Students in South Yorkshire have created a social ‘artivism’ project called ‘Earth Soup’. Their aim is to connect communities in urbanised areas around Yorkshire, particularly young people, to blue spaces through creative workshops and hands-on projects.

Blue spaces are outdoor environments that prominently feature water and are accessible to the public.

The project tours schools and youth clubs across Yorkshire, particularly Sheffield, with mindful creative workshops.

The workshops focused on the more artistic elements of our environment, with sensory boxes provided to inspire the young people. These boxes contained samples of nature: bark from a tree, rocks from the bottom of a river, weeds from surrounding or in wild waters.

Lily O’Shea, one of the founders of Earth Soup says: “we focused our project towards reaching the schools supporting students in low-income urban areas.

“One boy didn’t even recognise bark from a tree. That’s why what we are doing is so important.”

Lily and co-founder of Earth Soup Charlie Walton run this social action initiative alongside their partner: Groundwork.

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Groundwork are an organisation who are working towards a net-zero, greener future. They support community action to ‘improve opportunities for undeserved people so they can empowered and informed towards intelligent energy choices, healthy habits and nature connection’.

Earth Soup also works in association with Change Lab: Sheffield Student Union’s social action programme which is designed to link student action with social need.

To keep up to date with more of Earth Soup’s projects, and perhaps get involved in expanding the initiative nationwide, follow their instagram here.

I went to the Spring Exhibition, titled ‘Environmental Utopia’, where pieces of art from the workshops throughout the year were showcased, but also contributions of creative media from the community that follow the theme of blue spaces have been displayed

I spoke to founders of the project Charlie, Lily and art curator Max to find out a bit more about this project and the process of curating art for the exhibition.