Nina’s work explores the relationships between ecology, materiality and place, often engaging with sustainable, experimental approaches and making across media. Childhood memories of time spent with family along this coast, alongside experiences of ‘big nature’ while travelling by road through South America and Australia in her twenties, have deeply rooted her practice in the land and seascape. Her innate understanding of the emotional and psychological impact on body through years of experience as a physical therapist has had a profound effect on the visceral quality in her work.

She explores the entangled relationships between human and marine environments, informed by living and working on the Sussex coast. Nina currently works with discarded fishing rope, ghost netting and plastics collected from beaches near Shoreham Port. Transforming them into sculptural forms, drawing, prints & paintings that reflect ecological interconnection and our physical and emotional relationship to place. Alongside this, she uses experimental cyanotype processes that rely on elemental forces—sunlight, water and time. Nina’s research into ecology and embodied perception, considers how synthetic material, environment and body are interconnected and her material choices are informed by an interplay of emotional response and conceptual thinking about our relationship with nature.

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Cecilia Volpi is an Italian photographer based in Edinburgh, who completed her studies at Edinburgh Napier University with a Bachelor degree of Photography.

She shoots a diverse range of subjects, focusing on film unit stills, behind the scenes, event photography and portraiture. Her personal work is characterised by a cinematic style and a love for experimental lighting and neon aesthetics.

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Perdita Sinclair seeks out diverse first-hand experiences and research to inform the constructions of reality in her work. She is inspired by, nature, AI, climate change, psychology and folk tales and seeks to capture a sense of the strangeness of the world right now. Her engagement with folk tales and other stories draws on their existential and creationist narratives to seek connections through deep time until the present.

Whilst researching marine animals Sinclair noticed AI generated versions nestled in amongst photographs and human interpretations of the real creatures. This observation led her to look into the wide-ranging covert impactions of AI. She generates her own AI species and interprets them into her paintings amongst the ‘real’ animals, bringing a kind of life or humanness in the un-alive and un-human.

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Tolly is a photographer, audio producer and filmmaker based in the UK.

Between 2010 and 2015 Southern Water illegally dumped sewage into our rivers and sea 6971 times. With human waste flowing into the sea around Brighton regularly, our sewage system has not improved since Victorian times - it has deteriorated.

Using printing techniques that were discovered in the 1800s (whilst Brighton’s first sewers were being built), This Septic Isle features prints that have been developed using the salt type method, using dirty seawater collected from the beaches around Brighton. Looking at both the private company responsible for our sewage problem and the activists trying to fix it, This Septic Isle explores the UK’s relationship with the sea and how it got so dirty.

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Andy Ash is an artist, a researcher and an educator. His practice is primarily sculpture, but an expansive notion of a sculpture, and therefore includes performance, film, photography, sound, objects, drawing, print, and text in an installation or in situ context. Often his work is socially engaged in its practice, containing collaboration, transdisciplinarity and dialogue in the approach. Andy lives in Brighton and his studio is at the Red Herring artist cooperative in Portslade. Andy is an Associate Professor and teaches post-graduates at UCL. Andy has exhibited local, nationally and internationally including Canada, Japan, Finland, Czech Republic and Spain. Andy recently performed at the Winter Sculpture Park with Gallery No.32 and at the Adelaide Salon during the Brighton Open House festival. He has collaborated with cultural institutions such as Tate Exchange, Tate Britain, ICA, Kings College Art Centre Cambridge University, Casa da Imagem, CVAN, NSEAD, InSEA, and the Freelands Foundation.

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Kate McMinnies is a contemporary ceramic artist with a dynamic sculptural practice. Rooted in the Sussex landscape, her work is an exploration of time, place and connection.

Having studied ceramics in London, Kate’s practice has seen her study at NYU, complete a residency in Maine USA, and travel to Beijing and Jingdezhen China. 
Kate has exhibited in museums, galleries and public spaces, and worked with Petworth House National Trust making site specific pieces for their shop. 

In the past year Kate held a successful solo show and been part of several diverse exhibitions - her pieces investigating innovative techniques and incorporating different materials.

Currently Kate is completing a residency at Pitfield Barn Sussex. Exploring seasonal changes and indicators of time in the landscape, Kate is making sculptures and vessels with site specific foraged elements and wild clay. The residency will finish with a solo exhibition in June.

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Ice Breakers is a registered charity and cold-water community for men with the aim to promote wellbeing and mental health. The Brighton group is led by Joel Lawton.

