From its earliest origins, people’s relationship with nature and the environment has been a core theme in art. In earlier examples, artists portrayed the natural world as a mystic, powerful entity, a physically dominating force. But in recent decades, that dynamic has turned on its head, as humankind’s impact on our environment becomes ever more clear, urgent, and irreversible.

In this new film we look at what role artists have in tackling our urgent climate issues and explore the different approaches they’ve taken to raise awareness and engage us with our increasingly fragile world. This film is part of a new series The Art of Discomfort which looks at how artists explore or present challenging themes in their work.

Your Art World provides art challenges designed by children, for children. We want to inspire you to think, wonder, make and share your art in our online gallery. It could be 2D, 3D, film, animation, performance, writing or anything else you can think of.

The challenges invite children and young people to identify themes that matter to them. Sustainability is often a theme, such as the current word challenge Protect or past challenge What would it be like to be tiny like a bee?.

For the 2020 Art Competition for Schools and Families the category for entrants in S1 to S3 was 'climate change'. In this video Siobhan McConnachie, Head of Learning & Engagement at National Galleries of Scotland, and one of the judges from the S1-3 category introduces the winners.