What is sustainable in the context of artistic work?

Are there principles and tools we can identify, cultivate and eventually help multiply? How to deal with dilemmas such as the wish and need for international exchange on the one hand and CO2 prints of traveling on the other? What can we learn in arts from ecological systems, what from ecological research regarding sustainability?


What can art contribute to ecological research and progressive socio-political developments and implementations? Can sustainability be practised, and be a practice? Which steps could we start to take NOW in the art world, and where could we be in 5, 10, 20 years from now?


What is sustainable for you? In this particular moment and context?

A proposal to open our thoughts on this topic from a sensorial point of entry: Maybe you want to bite into something (if not into an apple, then whatever eat-able you feel like)? Once done so, be - at least for a moment - fully with your sensations, impressions and thoughts that arise.

partner organisations

context 

A great amount of the most important decisions in the world are made under unsustainable conditions. We all know from daily experience that we feel better, are more efficient, make better decisions and are also more empathetic and patient when we sleep well, eat well, spend time in fresh air and don’t rush things.

In short: sustainability starts with the body, and where it doesn’t, it exploits our most fundamental needs and capacities.
Our bodies are our instruments and we depend on their well functioning, so we better take care of them.

In dance practice, we usually warm up before we start to rehearse. We prepare ourselves individually, tune in with the group, space and conditions we are part of.

Dancers spend a substantial amount of time and invest energy into making themselves a sustainable feature in the context they work and exist in. And they are forced to be humble enough to respect the body's timing: a muscle can only grow as fast or slow as it does, a bone heals in the time that it needs. Not respecting this timing one will pay a price for it, short or long term.

What would happen if politicians would take five minutes to breath together before they open a polarised discussion in parliament? If CEOs would take a silent walk in a park while making decisions that affect hundreds of employees and the environment?

implementation

Since the beginning of the project – in fact already during the process of writing the concept for RELAY and ongoingly ever since, the RELAY group including participating students and guests raised the following questions:
What is sustainable in the context of artistic work?
Are there principles and tools we can identify, cultivate  and eventually help multiply?
How to deal with dilemmas such as the wish and need for international exchange on the one hand and CO2 prints of traveling on the other?
What can we learn in arts from ecological systems, from ecological research and engineering,  e.g. principles of permaculture? How to acknowledge and make use of the interconnectedness of all living creatures regarding sustainability?
 Or principles of technologies such as district heating networks, where e.g. industrial residual heat is recycled into domestic heating systems in the neighborhood?

And what can art contribute to ecological research and progressive socio-political developments and implementations?
 

Can sustainability be practised, and be a practice?

These questions serve as a monitor for each individual, and for us as the RELAY group, to raise consciousness regarding our own perceptions, practices and behaviors, as well as our wishes and aims that may still wait for us in the future, in the frame of sustainability.

Which features of the movement and sound material will stay, which will be thrown away? What of the forms created will be used to contain other contents in other occasions? What of the modes of working together, that then let forms and contents emerge and circulate? Future will show; however, all these are set into the universe now, and available to be further developed, transformed, dismissed or forgotten.

Choices we would not have without the acts of materialisation of this inspiring days, weeks, months and eventually years we spent together.

To a large degree, it seems that learning takes place on an other level rather than in the actual contents. Results and outcomes are therefore very hard to account for. They might only be seen in ten years, and if so, they might not even be recognised as such.

The ongoing presence of such questions as those above,  in one way or the other certainly imprinted themselves into every RELAY participant´s system, both on an artistic level, and/ or on levels such as traveling, eating, consuming, etc. 

One conclusion we can draw is that practising sustainability is easy and difficult at the same time. It is easy in the sense that we can practise it on a concrete, maybe very small and low threshold level - it depends on us : breathing, taking public transoort instead of our car today for our shopping, re-visiting yesterdays rehearsals´s material in a soft manner , etc. It is difficult in the sense that on many levels things don´t depend on us (only), and we need to demand  (or patientally wait for?)  better infrastructures ( e.g. of international train concections) , fairer price systems (e.g. taxes of planes vs. trains in relationship, taking in acount the CO2 prints), better funding structures (taking in account the often higher prices for more sustainable manners of traveling, constumes and other artistic materials, rehearsal hours etc.)

Through RELAY we gained valuable experiences, some giving hope, some being rearding and fun, some creating frustrations and impatience. Since we decided to go about this subject matter rather pragmatically than idealogically, everyone could make their own choices on how to deal, how to act on questions and decision about sustainability. Some of us didn´t take a train instead of planes throughout the 3 years, some of us did so many times. Yet the ones that didn´t, knew and will know about the ones who did, and thus know that it is possible, and mabye not so difficult or uncomcortable as it seems.  All of us witnessed artistic material to be re-layed, re-cylcled, re-formed, instead of being worked on and shared once, and afterwards being out away.  Each of us experienced the potential of the relay-moments and spaces, that often remain un-attended, un-used, un-recycled.

Each of us will take this somehow somewhere into our next projects, practises, collaborations, relationships.

We can be part of making things change, in any moment.

Which steps could we start to take NOW? Where could we be in 5, 10, 20 years from now in the art world? 
What is sustainable for you, reading this? In this particular moment and context, and also beyond the here and now, in your daily life, professional and private? What matters? What is pragmatically possible, what is desirable? What are you inspired by? What is encouraging you?

examples of what is sustainable - a small collection:

'Sustainability is that moment when you decide to not hurt yourself and others. A delicate balance between survival and overconsumption.'

 Andreea

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'It is best not to invent, but to illustrate with snapshots of real life, from the political-geographical area where I live.

