Julie’s Bicycle, England
Founded in 2007 to respond to the climate crisis, Julie’s Bicycle is working globally across the creative sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and catalyse the green creative economy. Working with over 2,000 organisations, NGOs and governments worldwide, Julie’s Bicycle has developed an approach which harnesses the power of the creative sector to communicate the reality of the climate crisis, advocate for science based solutions, take bold practical action, and offer support and advice to those who share their vision. The team blends environmental expertise with arts and cultural sector experience, and the freely available resources constitute the most comprehensive library of good environmental practice developed specifically for the arts and culture sectors anywhere in the world. Designed and developed by Julie’s Bicycle, the Creative Green Tools – a suite of carbon calculators and a certification scheme – are the recognised benchmark for sustainability achievements within the creative industries. Since 2012, Julie’s Bicycle has been the Arts Council England’s contracted delivery partner for supporting its funded organisations in reporting their carbon footprint, and developing environmental policies and action plans.
Jan van Eyck Academie, Netherlands
The Jan van Eyck Academie is a post-academic institute for artistic talent development with an international outlook, located in Maastricht. The academy is host to a department of Nature Research that invites artists and associated researchers to consider ‘Nature’ in relation to social, political and ecological developments, both on a local and on an international level. The Nature Research department facilitates artists that are keen to re-think and re-build our relationship to the natural world, acknowledging and recognising (climatic) changes and (geological) impacts, also known as the epoch of the Anthropocene. The revealing of this interconnectedness between humankind and our natural environment confronts us with a responsibility towards both human and non-human species and the need to repair the threads that connect us to nature.
Museum of Transitory Art, Slovenia
MoTA is a multidisciplinary platform dedicated to advancing the research, production and presentation of transitory, experimental, and live art forms. MoTA is a museum without a permanent collection or a fixed space. Instead, its programs are realised in different locations and contexts in temporary physical and virtual spaces. MoTA organizes and supports transitory art in the form of continuous events, exhibitions and educational programs both locally and internationally. As its name indicates, MoTA examines what a museum can be today and in the future. MoTA is in constant search for the new, the uncertain, and the undefined.
Knockvologan Studies, Isle of Mull, Scotland
Knockvologan Studies is a study place for art, literature, field research and nature preservation. They offer a residential venue for learning, training events and retreats for writers, artists and researchers. Knockvologan Studies conducts a steady stream of small and large scale innovative, collaborative and experimental projects, as well as lectures and workshops. All are inspired by, embedded in or entangled with the landscape. A landscape, looked at through different eyes, worked with and mapped out in omnifarious and sensory ways, will grant new insights and outlooks, generate stories and offer possibilities for a more sustainable relationship between humans and their habitat. With their approach they contribute to the cultural richness and biodiversity of the area and inspire others to do the same elsewhere.
GeoAIR, Georgia
GeoAIR organizes projects that bring together people from different cultural backgrounds to find relevant context for them to work in Tbilisi. Priority is given to socially engaged projects in which, through close collaboration of local artists, audiences, and communities, participants share experiences and ideas about the city as they felt a need for more active citizen participation in defining the future of Tblisi, both in terms of values as well as urban planning. They started in 2010 with a self directed residency program, that offers curators, culture producers and artists the opportunity to base themselves in Tbilisi, Georgia and use this location as a starting point to build networks, meet artists, cultural institutions and curators from the Caucasus region, and develop and deepen their knowledge and research of the Caucasus context. They have initiated many pioneering urban projects, now being transformed in accumulated research, knowledge and expertise into The Alternative Guide to Tbilisi.
Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Poland
The Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art is one of Poland’s most prestigious art centres with a various program including exhibitions, performances, film screenings, and residencies. It is situated in a baroque castle surrounded by a park in the centre of Warsaw. It is a place in which various fields of art coexist with each other, interact, and transgress their own boundaries, in order to create new qualities and phenomena. It draws particular attention to the relationship between art and society, as well as interdisciplinarity, interactivity, site-specific productions, various forms of collaboration, networking, and co-production. Its history commences in the year 1981, when the then communist authorities decided to rebuild the Ujazdowski Castle for the purposes of contemporary art.
HIAP, Finland
HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme is an international artist residency established in 1998. The HIAP residency programme offers time and space for developing new work in dialogue with the local art scene. The goal is to support experimental, cross-disciplinary art practices and to actively contribute to topical debates within and around the context of art. Since 2013, ecology has been one of the main key themes of HIAP’s programme. HIAP coordinated Frontiers in Retreat, a five year long (2013-2018) collaborative enquiry into the intersections of art and ecology by eight European artist residencies. In 2018 HIAP initiated the Post-Fossil Transition Project, which aims to reduce the organisation’s dependency on fossil fuels and advocating ecologically sustainable practises to other art organisations. The project is realised in collaboration with Mustarinda residency and focuses on three key themes: Travel, Food and Energy.
