Artistic And Cultural Projects on the Environment

We Feed the World is a photography project capturing global food systems, coordinated by The Gaia Foundation. The focus of the project is bringing the attention to small-scale farmers and fishers all around the world who are using regenerative techniques to nurture biocultural diversity and raising the awareness of food systems which cultivate equality, justice and diversity. The project, launched in 2018, resulted with 300 portraits of regenerative farmers by renowned photographers whose work was showcased across 50 exhibitions. 55 million people got to see the agricultural workers who feed 70% of the world population using less than a quarter of its agricultural land, thus proving the myth that we need intensive, industrial farming to survive, wrong.

Cultural Adaptations was a 4-year project (2018 – 2021) which brought together leading cultural organisations and their innovative local partners from Belgium, Ireland, Scotland and Sweden. The project was co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union with match-funding from Scottish Government. ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability) contributed to the dissemination work of the project outcomes and outputs. The aim of the project was to find creative, innovative and place-based responses to climate change impacts, equipping cultural organisations and cities with the knowledge and skills they need. In each country, action-research projects took place, exploring how cultural organisations in each specific city region can adapt to the local area’s expected climate change impacts, and how artists embedded in adaptation organisations and municipal governments can support and shape these efforts.

The year-long project was a collaboration between Creative Carbon Scotland, Perth Theatre and Concert Hall and embedded artist Helen McCrorie and it addressed the environmental impact of audiences travelling to and from their venues, by using creative methods and working with a creative practitioner and participants drawn from Perth Theatre and Concert Hall’s audiences. The project was funded through Paths for All’s Smarter Choices Smarter Places fund. The project artist, Helen McCrorie, ran a series of creative activities at Perth Theatre and Concert Hall and in the towns and villages surrounding Perth, including designing a ‘dream bus ticket’, mapping, printmaking and filming a choir performance on the bus.

“Crossed narratives and imaginaries of socio-ecosystems” is a participatory and transdisciplinary art and science research project coordinated and co-led by TranSborder platform and Zone Atelier Brest Iroise – INEE / CNRS. The research applies methodologies of “participatory science” in its aim to explore possible common cultural ecology practices which will be capable of dealing with transitions and transformations the world is going through in the context of climate crisis sensitively, but also concertedly. The topics of interest include the preservation of biodiversity and integration of species (humans and non-humans) in the future and their coexistence in specific environments and territories. To address these challenges, the research is taking place at the Rade de Brest and the islands of the Iroise Sea, includes several different stakeholders (scientists in marine and environmental sciences, managers, artists and local residents) and develops a series of experimental, transdisciplinary activities in order to create bridges and establish a dialogue between art, science and society: sensitive mapping and modelling, workshops and consultations, land-based residences, exhibitions and installations, seminars, workshops and conferences.

ACT is a European cooperation project on ecology, climate change, and social transition. In an era of climate breakdown, mass extinction, and growing inequalities, this project focuses on hope by connecting broad perspectives with specific, localised possibilities. Such possibilities invite or demand that we ACT. ACT is a project initiated by ten cultural actors from ten European countries working in performing and visual arts. ACT is a project supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. ACT emerges from the cultural actors of the preceding Imagine2020 project. This European project evolved around raising awareness of the climate crisis and presenting the arts as a strong designer of possible futures. Social awareness and citizen action concerning these issues recently saw an enormous increase in intensity and scope.

Started in June 2022, A Sea Change is dedicated to fostering creative innovation within “blue economy” practices through interdisciplinary and intermedia arts and artistic and curatorial research. Since 2022, partners and collaborating organisations have engaged with diverse communities to catalyse positive impact on the environment, marine ecosystems, and the well-being of coastal populations. The project focuses in particular on addressing the pressing challenges of the “blue economy” at both local and European levels. The activities developed by A Sea Change (workshops, artist residencies, public programmes, documentary screenings, and educational initiatives) are designed to promote and facilitate changes within local environments. They also generate new works of art and interdisciplinary collaborations, contributing to developing a more sustainable, diverse, and inclusive Mediterranean. Culminating in a 2024 exhibition in Barcelona, this project unfolds across multiple locations including Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, and Spain. The project spans various sectors, encompassing environmental sciences, health, tourism, and design, and features a series of exhibitions in multiple countries. A Sea Change is an international collaborative project led by KONTEJNER (Croatia) in partnership with MOMus – Experimental Center for the Arts (Greece), NeMe (Cyprus), and the Quo Artis Foundation (Spain). The project is co-funded by the European Union.

