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When Éva Goudouneix joined Repowering London, she didn’t expect her journey in community energy to lead her into art. Her work began with solar panels and cooperative models — not cyanotype prints and clay villages. But as she spent more time supporting communities to understand energy, something started to feel missing.
“We were doing great workshops, but they were all about saving money or solar panels. I felt there was room to bring more joy and creativity to the mix.” she explains. “They were useful — but not joyful. I wanted to bring more art into it.”
That impulse led her to Sophie at Regen and Chloe Uden at The Art and Energy Colilective— two of the only people she could find online exploring the intersection of art and energy. Together, they sparked a collaboration that would become the Creative Energy Exhibition — a joyful, colourful experiment in how creative practice can open up conversations about power, climate, and belonging.
Before the exhibition, Éva began with smaller Creative Energy Clubs — afternoon workshops where people made cyanotypes to learn about solar energy, modelled clay villages to explore energy systems, or built solar lanterns while imagining future neighbourhoods.
“Every session combined a craft and an energy theme,” she says. “And it worked — people came who’d never joined our events before. They stayed, they chatted, they got curious.”
What began as a creative experiment soon became one of Repowering’s most effective engagement tools — helping the team attract new audiences and bring playfulness into serious conversations about the energy transition.
Working with Regen’s Sophie on the Creative Energy Exhibition was, for Éva, both inspiring and transformative.
“We were coming at it from different angles,” she reflects. “I was thinking practically — how to get people involved in co-ops. Sophie was like, let’s just see what happens if we work with an artist and stay open to surprise. The exhibition became this beautiful mix of both.”
The two-day exhibition was held in a Brixton community centre — chosen deliberately instead of a gallery. Visitors could touch, add to, or transform the artworks. Pieces made by residents, commissioned artists, and Repowering staff sat side by side, connected by stories of energy, equity, and imagination.
“It was busy, messy, and full of energy — just like the communities we work with,” Éva says. “People kept saying, we need more of this in the community energy sector.”
Éva’s mission was always about inclusion. “Repowering has a big commitment to diversity,” she explains. “I wanted art to be part of that — to make our work more accessible, more fun, more human.”
She believes art opens the door for people who might otherwise feel excluded from technical or policy-heavy conversations.
“When you’ve got paint, clay, or cyanotype paper on a table, suddenly it’s a space anyone can walk into,” she says. “You don’t need a degree in engineering to take part.”
The results proved her right. The creative approach attracted younger participants, parents, and residents from a wider range of backgrounds — and even inspired new recruits to join Repowering. One mother who took part in a creative summer school later became a member of staff, describing how art-based activities helped her see herself as part of the energy transition.
Out of this experience grew Éva’s next adventure — the London School of Solarpunk — a self-organised experiment in reimagining the future through art, energy, and community.
“It came from the enthusiasm after the exhibition,” she says. “I wanted to keep that energy alive — to create a space for learning, dreaming, and making together.”
Run without formal funding and from her own living room, the school blends alternative education, speculative storytelling, and creative workshops. It’s grown into a hub for artists, activists, and everyday Londoners exploring how to build a regenerative future.
“Community organising taught me that you can start anything if you put your heart into it,” Éva says. “But working with Sophie and Regen gave me the confidence — it made the work feel legitimate. It told me: this is real, this matters.”
Éva’s collaborations with Regen and Repowering have changed how both she and her colleagues think about engagement.
“Now, if we’re running a stall or an event, it’s a no-brainer to have art materials on the table,” she laughs. “It’s more alive — people stay longer, they ask questions. It’s transformed how we work.”
For her, art is not a nice-to-have, but a strategy for inclusion, imagination, and care.
“Art helps people see themselves as part of the story,” she says. “That’s how change begins.”
For Éva Goudouneix, creativity isn’t just about making things beautiful — it’s about making space for everyone to join in.
“The energy transition can’t only be technical,” she says. “It has to be cultural, emotional, and shared.”
She believes that art and imagination are essential tools for diversity and inclusion — not as decoration, but as an invitation.
“When you have clay, or cyanotype paper, or fabric on a table, suddenly the space changes,” Éva explains. “You don’t need special knowledge or perfect English — you can just join in. That’s inclusion.”
Her creative workshops at Repowering London proved this point again and again. Activities that involved making, drawing, or storytelling brought in people who had never attended community energy events before: parents with young children, elders, migrants, and teenagers walking by on their way home from school.
“People came because it felt open — because it was joyful and colourful, not just a lecture or a leaflet about kilowatt hours,” she smiles. “And then, when they stayed, they started to ask questions about energy, about power, about who gets to decide. That’s the beginning of climate action — when people feel invited to take part.”
Éva sees inclusion not as a policy checkbox, but as a practice of hospitality — about designing spaces that make people feel comfortable enough to be curious.
“You can’t have deep climate conversations if people don’t feel safe,” she says. “Art creates that safety. It’s playful, so people relax. That’s when they start to talk — and when you start to see understanding grow.”
Through her collaborations with Sophie and Regen, Éva found that creativity could transform even the most technical topics into human stories.
“We all talk about climate change like it’s somewhere else — happening to someone else. But art brings it home. It connects energy to our daily lives, our families, our memories. It makes it ours.”
For her, that connection is the real foundation of climate action — not guilt, fear, or abstract targets, but a sense of shared imagination and collective care.
“If people can see themselves as part of the story,” she says, “they start to believe they can help write the next chapter.”
“We were doing great workshops, but they were all about saving money or solar panels. They were useful — but not joyful. I wanted to bring more art into it.”
“Every session combined a craft and an energy theme — and it worked. People came who’d never joined our events before. They stayed, they chatted, they got curious.”
“The exhibition was busy, messy, and full of energy — just like the communities we work with.”
“When you’ve got paint, clay, or cyanotype paper on a table, suddenly it’s a space anyone can walk into. You don’t need a degree in engineering to take part.”
“Working with Sophie and Regen gave me confidence. It made the work feel legitimate — it told me: this is real, this matters.”
“Art helps people see themselves as part of the story. That’s how change begins.”
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