A sculpture by a Saffron Walden arts student containing a list of the names of prominent people listed as having denied climate change has been given an award.

The names are chiselled into a memorial stone under the words “Lest We Forget Those Who Denied”, while a constant stream of engine oil runs over the 2.2m tall structure.

The piece, called Oil Waterfall by third year fine art student and father-of-three Ian Wolter, aged 48, is the winner of Anglia Ruskin University ’s Sustainability Art Prize. It and other competition entries of photography, video and fashion are on display at the university until May 16.

The piece includes the names of journalists Melanie Phillips who writes for The Daily Mail, James Delingpole who writes for the Mail, Express, Times and Spectator and Christopher Booker who was a founder member of the satirical magazine Private Eye.

Also included are Nigel Lawson former Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Thatcher government and father of cook Nigella, the Viscount Christopher Monckton, who trained as a journalist and Owen Paterson, the former Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Ian, who lives in Saffron Walden, said: “With this work I envisage a time when the deliberate denial of climate change will be seen as a crime because it hinders progress towards a low carbon future.”

Dr Aled Jones, director of Anglia Ruskin’s Global Sustainability Institute, said: “The winner was chosen because of the way he approached the subject by bringing together a powerful message with a beautiful piece of art.

“The oil waterfall sculpture could be viewed in decades to come as a monument to a period of history that saw scientific knowledge battle to be heard above political ideologies.”

The prize was first awarded in 2012, to coincide with the launch of the Global Sustainability Institute at Anglia Ruskin, given in an annual competition run by the Cambridge School of Art and the Global Sustainability Institute

The competition is open to all students at Cambridge School of Art, the brief being to create a piece of work based on their own interpretation of the concept of ‘sustainability’ that reflects the aims of the Global Sustainability Institute. This year’s entries also include photography, video and fashion.

The Sustainability Art Prize entries were on display at the Ruskin Gallery on Anglia Ruskin’s Cambridge campus until May 16.