Climate Visuals is the world’s only evidence-based and impact-focused climate photography resource. It hosts new research, an image library, and international open calls. Since 2016, the collection has grown to host over 1,400 Creative Commons and Rights Managed images – all content that embodies the evidence-based “7 Climate Visuals principles”. These images are publicly available to browse in the Climate Visuals library. Registered users can browse and access content that is ‘rights ready’ for their profile and needs – searching by keywords, country, theme, collections, date, licence type, and source. Users can generate links directly to images for sharing on social media, and, with lightboxes, they can also save, download, and collaborate on their image selections.

The CrAFT project is part of the New European Bauhaus (NEB) initiative launched by the European Union. It supports the mission of creating climate-neutral smart cities and shifts the focus of urban stakeholders to climate neutrality by bringing together the artistic, creative and cultural sectors, as well as communities and citizens, to work together towards an efficient transition. Some of the main activities are: providing support to the European Mission on climate-neutral and smart cities, conducting sandbox testing in three cities (Amsterdam, Bologna and Prague), engaging with the arts and culture sector, property owners and citizens, etc. CrAFt’s engagement with the arts and culture sector includes more than thirty European universities and schools of arts and design supporting their local cities through STEAM teams, internships and local capacity building. CrAFt is funded by Horizon Europe research and innovation programme with an implementation period of 2022–2025.

In 2021 Maribor Art Gallery launched the eighth edition of the International Triennial of Art and Environment. Established in 1980, the EKO Triennial is dedicated to contemporary visual arts and the environment. It examines the intersections between current socio-economic challenges, environmental politics and post-colonial globalisation. In line with the growing awareness that the state of our environment depends on a range of interconnected systems, including environmental policy, technological development, social practices, economy, etc., EKO Triennial incorporates natural and social ecosystems, blurring the lines between the conflicting terms of nature/culture, individual/common, national/international, global/local.

Earth Speakr is an artwork. Through an app that was active from 2020 to 2022, the artwork invited kids to speak up for the planet and adults to listen to what they had to say. All the kids’ messages can be heard on the Earth Speakr Map. The Earth Speakr website hosts and celebrates over 10,000 messages recorded by kids about our planet’s future – brilliant, funny, and heartbreakingly honest messages. It is a testament to the importance of listening to the next generations, as we adults make crucial decisions that inevitably affect their future. Earth Speakr is a digital platform that invites young people to speak up for the planet and the future they want and to make their messages heard. The artwork was co-created with children and young people. It consists of a playful app, an interactive website, an AR (augmented reality) experience, and audiovisual presentations in the 24 official languages of the European Union. Olafur Eliasson created this artwork on the occasion of the German Presidency of the Council of the European Union 2020 from July to December 2020 with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office.

European Heritage Hub was inaugurated in Brussels to support the green, social, and digital transformation of Europe through cultural heritage. The project responds to the need to set up a more permanent heritage hub in Europe, in order to bring together various stakeholders to ensure a more structured cooperation and coordination of action, at local European and international levels of governance. Building on the extensive expertise and experience of the consortium, the Hub sets out to tackle the many priority goals of the European Union and its key partners in Europe and beyond. Special emphasis is placed on climate action and the green transition, on inclusion, cohesion and accessibility, as well as on innovation and digital transition. These three cross-cutting issues are at the heart of the entire project and are horizontally embedded in all its activities.
The project is funded by the European Union and will run for two years, from May 2023 to April 2025.

