Grantham Climate Art Prize

Grantham Climate Art Prize 2026: Design a thriving, vibrant, city full of nature and innovation  

A winning design that will be transformed into a panoramic mural at Imperial’s White City campus has been selected by a panel of judges.  The design was one of almost 200 submitted for this year’s Art Prize.

By 12-year-old Christopher Simmons, the design pictured above, entitled Net Zero Together, will be adapted to fit the 20m by 2.4m space by professional mural artist Jeru Nomi this September.

Christopher, who has special educational needs, will receive a £500 prize at an unveiling event due to take place in September thanks to sponsors Taste Catering Limited and AJ Staffing Solutions. He will also receive a selection of art materials from sponsor Colart.

The mural will be the 14^th in the Grantham Climate Art Prize series and the second at Imperial College London. It follows the installation of a mural in Dalby Court at Imperial’s South Kensington campus last May. Other Art Prize murals are located across Great Britain in cities including Coventry, Glasgow and Nottingham. There are three others in London (in Tower Hamlets, West Norwood and Nine Elms).

I love drawing and painting, and my work shows the city where people, nature, and technology live together happily.

- Christopher, 2026 Art Prize winner

"The picture I created is a future that I would like to see one day, and I wanted to share something positive that could make people feel happy and inspired too," says Christopher. "The artwork shows simple, positive ideas like clean energy, green spaces, and better ways to travel. It shares a positive message about working together to make a better and more hopeful future.”

Judging panel members described Christopher’s entry as “lively and engagingly human”.

Artist Jeru Nomi says: “It’s been a privilege working on the project this year particularly being involved closely with the young people with workshops in schools and youth clubs. The brief to design a thriving vibrant city full of nature and innovation was definitely a challenge, so it was great to see how the young people thought about it creatively. 

“We were looking for was something that incorporated all aspects of the brief, but had a creative edge that would bring the concept to life. Being an illustrator, I was drawn to the winner design for its playfulness and how Christopher had created this world full of characters and colour. Christopher really understood the brief and took on the challenge by including the six themes within his city.

“Our runners up and highly commended entries were both very strong conceptually and should be hugely proud of what they produced.”

Runners up and highly commended

Two runner-up designs will be displayed in an exhibition alongside the mural. The materials for the mural and exhibition will be funded thanks to sponsors Careys, Mace, 2468 and Nivek. Runners up will receive £250 in prizes again thanks to sponsors Taste Catering Limited and AJ Staffing Solutions. They are:

• Age 15 – 18: White City Reimagined: Sustainable Design, Shared Spaces and Urban Hope, by Egshig Enkhbat age 17  [pictured above, bottom left]
• Age 19 – 25: City of Colour, City of Care, by Isobel Linton age 23 [pictured above, centre]

At least three Highly Commended designs will also be displayed. They include:

• Sustainability Made Human, by Tegan Franklin-Newton age 14 [pictured above, bottom centre]
• The Future in our Hands, by Alexandra Iakovleva age 13 [pictured above, bottom right]
• The Greener Greater Future Awaits, by Kaviranchana Subramanian age 14 [pictured above, top]

Some of the runners up and highly commended entrants attended workshops run in London schools by the Grantham Institute with artist Jeru Nomi and PhD climate scientist Elsy Milan.

Alongside the mural and exhibition of runners up and highly commended designs will be an exhibition from our 2023 art prize on Imperial College Road highlighting the 9 things you can do about climate change.

Thank you so much to all the young people who took part – the almost 200 entries show how much their generation care about creating a better, more sustainable world full of nature, innovation and community.

Linsey Wynton, Senior Outreach and Communications Officer.

Background

The Art Prize is an award from the Grantham Institute that invites young people to design murals drawing attention to the climate crisis and the need for action to create a more sustainable world.

The 2026 Art Prize theme invited young people aged 11 – 25 from schools, colleges and universities to submit a vision of a thriving, vibrant city full of nature and innovation. They were asked to consider six themes:

• How will we build, heat and light our homes and cities?
• Where will we shop?
• What will we do with our waste?
• How will we get around?
• Where will we source our food and drink?
• How much nature will there be and where?

The history of the Grantham Climate Art Prize

The Grantham Institute launched the Grantham Climate Art Prize in 2018 to draw attention to the climate crisis through art. The prize began with an exhibition in the Blyth Gallery but took to the streets from 2021 inviting young people to design street murals that were then painted by professional artists.

Art has the potential to inspire minds and touch emotions in a way that science alone often finds challenging.

Martin Siegert, Visiting Professor at the Grantham Institute

Previous themes have included British biodiversity loss (2021) and a greener, cleaner, cooler world (2023), inspired by the Grantham Institute’s 9 things you can do about climate change.

Winning and runner-up Art Prize designs have also been on display at COP26 and COP30, in two Natural History Museum Real World Science Network museums, beside Battersea Power Station, on billboards across London’s transport hubs, on Sherfield Walkway at South Kensington Campus and at Hammersmith Hospital’s Library.  

“Through this project I’ve learned the value of art and how it complements science – topics I spent months studying can be captured in a visually striking way that speaks to all.

- Mahamood Mubarak, former Grantham Institute PhD student and Art Prize workshop volunteer.

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