If We Can't Save the Planet, There's Still Space ... Or Not?

Wednesday night saw our last discussion round at the Künstlerhaus. Aptly titled Living with Climate Change, I attended the evening hoping for more distinct ideas than the usual spongy we have to change our lifestyle that is hardly ever followed up with concrete ideas. The panelists that night, Raimar Stange, freelance curator, art critic and journalist, Friedrich von Borri

es, architect and involved at several universities, and Harald Welzer, sociologist and social psychologist who also heads research programmes concerning the so-called ClimateCulture, agreed with each other that we in fact cannot stop climate change, but in fact need to adapt.

The agreement stopped though. Small groups and communities were brought up and how they manage to start small changes that have the potential to snowball into something bigger, and art was assigned the potential to be a social conscience and show people realities, which are both tried and tested ideas, but in the end the panel, moderated well by Baerbel Harte, assistant to the head of the summer academy, fell short of being serious and at some point was nothing but elderly men bickering at each other, one more than the others.

What's missing, like always, is the practical aspect. If we think about what art can do in connection to climate change, why don't we start with ourselves? Sit down and think about, "What materials do I use in my art? How and where are they produced? What happens to the leftovers?" It's a small start but I believe this is how it needs to start, without lofty plans to safe the entire world at once but by individuals sitting down and examining their way of life, and then getting up to change it. Art can definitely help to start this process, but let's not raise it on a pedestal and promote it as a solution when it's very much part of the problem. [mp]