FARCE! uses satire and comedy to promote climate change awareness. Just as education has a role to play in the climate change challenge, rational argument, creativity, and humour are also practical tools of persuasion. Intelligent disobedience can be one of the most influential and inspiring methods to bring about long-lasting social change in the face of “hard and soft resistance” by hardline climate sceptics and the all-too-often “profit first, people last” corporate forces. The objective of FARCE! is to propose a new “infotainment” based approach by re-calibrating today’s negative news flow.

In 2023, twelve artists from the Republic of North Macedonia in collaboration with two mentors – Christian Tschirner aka Soeren Voima (dramaturg, playwright, director, educator from Germany) and Lynn Takeo Musiol (dramaturg, playwright, director, educator from Germany) realised an online and offline playwriting workshop in Skopje, intended for professional theatre practitioners and writers. The workshop focused on green dramaturgy through topics related to climate change. The authors opened the following local environmental problems which were transformed into short dramatic texts and narrations (using different the structures of realism, absurd, surrealism, dramatic poetry, etc.): crude capitalism and getting rich by reselling and burning toxic waste, people with deeply damaged health due to polluted air, soil, food and stress.

ITAC IMPACT: Climate is a framework through which teaching artists can design and lead projects in their local communities to positively impact the climate crisis using teaching artistry to raise awareness, educate others, activate participation, and ultimately change minds and behaviours. The initiative was piloted in March 2021 by commissioning five teaching artists in different parts of the world to undertake a creatively engaging project with their local communities, addressing a local climate challenge and enabling participants to be agents of change. The projects are supported by a science ambassador, a world-respected climate expert who provides scientific context and informs the evaluation and learning. Based on the discoveries from the artist’s community-engagement projects, ITAC developed an online curriculum and a 20-hour teaching artist course to be soon published online on kadenze. A second edition was launched in 2022, and the third in 2023.
This project was initiated by the International Teaching Artists Collaborative (ITAC), a worldwide collaboration, proactively networking artists through international conferences, virtual collaboration, and social media to build an international community, cultivating excellence in teaching artistry.

Mutant Institute of Environmental Narratives (IMNA), Matadero Madrid’s artistic laboratory for climate action, has been working since 2018 to promote new collective imaginaries that can contribute to shifting habits and lifestyles in society for the adaptation to climate change in urban contexts. The IMNA is not an ordinary cultural project; it is a mutant device to adapt to uncertain futures with new ways of approaching problems and storytelling – a space for research, experimental interdisciplinary creation and learning, and a meeting place between diverse agents. The institute operates through an interdisciplinary growing network, the members of which are a local and international group of the most diverse stakeholders, namely artists, specific civic groups, designers, researchers, philosophers, journalists, scientists, engineers, architects, and public policymakers.

In this multi-level capacity development project, ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property) sought on-the-ground implementation of heritage-based mitigation and adaptation strategies to reduce the impact of climate change on people and heritage. The field experience fed into international training for change agents and community leaders. A final international symposium and publication served as catalysts to inform policy and expand the project’s outreach by sharing the know-how on heritage for climate action in 25 to 30 countries suffering from acute environmental stressors. This project started in January 2022 and ended in December 2023.

“Butterfly: Boosting environmental awareness in opera creation” aims to create a new attitude towards sustainability in theatre and opera houses by exploring new green practices related to opera production and circulation. To do so, the project will go through the entire process of opera co-creation and co-production of a sustainable opera, from the opera commission to the public attendance and the sharing of the sustainable practices experimented, with particular focus on engaging young audiences throughout the entire process. The project is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

Peripheries are places of solidarity that partners in PROSPER aim to explore by creating connections between environmentally vulnerable regions, through a series of transnational cultural collaborations. The main priorities are to engage artists and local communities in two regions with major environmental significance: the island of Evia in Greece, which suffered destructive wildfires in 2021, and Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia, which has suffered degradation due to human activity endangering its endemic importance. The objectives of the project are to contribute to the development of enhanced international cultural collaboration, methodologies of integrating environmental issues into artistic practice, stronger collaboration between art and tourism, empowered local audiences, visibility of European artists, and stronger capacity for more impactful projects that enable sustainable and inclusion driven project management. PROSPER is expected to last from 2023 to 2025, it involves five partner organisations and is supported by Creative Europe.