Translocal, Hungary
The Translocal Institute for Contemporary Art is a platform for transnational research into East European art and ecology, that operates across the disciplinary boundaries of art history, contemporary art and ecological thought. The Translocal Institute operated from premises in Budapest from 2013 till 2018. In addition to fostering research in the overlapping fields of contemporary art history and ecology, the activities of Translocal Institute include working with universities and art spaces across Europe to realise curatorial projects and contribute to arts education. Their curatorial projects include the Experimental Reading Room, the Danube River School and they are also founding members of the Environmental Arts and Humanities Initiative at Central European University Budapest.
ARTPORT_making waves, Germany
ARTPORT_making waves is an international curatorial practice that raises awareness about environmental issues with a focus on climate change and ocean through art exhibitions, educational programs, video projects, sustainability & corporate responsibility consulting, as well as collaborations linking the arts, science, and politics with the aim to inspire societal change through sustainable development. ARTPORT_making waves demonstrates the possibilities and the power of cross-disciplinary collaboration and experiments with a dynamic mixture of formats. One of the distinguishing features of ARTPORT_making waves is the broad range of platforms it embraces, such as exhibitions, screenings, talks, panels, artist residencies, workshops, and competitions.
COAL, France
The COAL association was created in 2008 by a group of French professionals working in the fields of contemporary art, sustainable development and research, in order to promote the emergence of a culture of ecology. COAL mobilizes artists and other key players in the art world around social and environmental issues, in collaboration with institutions, local authorities, NGOs, scientists and businesses, and supports the essential role played by culture and creativity in raising awareness and implementing tangible solutions. COAL has been the driving force behind about 50 contemporary art exhibitions and cultural events around ecological transition for major arts institutions all over France. Every year it awards the COAL Art and Environment Prize. COAL took its place on the forefront of this emerging field when, in 2015, it organized ArtCOP21, the Cultural program for COP21 in 2015, placing culture on the sustainable development agenda.
Pollinaria, Italy
Pollinaria is a concept of regeneration for the agrarian environment, a radical and composite organism designed to distill the essence of a new rural archetype. Concentric fields of study and action shape a constantly evolving system through art, science, agriculture and other cardinal factors. An innovating impulse develops in the spectrum that encompasses art and science, on frequencies marked out by research projects that subvert reality and reveal visions of the future. Within the framework of Pollinaria, these processes evolve in close contact and dynamic cohesion with local ecosystems. In the sphere of agriculture, Pollinaria forges a synthesis of ancestral wisdom, strategies for environmental defence and leading-edge technologies, to investigate and safeguard the indigenous genetic resources.
Imago Bubo, Spain
Imago Bubo · Rural Colectivo is a collective of artists and cultural managers based in the north of Extremadura (Spain), which was born as a result of wanting to work, document, and rewrite what surrounds them. Their objective is to keep alive the traditions and popular knowledge, and to recover the rural and cultural heritage that surrounds the place they inhabit, all from new artistic practices. They inhabit the rural territory of Extremadura. Continuous work in this context, together with meeting people on this journey, is what has defined the forms of work they have taken. They work from documentary cinema, photography, training in the different arts, education in popular culture, and cultural management. In the Extremadura region, with various populations, they carry out a long journey about cultural projects, training, and activities focused on the richness of rural life.
Invisible Flock, England
Invisible Flock is an award winning interactive art studio based at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park operating at the intersection of art and technology. Drawing directly from the world around us they create art and foster relevant practices that have a long lasting transformative effect. They bring creative thinking and unique ways of employing technology to bear in contexts such as conservation, climate science, education, design, the developing world, urban planning and healthcare. They create highly sensory installations and environments asking us to renegotiate our emotional relationship to the natural world. Over the last twelve years they have created GPS powered AR art games, transformed discarded beach plastic into 3D printed artworks, co-designed work with individuals living with dementia, created large ambisonic public sound installations as well as pioneering digital/physical installations that exist out at sea. Most recently they created Aurora, a multi sensory installation about climate change that re flooded a disused reservoir in Liverpool.
PCAI, Greece
Polyeco Contemporary Art Initiative (PCAI), was founded in 2014 by Athanasios Polychronopoulos, Polyeco Group Executive Chairman, as a means to increase environmental awareness through contemporary art and video. The organisation implements its objectives though three areas of activity: its mainly commissioned-based Art Collection, its Projects and its Support. PCAI, on the occasion of Anthropocene On Hold, its first online exhibition, has invited 20 international visual artists to address the gravity of a global pandemic and its impact on art engagement and production as well as earth’s resilience and sustainability; an ongoing digital project hosted on PCAI’s YouTube Channel from May 14 to December 31, 2020.