“There’s a growing body of evidence supporting the physical and mental health benefits of cold water immersion, credit to Wim Hof for taking it mainstream, but his approach requires baths filled with ice and training which limits the accessibility for many. We wanted to find a way to make the benefits available to all men.

We have developed an evolving methodology, The IceBreakers Way, to simply and safely access the benefits freely available in nature and to get the most out of the cold water, community and nature. In 2020 we gave it a name, IceBreakers.”

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Elena Stevanoska is a multidisciplinary artist and writer. Engaged with destruction, desire and ideas of a flawed humanity, Stevanoska explores how we interact with a world that’s falling apart.

Contemporary apocalyptic fears drive her work, while she dives into what it means to be neurodivergent. Stevanoska's art reflects a fragmentary state of being as we question our own identities and the unknown.

Elena Stevanoska has exhibited in the UK and Internationally, including Lisa Norris Gallery, Theatre Deli, VAULT Festival and Sguardo Contemporaneo. Stevanoska holds a BA Hons in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins School of Art, and lives and works in Brighton.

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Clara Loeblová was born in Prague to a Czech father and a Chilean mother. Although she grew up primarily in the landlocked Czech Republic, she maintains a strong connection to the ocean through her Chilean heritage and the years she spent living there as a child. Clara is a recent FAMU graduate (The Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague), specialising in cinematography. She is currently based in Prague, working in film, and maintains an ongoing connection to Brighton, which she visits regularly.

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Ainoa Burgos Gonzalez was born in Segovia (Spain) and is currently based in Sussex (U.K). Ainoa has recently completed her MA Photography studies and is a graduate in Fine Art: Sculpture at University of Brighton.

Ainoa is a multidisciplinary artist who encompasses sculpture, installation, performance, video and photography within her creative work. With a variety of medias and interactions with audiences she explores bodies and their environments. The themes studied through her work are varied and often socially engaged, including subjects such as environmental and visual anthropology. 

Recent exhibitions had been held by Unit2, Lock-in Gallery, Worthing West Shelter, Tichborne Projects,  CCA, University of Brighton, Dodo Gallery, Phoenix Art Space, Churchill Square Shopping Centre.

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With Deep Sea Mining yet another threat to our precarious ocean, Playing Field were asked by WWF to develop a campaign that informs audiences of the dangers of mining our ocean seabed for materials.

Think Deeply – A statement which calls on the world to consider our rare opportunity to stop an environmental disaster before it begins. Think Deeply also asks those in positions of power to be cautious about the potential new wild frontier that could be opened up from mining.

Our campaign hero film features the acclaimed poet and musician Joshua Idehen musing on our deep connection to the ocean and that our commitment should be to protect the depths.

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Simon Roberts (b.1974) is a visual artist based in Brighton, UK, recognised for his large-format, tableaux photographs exploring the socio-political fabric of Britain. His practice also encompasses video, text and installation, which together, interrogate notions of identity, belonging, and the complex relationship between history, place and culture.

He has exhibited widely and his photographs reside in major public and private collections, including the George Eastman House, Deutsche Börse Art Collection and Victoria & Albert Museum. In 2010 he was appointed the official British Election Artist by the House of Commons Works of Art Committee to produce a visual record of the General Election on behalf of the UK Parliamentary Art Collection; and in 2014 he represented Britain during the UK-Russia Year of Culture. He has been commissioned to make several large-scale public artworks and recognised with numerous awards including an Honorary Fellowship to the Royal Photographic Society, the Vic Odden Award and grants from Arts Council England and the John Kobal Foundation.

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Alan Gignoux is an award-winning documentary photographer and founder of Gignoux Photos, which produces documentary photography and film projects focussing on socio-political and environmental issues around the world.  

Alongside his work documenting refugee communities, Gignoux has for the past ten years been investigating and recording the impact of fossil fuels extraction and metals mining and refining on local communities.  His photographs show the way in which landscapes have been permanently altered to make way for mining, scarred by the infrastructure of the mining industry, and poisoned by pollution of the air, soil, and water.  The short documentary films that often accompany his images reveal through interviews the conflicting interests of mining company owners, politicians, activists, industry employees, and residents, throwing light on the complexities involved in transitioning to a low carbon future. 