RE-IMAGINE Green Art Practices on the Margin is a project that focuses on the green transformation of the performing arts sector in the Balkan region and Central Europe. It was initiated by Green Art Incubator (Serbia), Pro Progressione (Hungary), Lokomotiva (North Macedonia) and Arte Urbana Collectif (Bulgaria). Over the course of two years, the project seeks to redefine the social role of performing arts organisations as agents of environmental change by building capacity within organisations and professionals in the field to achieve goals related to reducing CO2 emissions and achieving zero-waste production. RE-IMAGINE gathers civil society organisations working in Serbia, North Macedonia, Hungary, and Bulgaria as an example of peripherality in the performing arts (both in geopolitical and sectoral terms), which makes their green transformation even more complex and challenging. To meet this goal, among other activities, the project consortium designed an extensive residency programme, RE-IMAGINE Green. The programme is foreseen to equip participants with comprehensive knowledge and skills in climate literacy, and ecologically sustainable approaches to project development and implementation in performing arts. The project is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union and will run from 2023 to 2025.

SHIFT provides training for cultural leaders, working together and creating paths to face global challenges such as climate change, gender equality, and inclusion of minorities, implementing changes where needed, and passing on knowledge to leaders and staff members of cultural networks and the broader cultural sector. The partners produced online manuals, guidelines, and excerpts translated into French and Italian over a two-year period (December 2019 to January 2022) on the following themes: cultural leadership, environmental sustainability, gender and power relations, and inclusion.

Based on a project by Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, STAGES is a theatre experiment which tests radical solutions to the biggest challenges posed by the climate crisis. Solutions are developed through three project strands: sustainable performances (“re-stagings”: an innovative co-production system which tours performances on the climate crisis without moving people or items, the shows being recreated entirely with local resources), sustainable transformation (an auto-analysis process guiding partners to identify key areas for sustainable change in their organisations, based on the holistic understanding of sustainability in Doughnut Economics) and sustainable future (an annual series of participatory forum events and workshops bringing together artists, scientists and audiences). The project, which began in 2022 and is projected to end in 2025, is supported by Creative Europe and includes 14 partners.

The Sustainable Institution is an international symposium series, interdisciplinary artists residency, and digital toolkit. The symposium programme focuses on sustainable change from an economic, humanitarian, and ecological perspective. Artist residency allows creative practitioners to produce new solutions in the fight against climate change and mitigate the environmental burden of exhibition-making. Three creative practitioners are selected to develop a prototype for sustainable exhibition making with a grant of €20,000.

UN Live – Museum for the United Nations is a museum for the people and for the world. It lives across the globe, connecting people everywhere to the values and work of the United Nations. While being close to the United Nations and having received the formal endorsement of previous Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the support of three of his predecessors, UN Live is not part of the United Nations. It is an independent not-for-profit foundation registered in Copenhagen, Denmark, funded by private partners. Across the globe, it has begun exhibitions and public engagement programmes, each pushing the boundaries of what a museum can and should be. Instead of being located within one geography, it is open and lives for people and ideas everywhere, united by action and commitment to drive positive behaviour change.

Visible’s primary mission is to conduct research in the realm of socially engaged artistic practices. Since 2010, the project has pursued this mission through collaborative efforts with a transnational, intergenerational, and diverse advisory board of practitioners and collaborators encompassing a range of genders and racial backgrounds. The online Projects Archive section collects over 200 art projects, some explicitly addressing environmental issues. These projects delve into how artists respond to the pressing challenges of global warming-induced changes in the Earth’s climate system. They explore the consequences of natural resource exploitation and the impact of modernity on our evolving relationship with the environment.