Sacha Kagan is a Research Associate at the Leuphana University Lüneburg, Institute for Theory and Research on Culture and the Arts (IKKK) in Germany. He is the founding coordinator and founding member of Cultura21 International – Cultural Fieldworks for Sustainability: a network bringing together artists, scientists and other cultural practitioners engaged for cultures of sustainability.

Sacha is also the founding director of the International Summer School of Arts and Sciences for Sustainability in Social Transformation (ASSiST). His main research and action area is the trans-disciplinary field of “arts and (un-) sustainability”. Some of his other areas of work and interest include the sociology of arts and culture, cultural economics, dance studies, documentary film, sustainability and sustainable development.

• Do you understand and do you agree with the statement that “culture is the fourth pillar of sustainability” (alongside social, environmental and economic issues)? How would you “translate” this expression in practical terms?

First of all, this “collective research in focus” is very timely. After the “Copenhagen blues” (I am referring to COP15, the UN Climate Conference in December 2009) many people feel that too many art institutions are currently withdrawing from “climate change” as a focus. What this also reveals is that, for many art institutions and policy-makers, this could be just another image thing and a trick to get subsidies, but not a genuine, long-term engagement, not necessarily part of a strategy.

However, let’s not forget that climate change is only one dimension of the “unsustainability” of our development model. It should not be the only issue to consider, as it has to be regarded together with issues such as: global justice, biodiversity, water, peace, cultural diversity and other important issues.

I do not define culture as a “fourth pillar of sustainability”, but rather speak of a “cultural dimension of sustainability” and of “cultures of sustainability”. Culture is a transversal dimension and defines, paradigmatically; the systems of values, norms and the very constitution of reality as we humans know it (or rather, culture co-constitutes our reality together with, and as part of nature). Culture is not merely a specific field or area and the word “pillar” is problematic.

Culture is the basis upon which a search process of sustainability can be founded: understanding sustainability not as a goal but as a process of a cultural evolution. Sustainability is not a mere question of technological innovations and more efficient resource usage, as the mainstream ideology of “ecological modernisation” claims. It is more fundamentally a cultural challenge that questions our civilisation model based on designed “progress” and “development”. It suggests, instead, to think in terms of “resilience” (i.e. asking questions from the point of view of the future development, considering cultural diversity, biodiversity and bottom-up adaptability as goals) and “co-evolution” (of human societies with non-human systems).

This also means that culture is part of nature (i.e. human cultures are emerging, hypercomplex subsystems of the Earth’s ecosystems), and that culture and nature are co-constructing each other.

In terms of actions, we need to unlearn a lot of things, and to learn anew. We need to unlearn top-down planning schemes, the fragmentation and “departmentalisation” of our knowledge (sciences, art, engineering, urbanism, etc. kept too strictly within their own boundaries) and un-ecological structures inherited from the two dominant ideologies of the nineteenth and twentieth century modernism (i.e. capitalist unregulated and global markets, as well as communist planning). We need to learn transversally, transdisciplinarily and contextually, and to learn thinking in terms of networks, ecologies, complex systems. And we need to learn with the body, experience, intuitions and creatively as much as analytically, i.e. paying respect to our brain’s abilities and developing a “sensibility to patterns that connect”, as I argue elsewhere in my writings and public speeches.

I am working with artists and cultural practitioners from Europe and Asia on a set of policy recommendations for Asia Europe Foundation’s “connecting civil societies” conference in preparation for the ASEM8 Summit in October 2010. The recommendations will be ready in November 2010 - here is what seems to emerge:

We need small transversal cultural centres in many communities (rather than flagship art institutions) that are :

• supporting and fostering sustainability initiatives (e.g. think of “transition towns” concerning climate change issues) but also critically challenging communities with art-originated questions. Not with the intention to shine within high-art critical circles, but to engage in constructive dialogues in communities and enhance sensibilities for complexity;
• collaborating with formal, informal and non-formal education institutions (from primary to higher and adult education) in order to foster context-based, experiential and transversal learning;
• inviting policy-makers in their projects, and vice versa, taking part in development processes, with the goal to gradually make policy-making more “iterative” (i.e. learning by/while doing) and less narrowly-rational, as well as to bring the cultural dimension of sustainability to the forefront of policy-making.

• What do artists and arts communities in your region/country do (and how) in order to translate global issues (including climate change) into artistic visions? Can you give an example?

