Creative team is trying to develop new ideas while sitting on a floor in a inspiring room. (Photo by iStock/dusanpetkovic) 

There’s no point making work “about” climate change.
In times of crisis, the work has to work, it has to do work. Artistic praxis
should be part of the change we wish to see: practical,
educational, regenerative.

This sentiment, shared by author and artist James Bridle on social media last year, resonated with Arising Quo, a wealth-redistribution initiative that explores where and how to resource work that lifts us out of current systems. Arising Quo had been paying attention to an emerging field of practice at the intersection of arts, culture, ecology, spirituality, and land-based work that addresses the polycrisis.

Practices for Transitions in a Time Between Worlds

There is no manual for living through our wildly unpredictable times. How do we imagine, prepare for, and shape an unknown future? Who do we need to be or become? Instead of a road map, we offer this supplement to illuminate inquiries, capacities, and practices that we believe can open consequential new pathways to a better tomorrow. Sponsored by Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Sites of… Practice, hosted by E-WERK Luckenwalde, was initiated to support this emerging field and to learn about the conditions that make this work possible and the capacities that evolve from these sites. These are sites where artists, culture-makers, and political and ecological thinkers gather, build, make, and create in specific contexts: experimenting with and demonstrating what’s possible for how we live now and in the future. They are showing what artistry and culture-making work can be of service to, going far beyond making art about the climate or polycrisis, and instead helping prepare for and live through it.

The Sites of… Practice includes the following places where these capacities are being developed:

  • Vessel (Greece) is a collective studio and arts and event space with a core interest in ecology, resilience, and education.
  • Estudio Nuboso (Panama) is a platform dedicated to restoring the relationship between humans and nature and creating more reciprocity with the planet.
  • The Institute for Postnatural Studies (Spain) is a center for artistic experimentation that explores and problematizes postnature as a framework for contemporary creation.
  • Cuerpoterritorio (Spain) is a cultural association that promotes artistic expression and eco-social awareness through an eco-feminist perspective by materializing values of care toward human and more-than-human communities.
  • ARE (Czech Republic) is a curatorial organization that has purchased a 2.8-hectare plot in the Orlické Mountains to establish a sustainable, biodiverse forest, animal refuge, and garden founded on permaculture principles and outdoor cultural events.
  • Mustarinda Association (Finland) is a nonprofit group of artists and researchers whose goal is to promote the ecological rebuilding of society, the diversity of culture and nature, and connections between art and science.

The ellipsis in the project’s title refers to the myriad ways in which these sites are experimenting with different forms of practice. As such, the project is infinitely changeable, as are the possibilities inherent in these new ways of developing creative ecologies: sites of (rooted, situated, reciprocal, reparative, systemic, collective) practice may, and will, emerge, as will our knowledge of the kinds of capacities and conditions needed for these times of great upheaval and transition.

Read more stories by Lucia Pietroiusti.