EcoArtLab
The EcoArtLab is a transdisciplinary think-and-do-tank at the Bern University of the Arts (HKB), which aims to initiate collaborations between artistic researchers, scientists, and the public. In cooperation with the mLAB at the University of Bern it explores how the interplay between artistic research, geography, critical sustainability research and climatology and opens up new encounters and approaches to reflect on climate justice.
Research
Relational encounters between art and climate change
Fridays for Future, climate crisis, net zero – the debate about climate change and ecological sustainability has moved to the center of society. The question is what options for action exist and what conditions must be in place for a societal transformation toward greater sustainability to be possible. When it comes to communicating environmental knowledge, climate researchers seek exchange with artists or adapt artistic processes in the course of a creative (re-)turn (Hawkins 2020, Marsten & deLeeuw 2013, Crang 2010). At the same time, artistic practice is turning to ecological themes. At the same time, it is debated to what extent the arts can actually generate sustainable ecological effects by fueling a thematic debate without, however, questioning structures and logics of production in the sense of a critical practice. More and more initiatives and funding bodies are also trying to bring artists together with climate researchers. Little is known about what new processes of knowledge generation are produced by these experimental arrangements.
This practice-based research project at the Institute for Practices and Theories of the Arts at the Bern University of the Arts (BFH) in cooperation with the mLAB at the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern investigates how the interplay of expertise from artistic research, geography and critical sustainability research and climatology can be made fruitful for the climate debate. It connects current discourses of Artistic Research, Ecological Arts and critical sustainability research in Geography, which have so far only been considered in isolation. What methodological approaches can be developed in the transdisciplinary collaborations to make climate change tangible as a hyperobject (Morton 2013) and to drive cultural change? The aim of the planned project is to first conduct a systematic investigation of the diverse approaches, institutional framings, and target groups of climate art projects in Switzerland. By climate art projects we mean collaborations between artists and scientists dealing with climate change and ecological sustainability. The results will be tested, researched and further developed in the EcoArtLab as an artistic-scientific experiment in collaboration with the actors. The project is funded by the Swiss National Scienc Foundation (SNSF).
The synthesis of the three subprojects results in an overview of the current trend of climate art, which makes it possible to develop criteria for the evaluation of such works as well as to give impulses for innovative forms of transdisciplinary collaboration in dialogue with practitioners – researchers, artists and institutions
Subproject 1: The Future Institution: Institutional Frameworks of Climate-Art Collaborations
analyzes the institutional frameworks of climate art projects in Switzerland (cultural institutions, funding agencies, universities) and asks to what extent this creates favorable conditions for artistic production (Brüggmann 2020). (Dr. Yvonne Schmidt)
Subproject 2: Methods of Knowledge Generation in Transdisciplinary Collaborations
investigates which strategies and methodological approaches emerge in the collaborations in interaction between ecologization of artistic practices and a creative (re-)turn in human geography (Hawkins 2020). (Johanna Paschen, PhD candidate)
Subproject 3: The Imagined Audience: Whom Climate-Art Projects Reach
focuses on the target groups addressed by these climate art projects in order to develop and implement an artistic mediation concept within the framework of an artistic-scientific doctorate. Theoretically, the concept of the ‘imagined audience’ or the ‘imagined layperson’ (Guggenheim et al. 2004) is used. Who are the projects designed for and who do they actually reach? (Riikka Tauriainen, PhD candidate).
SNSF-research project: “EcoArtLAb. Relational encounters between the arts and climate research”
We are glad to announce that the SNSF-research project has been approved. This practice-based research project at the Institute for Practices and Theories of the Arts at the Bern University of the Arts (BFH) in cooperation with the mLAB at the Institute of Geography at the University of Bern investigates how the interplay of expertise from artistic research, geography and critical sustainability research and climatology can be made fruitful for the climate debate. It connects current discourses of Artistic Research, Ecological Arts and critical sustainability research in Geography, which have so far only been considered in isolation.
Learn more about the research project in the HKB Newspaper article from September 2022.
Summer School 2020:
Documentation online
The documentation of the 2020 Summer School is now online. Find out more about single projects in the project-pages or have some insights into the whole Summer School in our documentation.
Workshop Beyond Participation: Reaching Institutional Openings
Join our workshop on April 10th 2021. The session will complete the methodology workshop on new approaches to the research of the changing institutional contexts of contemporary theatre and art production, held online in December 2020 and organized by Prof. Alexandra Portmann, Bern University/CH, and Prof. Peter M. Boenisch, Aarhus University/DK
Learn more about the workshop in our flyer.
Research Wednesday
Join the “Forschungs-Mittwoch” on the 25th of November 2020: The talk offers an insight into the results of a workshop week at the end of August 2020, in which students and researchers from the HKB, the Crowther Lab of the ETH Zurich and the Geographic Institute of the University of Bern worked together.
For more information, check out our flyer.
EcoArtLab is a project of the institute Praktiken und Theorien der Künste at the Bern University of the Arts (HKB) in cooperation with the mLAB of the University of Bern, founded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Fotos Research & Team by Riikka Tauriainen