Sustainability

Dear Climate: General Assembly, 2018

On a recent Tuesday evening we went to see a music, sculpture and performance work at the Howard Assembly Rooms in Leeds. The Matter of the Soul' by Kat Austen was something I had been looking forward to because it was a complex piece that was bringing together a range of practices in order to make a statement about climate change and global warming, issues that I'm very aware haven't been dealt with as much as they ought to have been by the arts community. However I was very disappointed in the final production, the various elements failed to fit together and I found the sound languages used incomprehensible and supporting visual imagery badly done. This was a real shame, and as far as I was concerned a wasted opportunity. At least the ambition was there and perhaps that was more important than anything else.
We only have a few years left to prevent global warming becoming an unstoppable planetary disaster. As artists we cannot escape this, we have responsibilities not just to each other but to ourselves. Recent posts have suggested that we should be reframing our approach to everything we do when faced with this situation, but I have not yet really addressed something that is rather like the elephant in the room. It's so big we don't talk about it, it is the biggest thing in the room by far, but we are so scared of what it represents that we will busy ourselves with all sorts of distractions, rather than look at it directly.

There are of course artists dealing with these issues, but due to the complexity of the issues involved these are more often than not artists working in collaboration.  For instance, Livin Studio, an Austrian artist duo composed of Katharina Unger and Julia Kasinger, developed Fungi Mutarium. Fungi Mutarium is a prototype that grows edible fungal biomass, mainly the mycelium, as a novel food product.  Agar, a seaweed based gelatin substitute acts, mixed with starch and sugar, as a nutrient base for the fungi. The fungi digests the plastic and gradually overgrows the whole substrate. 

Livin Studio use drawing to highlight communication issues.

The Canadian duo FICTILIS, composed of Timothy Furstnau and Andrea Steves, have developed 'True cost market' a shop that confronts and tells its customers the real cost of its products and 'Wastewater Walk' which is a series of walks following the paths of human waste from toilet to treatment facilities in various locations. The walks are a playful way to promote awareness of the hidden infrastructure, environmental inefficiencies, social inequities, and psychological repercussions of modern sanitation systems, and to tie this awareness to shared, lived experience in the physical landscape. Different versions of the walk have included mapping exercises, water tables staffed by local water organisations, performances at stops along the route, and audio tours. 

A map of nuclear sites from a FICTILIS research file looking at protest

Both these art groups are non traditional in approach, and they see problem solving as a thing they are happy to undertake, which is normally the province of designers; they are not involved with making art objects as such, they are more interested in an awareness raising process. You could argue therefore that this is bad art, but when there is the need for something to be done, I believe this doesn't matter that much and that gradually as more and more artists begin to work in this area, ways to make powerful, emotive statements will become more and more possible, because an audience will have been developed that can understand and respond to the types of work possible in this area.

A wide range of approaches are being taken by artists to these issues and an exhibition such as 'Indicators: Artists on Climate Change' at the Storm King Art Centre, is a useful place to start if you are wondering what sort of approaches have already been made to this issue. 

Adam Lowe and Jerry Brotton

I've looked in the past at how useful both model making and maps can be when trying to visualise things, but of course these technologies can be brought together. Adam Lowe and Jerry Brotton of Factum Arte, in their work Terra Forming: Engineering the Sublime, make relief models of maps of Earth and flood them. These models are designed to provoke discussions about climate change, the artwork encompassing the associated debates and symposiums that Factum Arte are developing. This way of working, whereby the physical artwork is just a small part of an overarching series of events, talks, marches, internet campaigns etc. etc. is becoming more the norm, as artists realise that the situation is urgent. 


A strength that comes from involving art in this context is that it is not constrained by standard scientific methods and can more easily involve not just artists and scientists, but also citizens and many different types of change agents. As such, the arts can also challenge things that tend to be taken for granted, in an engaging and creative way. This can lead to new ways of perceiving, understanding and acting upon climate change.

The diagram above represents the number of art projects that have been recorded as dealing in some way with raising awareness around sustainability and climate change. As you can see these have now peaked but together they help others gain momentum in their various approaches. Each and every action, no matter how small, helps.

References

Sacha Kagan: Art and Sustainability: Connecting Patterns for a Culture of Complexity

Soil City A good place to start if like me you think soil is vitally important to a sustainable future.

Invisible Dust Lots of links to both artists and scientists   

Creative Carbon Scotland Lots of supportive information on what you can do

Centre for contemporary art and the natural world Exploring new understandings of our place within nature.

Deveron Projects A place to see how a single town has embraced art and climate change awareness

Arts Catalyst A commissioning body that specialises in arts and the environment

Green Art Lab Alliance A place to see what's going on.


Related posts:

The 12 principles of permaculture as an art manifesto
The pencil and sustainability 

Sustainability resources