On the Move, Belgium
On the Move is dedicated to supporting the mobility of artists and cultural professionals, in Europe and worldwide. Through its free to access website, On the Move regularly highlights the latest funding opportunities supporting the international mobility of artists and cultural professionals – of every discipline. Thanks to the expertise of its members and partners, On the Move also shares information on key challenges related to cultural mobility (eg. visas, social protection, taxation, environmental issues). Beyond this work as an information point, On the Move facilitates mentoring sessions and workshops, and gives public presentations on cultural mobility issues and the internationalisation of practices for the arts and cultural sector.
Kunst Haus Wien, Austria
Based on the forward-looking ideas of Friedensreich Hundertwasser on environmental and social policy, KUNST HAUS WIEN creates a unique place that combines art and ecology. Since 2014 the museum has been presenting artists who critically and visionary deal with topics such as sustainability, climate change, recycling, urbanism or intergenerational responsibility from today’s perspective. With their artistic approach, they work out socio-political contexts and stimulate the discourse on them. A museum is also a producer of values, which as a public institution has to convey a socio-political stance. Visible and invisible processes in museum operations are carried out in accordance with the highest possible ecological standards. In 2018, KUNST HAUS WIEN was the first museum to be awarded the Austrian Eco-Label.
DutchCulture |Transartists, Netherlands
DutchCulture|TransArtists combines and shares knowledge and experience on artist-in-residence programmes and other international opportunities for creative professionals to temporarily stay and work elsewhere. They offer facts, use and value of international artist-in-residence opportunities and their tools and services are developed from the artists’ perspective. Their goal is to make the enormous worldwide residential art labyrinth accessible and usable to artists through our website, workshops, AiR collection, research and projects. To do this, they usually cooperate with a wide range of partners in all world regions. They are part of DutchCulture – Center for International Cooperation, based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
La Madre Monte, Tenerife
Since 2017 La Madre Monte is made up of a group of professional artists, mediators and cultural managers from Tenerife (Canary Islands), an outermost region of the European Union. Their commitment is to activate rural spaces through art and sustainable development. They support rural development from an artistic and creative perspective, considering the entire artistic process as a sustainable social action configuring a favorable environment for research in environmental art. They are dedicated to the development of artistic projects of cultural mediation related to the environment. They carry out a humane, close and integrated management of their projects helping people who come to them with innovative artistic solutions, in addition to serving as a bridge so that deep connections can happen between people and their natural environment.
Gate 27, Turkey
Gate 27 is an international research platform established in 2019 combining artist residencies, talks, symposia, events and aesthetic research. Located in Istanbul and Ayvalik, the project encourages new collaborations through public programs and events that develop communication amongst local and international artists, academics and cultural actors. Gate 27 is devoted to sustainability and brainstorming creative solutions that can address the global ecological crisis. Their program ‘Earth Notes’ includes the building of a regenerative food garden through which Gate 27 looks to integrate sustainable daily life routines into the lives of residents and staff. The garden is also host to an educational series on ecology, organized in collaboration with like-minded partners. In extending sustainability from ecology to economy, their ‘Creative Craft Collaboration’ program activates mutual and sustainable cooperation between craftspeople and creators. The program challenges traditional views of craftsmanship to reveal the creative, innovative, economic and artistic potential of crafts as an alternative to industrial means of production. Gate 27 believes that the road to a sustainable future starts with creating opportunity and adding value to local networks and owning up to one’s own actions and responsibilities.
Cove Park, Scotland
Cove Park is an international artists’ residency located on an outstanding rural site on Scotland’s west coast, one hour north of Glasgow. In the last 20 years, Cove Park has hosted nearly 4000 national and international artists, writers and thinkers working in all art forms and at every career stage. It is committed to supporting artists by offering the time, space and freedom required for research, peer-to-peer exchange and the development of new work, and fostering a stimulating context in which new ideas can be developed, tested and shared. A minimum of 12 residents can be in residence at any one time, creating collective opportunities for the discovery of alternative approaches and the acquisition of new knowledge.
On the occasion of COP26 in November, Cove Park will launch their enquiry focused on the environmental crisis and the radical change that our collective intelligence can affect in terms of climate action. Architecture, design, food and the land will be at the centre of the enquiry; merging artistic, academic and scientific research and practice in order to eventually become a permanent pivot of Cove Park’s activities. In this context they are envisioning the future development of the site and institution, including the building of new, carbon neutral accommodation units and workspaces, the overall management of the land in terms of both flora and fauna, and the renewal of their involvement with Cove Park’s neighbouring communities.
foodculture days, Switzerland
foodculture days is a Swiss cultural platform for knowledge-sharing on food and ecology, through artistic, transdisciplinary and collaborative practices. In an era of accelerated globalization, individualization and digitalization, foodculture days aims to be a catalyst for discussions open to all by practicing radical hospitality.