The problem with many contemporary artists is that they propose “artistic visions” that are no less simplistic and superficial than mainstream discourses in the media, or that are so subjective and ego-centric, or so focused on an extremely specific phenomenon, that they are unable to translate complex global issues. This is really a great challenge to achieve this, and it requires that artists constantly question their practices, especially disciplinary practices inherited from modernism in art. Another risk is the fashion in art to be “critical”. Many artists and curators (and intellectuals) nowadays ask “critical” questions without knowing what they are talking about, i.e. with very superficial discourses. This is the case, for example, in the so-called “post-environmental” discourse of the curators in the exhibition catalogue Green washing(Bonacossa and Latitudes 2008).

Several examples of artists working in an interesting way with the issue of perception of climate change can be found in an article by Julien Knebusch (Knebusch 2008). The best example so far of an art project that not only addresses perceptions but also develops an action-oriented and complex enough sensibility is the work done since the late 1970s by the American artists Helen-Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison (the Harrisons Studio). An example is their latest work, Peninsula Europe: The Force Majeure , which aims to reform the ecological-political governance of the whole of Europe in the context of climate change and other inter-linked ecological crises. If there is one single art project going on now that I have to point at, as “translating global issues into artistic questions” in a meaningful way, this is it!

Another interesting approach is the one of Aviva Rahmani (also based in the US). She is working on “trigger points”, i.e. zones where physical environmental restoration can have high systemic effects (see Rahmani 2008, 2009 below ). She is also working on the COP political process (trying to understand social and political trigger points). She’s doing very interesting interdisciplinary work with scientists, connecting the points, fostering a “sensibility to patterns that connect”. She is preparing something for the next Climate Change Conference of the United Nations in Cancun in November 2010 (COP16).

• How do artists and arts organisations convey the message on climate change to citizens and communities? What feedback do they receive? Could you give an example of a recent art work or project on this matter?

I don’t believe in just delivering pre-defined “messages”. Or rather, I believe this is the job of communication/advertising agencies (who can then hire artists as contractors), rather than directly of artists as engaged citizens, as “artivists”, as “artiscientists”. However, I do believe in the responsibilities of artists as “artivists”, as “artiscientists”, to constantly reflect, learn, question and reconstruct messages, and to deliver this reflection directly in communities.

For example, I am unconvinced by most gallery art that addresses climate change. Gallery art can have indirect qualities as fundamental research in science does, and direct qualities when it engages cultural elites into reflection. But I don’t believe that’s enough, especially not concerning the urgent issue of climate change. Rather, what we need is the transversal interventions directly in communities. I do not mean having an artist bragging about how many energy-saving lamps or how much organic food one can consume. I mean reconnecting local people with nature and helping them to address complex questions of sustainability, and find their own ways.

Let me give an example: The ecological artist David Haley, in Manchester, England, is doing “wild wild walks” where people meet and walk to rediscover and explore the urban biodiversity. He has been doing it for a number of years already. Different experts, artists and local people are involved in these walks, and the walking discussions are at eye-level and informal (walking helps a lot in achieving that kind of a “genuine informality”). David Haley also organised a walk in Gabrovo, Bulgaria, alongside the river around which the whole city was constructed (the workshop was part of the “International Summer School of Arts and Sciences for Sustainability in Social Transformation” (ASSiST 2010). Rivers and watersheds are indeed often a great example of the complex relations between ecosystems, people and man-made infrastructures. They can be excellent learning sites!

• Does the policy framework in your country support issues related to climate change (for example, is there government support at regional or local level)? If yes, how? Is this support connected with supporting culture and arts projects related specifically to global issues such as climate change?

To add to my answer to the first question, which is related to this one: I do not believe very much in making big art exhibitions in flagship art institutions and asking “climate change” funding for this. The problem would be that politicians and media alike prefer a “big image” to meaningful ground work. They prefer immediate tangible results (e.g. 10% more energy efficiency in a neighbourhood), rather than having people asking questions, becoming constructively critical and then setting-up their own, bottom-up initiatives.

• How do you understand the dimension of “innovation” in projects related to climate change?

“Innovative” for me means “transformative” towards sustainability. If you mean by “innovative”, just brand new artists from 2010 who use media-art to “communicate” about climate change, then I am not the right “network broker” for that kind of art…