(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
The queue is long when registering for the Culture (s) in Sustainable Futures conference. Over 300 participants from 40 countries are in Helsinki to talk about the role of culture in shaping a sustainable society. The conference is an interdisciplinary pattern with historians, philosophers, architects, theologians, NGOs and artists, among others. And in addition to the main program: an almost incomprehensible amount of research presentations. From Norway there is also a small group of people – surprisingly, they are almost exclusively from the field of design and sustainability. I interpret it as very exciting in this field in Norway.
Sustainable expression? Before I go any further: I apologize for the expression sustainable. It feels worn, worn out and hollow. But it is now the title of the organizers behind the conference, which is why it is difficult to get away. But what does sustainable really mean? That's not what the conference says much about. The organizers seem to assume that the participants have a sincere and genuine relationship to this expression, and that by using this title they will signal that we must develop a society that at least relates to our limited resources. That these resources must be managed in a way that minimizes ecological interplay. For the cultures of society, it does not work – from an ecological perspective, that is – and must be changed. How? This is the conference credo.
Finnish Katriina Soini, the leader of COST Action IS1007, who is hosting the conference, asks in her introduction whether culture (s) can be seen as one of four pillars for the development of a sustainable society – the other three being ecology, social conditions and economics. So far, little has been talked about the importance of culture for the development of a sustainable society. For this reason, COST Action has been investigating this topic for four years and wants to set a point for this work as well as create a fresh start for further investigations. Soini emphasizes the importance social and humanities can have in developing new sustainable cultural narratives. COST Action also has three members from Norway present in Helsinki – Inger Birkeland from the University of Telemark, Nina Svane-Mikkelsen from the University of Bergen and Astrid Skjerven from the University and Oslo and Akershus.
The role of art. Let me return to the queue. The first thing that meets us where we stand and wait is a presentation of an art project called Melliferopolis – an interdisciplinary project that looks at the role of bees in urban space and the relationship between humans and these insects. Through workshops and installations in public spaces, the artists Christina Stadlbauer and Ulla Taipale want to say something about the inherent value of bees – something that extends beyond the view of them as honey producers and bits in an ecosystem. Both artists and are also beekeepers. The project resonates with me. Maybe because I am also a beekeeper, in addition to working with performing arts, and know a lot about the dangers bees and other pollinating insects are exposed to over large parts of the world. The reason why I was invited to the conference is precisely to show a solo version of the performance Bios, which is made based on the bee death. Three other art projects will also be shown at the conference, the common denominator being that everyone is in dialogue with research related to ecological challenges.
I must admit that this is my first time attending a conference. There are not many of these in the free performing arts where I mainly work. But one of the objectives of the conference is to include art in line with research in the development of strategies for sustainable development. That said, I do not think the event will quite succeed. There are 160 researchers and 5 selected art projects here, but I think it is fundamentally sympathetic that the organizers at least strive to focus on the role of art.
The artist's knowledge. So how can art and the artist play a crucial role in the development of a sustainable future? Although the art itself is not as present at the conference as one might wish, one of the keynote speakers is a prominent artist: Frances Whitehead is a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago and has worked with art in and for the urban public for over 30 years. years, more precisely with «Civic Art», as she herself calls it. With this expression, she believes that contemporary art methods, mindsets and strategies are used specifically in the process of creating future cities. Whitehead argues that what an artist knows – the artist's knowledge and how an artist is trained to think – is very important in the development of the sustainable cities of the future. She believes that an artist's specific way of thinking is so radically important that it should be shared with society by including artists in public projects. Among other things, she has said that "an artist does not think outside the box, because there is no box". In her projects, she collaborates with engineers, researchers, landscape architects, bureaucrats and politicians. Her work in recent years includes Slow Cleanup – where she in collaboration with biologists has developed a plant-based system for cleaning up old gas stations – as well as a climate monitoring project with plants in the US and Europe called Phenologic Forest. One of her children at heart is also the project The Embedded Artist, where she collaborates with the city of Chicago to see how artists can be included in urban development.
The world outside the conference. The question naturally arises already on the first day of the conference, where I sit and listen to lecture after lecture. Introductory by introductory speaker who talks about his experiences, his fads and his solutions. They talk, among other things, about the fact that ecology is linked to democracy and human rights, and that a sustainable future must also be fair and gender-equal. It is exciting, inspiring, good angles, important reflections and a lot of knowledge about solutions for the future – but I think that the most essential thing with a conference like this must be to get this knowledge further out in society. How to prevent the conference with these three hundred participants, who in many ways agree and have many of the answers on how a sustainable society can be developed, from remaining closed to society outside?
Therefore, it is gratifying to know that renowned Routledge is now publishing a series of three books so far as a direct consequence of the work of COST Action over the past four years. The book series is called "Routledge Studies in Culture and Sustainable Development", and was introduced at the conference. The first two have already been printed and are ready for sale, while the third will arrive in the autumn. Good reading.