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Laura Callaghan is a British mixed media artist whose practice is dedicated to honouring the ocean and spotlighting the urgent issue of marine pollution and climate change. Based in Saltdean, Brighton, on the Sussex coast, Laura creates textural seascapes, assemblages, and experimental cyanotype works using beach-combed materials including organic materials, ghost gear, fishing rope, seawater and other recovered marine plastics. Her work transforms discarded debris into powerful visual storytelling, aligning with her ecofeminist belief that environmental and social justice are deeply interconnected.

Laura’s commitment to ocean protection has gained national attention. A painting she created for a marine-pollution campaign was personally endorsed by Sir David Attenborough for the World Cetacean Alliance. She has been featured on ITV News and BBC News online for her environmental art activism, and was recently invited to co-curate ‘Living Sea,’ a major conservation-focused exhibition in Worthing, and has appeared as a featured artist and speaker at the United Nations Association Ocean Symposium in both 2024 and 2025.

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I'm an award-winning UK-based writer for outlets including the BBC, The Times, Guardian and Daily Telegraph, as well as leading specialist titles as different as World of Interiors, New Scientist and Harpers Wine & Spirit. I cover travel, food and drink, arts and design, science, books and history.  

I'm also a non-fiction author. My last book 111 Places in Chichester and West Sussex That You Shouldn't Miss (part of a global best-selling series) was shortlisted for the Inspire Global Media 2025 Travel Book of the Year award, and my next book in the series will be published in April 2026, covering East Sussex. I have also co-written several books including the BBC series title Plants: From Roots To Riches (John Murray) and Ultimate Food Journeys (Dorling Kindersley), alongside broadcasting on TV and radio. My photography has been widely published, and exhibited in London and Brighton.

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As a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, a degree in embroidered and woven textiles didn’t lead me on a straight forward path to becoming a Textile artist; it  has been an evolving journey, shaped by life abroad and a deep appreciation and admiration for the natural world. My earliest memories are rooted in the beaches of Kenya, where I was fascinated by the vibrant colours and textures of the land and seascape. This early inspiration, combined with an awareness of the stark contrasts between such beauty and the harsh realities faced by so many with fewer opportunities, profoundly influenced my creative perspective.

However, as I find my own creative voice, I am finding myself wanting to go back to is our collective environment as my main source of inspiration, whether it’s one of the land or the sea; our planet is clearly on a tipping point. I know from my experiences as a journalist you can’t change the world even from the World Service platform; so I hope to use my love and interest in fabrics, recycling and the story they can tell to at least get people talking about this crisis we all face.

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Ella Husbands is a Brighton-based artist whose work explores notions of disrupted perception.  She often uses photography, video, and sculpture to immerse the viewer in a distorted environment. Her work is connected to her current experience with chronic fatigue syndrome and centres on a sense of movement and pattern.

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Lia Bottanelli was a multimedia artist based between Milan and Hastings.

The ‘Island Hats’ project reproduces maps of islands and territories at the front line of climate impact, due to their high risk of submersion brought by rising sea levels. The scale on which the maps have been reproduced is functional to the size and shape of the hat, they do not stand in a proportionally direct relation. The 14 prototypes have been created in felt, a material chosen for its versatility. Conceived as sculptures to be worn, they stand as a reminder and comment against the environmental impact of fast fashion.

Carrie Stanley is a Hove based artist and mentor focusing on the infinite possibilities of human connection with the natural environment as a place for symbiotic healing and growth. She attended Turps Art School 2020-2022 and the Lorenzo di Medici Art Institute, Florence 1991-1993. Carrie was awarded an Arts Council Grant in 2022, the White Pube working class creatives grant 2023 and was selected for THEColab ART Body and Place residency 2024 and Watermarks; a Drawing Correspondence project in 2023. She has shown work with Mall Galleries, Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing prize, Derwant Drawing Prize, Jacksons Art Prize and Sussex Contemporary. She has work in many private international collections.

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Hugh's passion for photography was first sparked as a kid through the pages of i-D magazine, where he discovered the power of seeing the world through a creative lens.

He works on commissions and brand campaigns with teams who care about storytelling - creating work that feels human, authentic, and visually alive.

Hugh studied for an MA in Fine Art at Brighton University, where he immersed himself in photography, film, sound, and sculpture. That multidisciplinary mix still defines the way he works today - curious, playful, and always exploring new ways of seeing.

He recently won Gold in Fashion and Silver in Portrait at the 40th AOP Awards and in 2022 his work received major recognition when he won the Professional Portfolio category in the
Sony World Photography Awards. He has won Portrait of Britain‍ ‍Five years in a row, and twice Portrait of Humanity.

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