-being can help galvanise climate action and support us in our challenging work for nature and climate.
3 — What to bring
Think about your response to this set of prompts: to justify budgets and resource against projects and initiatives we are asked to assess the impact and often the ROI. What methods do you use? Who devised those methods? Do they feel adequate/appropriate? What tensions arise? Who has the final say? What types of impact monitoring would feel more meaningful and generative?...
Please bring a ‘prop’ aka object related to a project or brief you are working on that has a conflict of interest or tension between economic and ecological growth. If you are struggling you can bring an image but an object would be much better for this exercise - even if you grab something before you run out the door!