Creative Responses to Sustainability is a series of country-specific guides published by culture360 in collaboration with the Green Art Lab Alliance since 2015. Each guide provides an overview of the most pioneering artists and arts organisations addressing issues of sustainability in their artistic practice.
UK Guide
The Green Guide for the United Kingdom, researched by Invisible Flock collects commissioned creative responses, articles and a series of over 30 conversations with artists, collectives and organisations based in the UK whose core practice is grounded in sustainable, ecological, environmental and/or climate based understandings. It looks to unravel a breadth of approaches to explore the challenges we all face making work in this field. It is intended as a patchwork of stories and practices that look to understand how a creative practice allows us to explore the immense complexities of our time.
Korea Guide
The Green Guide for Korea maps cultural initiatives across Korea engaging with social and environmental issues, featuring a directory of 20 pioneering cultural organisations in Korea contributing to social and environmental change through their artistic practice. Themes include community art, gentrification, Nature-Art, independent spaces and hallyu; the creative industries.
Singapore Guide
The first in the series, the Singapore Guide maps cultural initiatives across Singapore engaging with social and environmental issues. This guide feature a directory of the 20 most pioneering and
significant cultural organisations in Singapore contributing to
social and environmental change. Themes included are foodsecurity, greenwashing, creative industries
and well-being.
Taiwan Guide
This publication zooms in on creative practices that address environmental issues in Taiwan. It features an overview of 20 pioneering arts initiatives as well as information on art and activism in Taiwan and the funding landscape but also trends such as the popularity of ‘Creative Parks’, Social Design and Community Engagement. The publication is based on interviews with over 100 artists, curators and cultural policy makers in Taiwan and concludes with a set of recommendations on how these important cultural initiatives can be better supported. This publication is a joint project between gala and partner Bamboo Curtain Studio.
Berlin Guide
The publication “Creative Environment – a guide to art and sustainability initiatives in Berlin” was published by Ecologic Institute. The guide is the result of Ecologic Institute’s inaugural Writer-in-Residence program. Curator Yasmine Ostendorf spent two months conducting interviews and researching initiatives in Berlin that are working in the shared spaces between art and sustainability. The publication highlights thirteen diverse ventures which make up part of the cultural landscape in the city of Berlin. The initiatives featured included housing projects, community gardens, galleries, music, cultural institutions and a bookshop, amongst others, showing the spectrum of engagement in this sphere.
Australia Guide
This Guide gives an overview of environmental challenges that are
specific to the context of Australia such as a reliance on coal and the impact of mining, coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, introduction of exotic species. It also includes global challenges that are faced by many other countries, such as as pollution or over-fishing. Other themes include advocacy and education, science and technology, indigenous connection to land, regional art and disaster recovery.
Indonesia Guide
This guide features a directory of 25 pioneering and significant
cultural organisations in Indonesia (Java) that engage with
environmental issues. Themes include Low-tech innovations,
alternative art education, working as a collective and Creative
Economy and Creative Cities. Furthermore it includes
recommendations on how artists and communities in Indonesia who are working on shaping more just and sustainable societies, can be better supported.
Portugal Guide
The 6th Green Guide, on Portugal, is made in collaboration with Ci.CLO, an independent organisation based in Porto, whose work focuses on photography and its interaction with other artistic, environmental and social platforms. The Guide identifies the 16 most significant cultural organisations contributing to social
and environmental change in Portugal.
Spain Guide
The Spain Green Guide features a Directory of 25 arts organisations and initiatives located on Spain’s diverse territory, from small and big cities to rural and coastal areas. Themes include the concern for biodiversity preservation and new sustainable approaches inspired by the observation of nature’s patterns; the re-discovery of traditional ways of working with the land, especially in rural areas; the growing concern around waste especially where it relates to the over-production and consumption of plastic; and, sustainable tourism as the way forward especially for coastal, over-visited areas in the country.