1. The most handy picture is of how my fellow citizens, under administrative guidance, collect waste: almost not at all. This is a European capital, December 2023, a civilised neighbourhood. Two weeks ago recycling bins were installed, but they are still sealed... It's a picture of administrative backwardness and impotence about recycling. It will be better in a long time, as there is still a need to educate citizens about it. In small towns and villages it will be much more difficult, probably a lengthy process. (see attached photo)

2. The Danube is a European symbol. It crosses several countries and flows into the Black Sea through the continent's only delta, a unique land. There, at the end of its journey, we see a number of environmental problems. With a simple google search you can develop this subject immensely.

3. A Romanian researcher has mapped pollution by placing sensors around the world. Find the map here: https://www.uradmonitor.com/

4. And a positive aspect. There are mountain greening campaigns initiated and carried out by private associations. They collect mountains of rubbish left behind by uneducated tourists (and here's another negative). As a personal observation in this regard, I would give a recent example when I walked a very difficult mounted trail. It was perfectly clean, not a trace of waste! Why? Because it took effort to get access there, an effort we should all be used to. So, we still come down to state policy, education and family. So, as a conclusion, sustainability = education.'

Catalin

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For me, sustainability is

to see things in a grander scale, while listening to small narratives

It`s complex but not fractured, or fractured but not separated

It's not as much slowness as it is different times and timings:

to be with shifting speeds, whatever they might be

to not control timings from above

It`s arguing from below. Caring and crying and sometimes yelling and often resting

It`s a movement that can’t be executed on its own

the direction of sustainability is downwards

Maia

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'Impulsively I would say that in a time characterised by superficiality, sensory overload and instant gratification, in which we are overwhelmed and disoriented by constant distraction, in moments where our inner self is distant, I find it is sustainable to scratch the surface, to stay with something and dive into depth.'        

Vera

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Here are some tools for sustainability in my life:

Autonomy in time management. I get much more easily stressed out when I don’t have a bit of control over my time. It is not about being able to disappear for a month, but just to more or less decide when to work and not to work during the day. To be able to do something else for 20 minutes makes a huge difference for me. Small time pockets.

Humor.

Good enough. To assume we all do our best and that the results produced will be good enough.

Flexibility.

Rasmus

TOOLS 
on sustainability

SUSTAINING

Start from the word 'to sustain' and create a concrete experience from it. This could be: to sustain a breath, a sound, a movement, a state etc.

 From this very concrete experience identify its sustainability (e.g. how long does this breath sustain itself? When do you need to re-initiate? Do this with different examples, so you will have some things that end, some that exhaust themselves, some that keep running by themselves, some that need some intervention in order to sustain.

 When is sustainability desirable, when even existential?

 What are things and processes in (your) life that are sustainable?

 Without having to answer these questions in depth, start to move in a way that feels both comfortable, yet also exciting/interesting, ideally in a very simple way.

Pursue this for some time while monitoring your sensations, feelings, thoughts and movements. Keep asking: 

When am I losing energy and need to feed in new forces? Can I tell why this happens, and if so, could I change it ('close the energetic leak')?

When do movement and sensation, feelings, thoughts generated sustain themselves? Can I tell why, and if so, can I benefit from this realisation?

When do I feel like gaining energy? Again: Can I tell why, and if so, can I benefit from this realisation?

You can do this by yourself or in relation with something or someone.

After the practice, see how maybe some of your findings might be applicable (directly or indirectly) to larger realms of society and life.

SLOW TRAVELLING
There are always countless reasons why - 'this time'- not to take a train: the schedule, the effect on the body being in trains or busses for days, budget (ironically, within Europe slow travel is many times still more expensive than flying. Often to an extent that makes the choice unsustainable on monetary levels).
Deciding for slow traveling can create an attitude and a commitment that sets free a transformation of perception of time, space, body, social relations, and work.
Once accepting the duration given, 'lost' time converts into 'gained' time: When do I have so much time for myself in my everyday life? When can I read and write mails without rushing and - rare feeling - finish to-do lists thoroughly, read a book, news or listen to music? Simply look outside the window? Fall asleep for a nap whenever my body asks for it? Be in real time conversation with colleagues, friends and family members?

Short version:
Commit to your decision to travel slowly with full heart. Accept the long time frame that is ahead of you, and let 'lost' time convert into 'gained' time. Make use of and enjoy the gained time.

TUNING INTO WHAT IS ALREADY THERE / EC(H)O-TUNING
Enter a place, a moment and tune into what is already there (and was there before you arrived). Ask yourself: what do I bring to this place, this moment, this situation? What moves, shifts, what stays, gets even more fixed? What has disappeared beyond my perception? What assimilates, what collides? How can I be respectful and mindful with what I meet, and contribute with what I bring in most possible constructive and fertile ways?
This practice includes a quite subtle and virtuosic negotiation of calibrating leading-following, reading the situation and - when allowed or needed - stepping in, making proposals, and seeing what is happening with it. A giving and taking, like in dancing or playing music together, with whom and whatever is present.

SLOWING THINGS DOWN
Slow yourself down by taking a walk.

BREATHING
Take a conscious, nourishing breath whenever you feel stressed, but also when you don´t.

CHECKING IN
Ask yourself  on a regular basis: what is sustainable for me in order to be most possibly alive, sensitive and productive during a session/day/week/ month/term?
When do I feel energized? Can I tell where the energy comes from? How can I  make it likely to feel energized again in this way the next time? When do I lose energy? Can I tell where, why or how I lose it? Can I prevent myself from losing energy again next time?

CLOSING THINGS
Make it a habit to consciously close things (your electronic devices, a conversation, a process, a project, etc.). The tendency to keep things open can cause feelings of being overburdened. And closing can be so satisfying, and - from an artistic point of view - a beautiful thing to pay attention to (think of wonderful endings of your favorite novels, movies, pieces of music or dance…).

Find more practices on other topics in our ToolCloud

ToolCloud