The platform offers a program of events and a biennale in Vevey, Switzerland, looking to rediscover the multiple meanings and functions of food on a daily basis, as well as the tangible or imperceptible impact of our individual and collective choices on the global environment. The platform brings together artists, scientists, farmers, cooks, philosophers, activists, gardeners, citizens and local experts interested in food as research subject as well as a tool for trans-cultural exchanges of knowledge and know-hows.
VILLA VILLA, Portugal
VILLA VILLA is a sustainable and climate-conscious arts programme dedicated to supporting contemporary artists, curators, writers, thinkers, and other cultural and environmental practitioners committed to more ecologically sensitive practices. With a programme of open-ended art residencies, exhibitions, talks, workshops, and culinary and food-based research, VILLA VILLA aims to create a safe and sustainable place for art practitioners to engage with ideas of contemporary sustainability and to grow as a community that care for people and planet. Organised around the principles of sustainable living, VILLA VILLA aims to participate in the creation of new experiences built on social and environmental interaction and strives towards having a neutral impact.
Waking Life, Portugal
Waking Life is an exercise in world building. It is a space for artistic experimentation, spirited self-expression and imagineering of the type of society we could cultivate if there was freedom to diverge from default reality. Concretely, an annual festival summons the wider community to a weeklong peak experience in the summer, funneling eclectic music & art as well as countercultural workshops, performances & more undefinable formats of human interaction into the arid landscape of Alentejo. Aside from festival production, the other 359 days of the year are dedicated to a comprehensive rewilding and land regeneration project that is reintroducing endemic ecosystems while bringing about ecological resilience. Spiraling out from the stewardship of the land, events, meet-ups and exchanges are organised with the local community to cross-pollinate daring ideas & ideals, hybridize siloed cultures, and experiment with possible models of new rurality. The project’s mission is ever-evolving as an unfolding collective dream – in essence, it is a commoning of some of our disillusioned generation’s desires for a meaningful existence.
SOMALGORS74, Switzerland
SOMALGORS74 is an independent cultural initiative located in the alpine village of Tschlin (Engadin valley, Switzerland). SOMALGORS74 defines itself as platform for cultural exchange and is committed to situated processes of co-creation. All activities and transdisciplinary projects aim at engaging with the village, its alpine environment, its present, past and future. The projects unfold both in the house and barn as in public space. The initiator of SOMALGORS74 is Curdin Tones, who lives and works as an artist both in Amsterdam and Tschlin. As a cultural initiative, SOMALGORS74 wants to emphasize that as a human being you can act out of a connection with your environment. Since 2017, changing groups have been living and working in conviviality at SOMALGORS74, putting such an understanding of culture into a local practice. Together these temporary communities have realized projects such as Il Bügl Public (The Public Fountain), L’Archiv Da Regordanzas Da Las Savurs Alpinas (The Archive of Alpine Olfactory Memories) and Adüna Davo Il Nas (Follow Your Nose).
Ki Culture, Netherlands
Ki Culture is an international nonprofit working to unite culture and sustainability. Ki Culture currently has 2 pilot programs: Ki Futures and Getting Climate Control Under Control. Ki Futures empowers professionals in the cultural sector to embed sustainability in their practice through coaching, training, bespoke resources, tools, collaboration, and knowledge exchange. Most importantly, Ki Futures taps into a global network of diverse professionals who are passionately dedicated to making culture sustainable. The program works to enable the creation of policies to reduce carbon footprints, collaboratively decolonize institutions and practices, create inclusive, accessible spaces, promote sector-wide circular solutions and implementations, and incorporate all voices in collections and programs. The Getting Climate Control Under Control initiative is an 18-month pilot that provides coaching and training for staff and walks museums and galleries through the process of changing climate control conditions, which is one of the most energy intensive aspects of the art and cultural world. Guided by leading experts in preventive conservation and energy efficiency, and focused on collective action, the program will ensure that the transition to more environmentally sustainable practices also maintains the best preservation conditions for collections.
Quinta das Relvas, Portugal
Quinta das Relvas Association is a non-profit NGO founded in 2016 and located in Branca, Portugal, dedicating itself to non-formal education activities in Arts and Sustainability with a view to a better social future. With its headquarters in an increasingly sustainable farm, Quinta das Relvas consists of a multidisciplinary team that uses the farm as a laboratory to collaboratively develop, share and promote educational experiences that can take the form of artistic residencies, workshops, conferences, trainings, internships, volunteering programs or international exchanges. In this way, Quinta das Relvas promotes social participation and collective creative and critical thinking for a more sustainable and resilient future, the reconsideration of the rural context and the decentralisation of access to enjoyment and training in the area of Culture.