Research associate at Leuphana University Lueneburg's Institute for Theory and Research on Culture and the Arts (IKKK) in Germany, Sacha Kagan founded and coordinates Cultura21 International – Cultural Fieldworks for Sustainability: a network gathering artists, scientists and other cultural practitioners engaged for cultures of sustainability. He co-edited the publications Sustainability: a new frontier for the arts and cultures (VAS, 2008) and Sustainability in Karamoja? Rethinking the terms of global sustainability in a crisis region of Africa (Rüdiger Köppe, 2009), coordinated international projects and directed documentary films (e.g. Land of Thorns, 2008).

1.      What inspired you to form the international network Cultura21? What kind of needs does it fulfil?

I joined Cultura21 in 2006, when the network was founded in Germany aiming to shape a platform for cultural actors striving for sustainability (see: http://ww.cultura21.de). I then proposed to form a network on international level on the basis of the German one, to be launched in March 2007 at the occasion of the conference of the arts research network of the ESA (European Sociological Association) which Volker Kirchberg, myself and some more colleagues organized at the University of Lüneburg (and within which I organized a "Sustainability" stream as a major theme for the conference (see: www.new-arts-frontiers.eu ).

So, the international network Cultura21 was initiated at the beginning in 2007, uniting mostly artists and social scientists. In the meanwhile, it has grown and now it includes broader professional categories of people working also in the NGOs, civil society, as well as a wider range of arts practitioners from community arts, ecological art, media art, etc. In the meanwhile, Cultura21 opened a number of autonomous networks or organizations at national levels, in Italy, Mexico and Nordic Countries (Denmark-Sweden). We work with global partners, such as the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) since 2008.

If fulfilling one need, I would say that Cultura21 meets the need for paradigm-change, and for acting for and upon such change. That sounds very ambitious, and it is so. Rather than fulfilling "needs", Cultura21's idea is to look for new avenues of practice that lay beyond one's usual fields of work. Because, and this is a common theme among Cultura21 members, sustainability requires that we learn to work in inter- and transdisciplinary ways, and this is far from self-evident. Although transdisciplinarity is very fashionable nowadays in discourses, it is very little practiced.

2.      The International Network of Cultura21 has a wide ranges of interests which are divided into two streams: “The International Network of Cultura21 has a wide ranges of interests which, for clarity, can be divided into two main networking streams: the “Arts stream”, focusing on the role of the arts for the elaboration of cultures supporting the search process of Sustainability, and the “Interculturality, Diversity, Education and Media” stream, focusing on cultural expressions of sustainability.

The website mentions those 2 "streams", but in practice, we've decided to work and to network as one common platform. I should talk of two “sensibilities”, rather than two “streams”. At the international level of the network, so far, the artistic sensibility is most prominent (but with the arts as starting-point, one can and does also of course work for example on interculturality). The media sensibility is especially present in the web-magazine project, which is mainly in German language but also has a section for articles in English (see: magazin.cultura21.de – we welcome proposals for articles in English). So, the situation right now is that Cultura21 is very active on the role of the arts for sustainability, but without losing an open sensibility for all forms of cultural expressions. And we combine, on projects basis, arts and "non-art" actions and insights. In other words:  We are not a closed "art world" organization and this is the main meaning of keeping these 2 streams/sensibilities in mind.

3.      There is a “mushrooming effect” in the appearance of cultural networks globally-both online and offline. Why a user should register and become member of another one – to Cultura 21? What is the uniqueness in the networking content, services and offers?

There are many networks that exist primarily to promote artists' works. Our primary goal is to look for inter- and transdisciplinary teams and developing new methodologies. Also, there are very good international platforms for ecological art, for community art, for arts and sciences, for culture and development. On another hand, there are also active platforms and networks in the field of sustainable development, social engagement, slow food, etc. There are platforms working in similar areas as we do - "art and sustainability", i.e. promoting artistic work for sustainability. We are in contacts and we cooperate with some of them. I think we are the only one (or one among very few) platforms/networks acting to engage in both "sustainability" and "culture" understood in their widest perception. I would like to also emphasise that while we do value networking as one of our main activities, this is not our sole objective. A major goal of Cultura21 is to engage into concrete action-research practices that bring us closer to cultures of sustainability. The Cultura21 international motto is: "cultural fieldworks for sustainability".

4.      You are one of the authors of the very important and already quite popular 2008 publication “"Sustainability: a new frontier for the arts and cultures". Could you define the main message which you and your colleagues want to transmit to the readers with this publication?

I edited the book as a follow-up to the 2007 ESA Arts conference that we organized in Lüneburg. The book, published in 2008, shows both the common threads as well as the differences in researching on arts, culture and sustainability. This book incarnates the necessary inter-disciplinary level of work where different perspectives cast different lights on the cultural dimension of sustainability. It also starts pointing at certain competences and perceptions that shape the new paradigm of sustainability and proposes an agenda for research and action. The book represents an important foundational exercise for Cultura21 International, a basis upon which to build. It also met already a good echo indeed, from the German Commission of UNESCO, the IFACCA, the ASEF and others.

5.      You plan the first International Summer School of Arts and Sciences for Sustainability in Social Transformation to be held in Bulgaria in August 2010. The theme is “Walking and Places: building transformations.” What does this title mean, in short?

About the summer school, I need to answer in two steps: First and most importantly, about the overall concept of the school, and then, about the central theme for the school's first edition in 2010.

The school's overall concept responds to the challenges that I described above. The important question we ask is: How to construct together, proper methodologies for inter- and transdisciplinary work across and beyond the boundaries of existing artistic, scientific and other research and action practices? The school aims to build these necessary competences and methodologies for social transformations towards sustainable futures.

Each year, a specific case of an action-research methodology is chosen as a focus. For 2010, we chose Walking: Walking, as a practice for exploring, learning, mapping, and intervening, in urban and in rural contexts, and marking the relationships between cultural practices and their social and ecosystemic environments. Walking allows you to rediscover your urban or rural environment, re-attunes you to observing your surroundings, and stimulates introspection as well as a "psycho-geography" of emotions. Walking as a social activity, re-awakens the public agora, embodies participative democracy. It is therefore a very rich and insightful methodological basis for exploring how to shape "sustainable cities" for example, and more generally for awakening the "autoecopoïetic" sensibility that I mentioned above.

 6.      The partnership for this project is quite unique: 5 organisations on 3 continents. What are the today’s challenges and pluses of such global partnership schemes?

Of course, a global partnership is also an intercultural challenge. A lot of communication is necessary among the partner organizations, but this should be seen as a valuable learning-process rather than just a challenge. Besides, sustainability is a glocal challenge, so we have to face it in a glocal way, i.e. both rooted in real places and assuming "Earth-Citizenship" (an expression from Edgar Morin). The organizations engaged in the summer school are not only from different continents, they have different foci: The Red Latinoamericano de Arte para la transformacion Social is a network of community arts practitioners, with a tremendous experience. The International Council for Cultural Centers is a focal point for "living houses" for the engagement of communities in living immaterial cultural heritage. Such organizations have a lot to exchange with Cultura21, and we work together based on a synergetic conviction: that the whole of us is in many ways greater than the sum of our parts.

On the photo above: Sasha Kagan (left), Oleg Koefoed (middle), Francesca Cozzolino (right)