Art and Sustainability: Between criticism and participation in policy discourses.

Abstract

Over the last decades, policies concerning Sustainable Development have spread extensively at international, European, national and local level. Moreover, governments have started looking as Culture as catalyst for an ecological awareness. From considering the role that Culture play in revealing ecological problems such as biodiversity, waste and energy issues, to examining the way in which artists and artworks enrich our multidimensional understanding of sustainability. Despite that, some artistic discourses might have altered into a “mere” rhetoric, losing some of its intrinsic meaning. As some artists concerning sustainable development go on repeating themselves, being supported by big fossil companies and losing some of their radical critique of certain models. The risk is that of generating artistic practices which no longer involve the activities at the core of Sustainability, and are therefore unable to sustain its development. It is therefore intended to indicate the aims and results of this dynamic dialogue, which it is hoped will lead to a radical role of the arts into an interdisciplinary discourse of sustainability, which is able to cope with cultural diversity and new and ongoing environmental challenges.