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SciArt: Science art society

Articles 2

Fostering knowledge valorisation through the arts and cultural institutions

Excerpt 

This study investigates the role(s) that arts and cultural organisations can play in fostering knowledge valorisation for the benefit of society, and how European valorisation policy can contribute to strengthening the impact of the arts and cultural organisations in knowledge valorisation processes. Based on a literature review and interviews, almost 100 inspiring practices, as well as eight in-depth case studies, it shows how the arts and cultural institutions in Europe already participate in knowledge creation and valorisation processes, and take up different roles to better connect research with society. The study also highlights the main barriers that currently limit arts and cultural organisations from realising their full potential contribution in fostering knowledge valorisation. Based on the findings, the study formulates recommendations on how the European Commission can further improve the conditions in the EU to tap into the potential of the arts and cultural organisations for increasing the impact of knowledge valorisation arising from research.

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Reference

European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Fostering knowledge valorisation through the arts and cultural institutions, Publications Office of the European Union, 2022, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/377987


 

Microphones dropped into ocean off Greenland to record melting icebergs

Excerpt

Artist Siobhán McDonald will turn recordings into an acoustic installation exploring humanity’s impact on the ocean

 

Siobhan McDonald is a JRC artist-in-residence working with Arwyn JONES on soils and permafrost. Last week The Guardian (see The Guardian 19/10/2022, p.26) dedicated an article to her work in the arctic.

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Reference

Carrol, Rory "Microphones dropped into ocean off Greenland to record melting icebergs", online: The Guardian , Oct, 2022


Becoming World-Makers with a New Global Bauhaus

Excerpt

The NEB presents an urgent call to action, rallying, finally, all to contribute actively to the greatest challenge humanity has faced. As practitioners of SciArt, we think the NEB creates an opportunity to push these practices from niche to public field, thrusting SciArt beyond its conventional spaces (lab, studio, exhibition or performance). SciArt practitioners have hands-on experience in implementing artistic projects within scientific set-ups and vice-versa, often relating to diverse stakeholders; provoking new perspectives on exploration, introspection and behavior; and fostering meaning, emotions and values both individually and societally.

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Reference

Ayton-Shenker Diana; “Becoming World-Makers with a New Global Bauhaus”. Leonardo, 55 (4): 324, 2022 doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_e_02220


 

Culture Action Europe; Position Paper on the New European Bauhaus

Excerpt

In reaction to the Commission’s Communication on the New European Bauhaus, and in order to constructively contribute to the own-initiative report by the European Parliament, Culture Action Europe has consulted its wide cross sectoral membership made by over 170 networks, organisations, policy-makers, activists, individuals, to draft the following policy recommendations.

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Reference

Culture Action Europe; Position Paper on the New European Bauhaus, 2022.


 

S+T+ARTS Collaboration Toolkit

Excerpt

“This toolkit has been developed as a practical resource to support artists, researchers, technology experts, and companies in finding a common ground and language, identifying goals and objectives, offering guidance to plan and execute a collaborative project with the aim to maximise the impact of the outcomes.”

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Reference

S+T+ARTS Collaboration Toolkit. Rodolfo Groenewoud van Vliet. Contributors Ramona Van Gansbeke, Tânia Moreira, Aurélie Delater, Lucy Bunnell, Camille Baker Editors: Ramona Van Gansbeke, Lija Groenewoud van Vliet, Tânia Moreira. Published by: STARTS Ecosystem, 2020.


 

Understanding the value of arts & culture: the AHRC Cultural Value Project

Excerpt

This report presents the findings of the Cultural Value Project, one of the most in-depth attempts yet made to understand the value of the arts and culture – the difference that they make to individuals and to society. The three year project, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, has been looking into the question of why the arts and culture matter, and how we capture the effects that they have.

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Reference

Understanding the value of arts & culture: the AHRC Cultural Value Project, 2016 by AHRC.


 

The Smartest Building in the World

Excerpt

This is the Edge, and it’s quite possibly the smartest office space ever constructed.

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Reference

Randall, Tom: The Smartest Building in the World, Bloomberg, 2015


 

Policy Handbook on Artists' Residencies

Excerpt 

The aim of the Policy Handbook is to provide an analysis of the value of artists’ residencies and to identify examples of good practice. It also looks at recent trends, benefits and success factors to inform policymakers and practitioners of the best way to support and develop residency programmes in the 21st century.

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Reference

Policy Handbook on Artists' Residencies, 2014 by Open Method of Coordination (OMC) group of EU Member State experts on Artists’ Residencies.


 

Are We Talking About Climate Realism

Excerpt

Artist and researcher Jol Thoms offers his reflections on No Happy Ending: Storytelling at the end of the world, the recent CREAM Documentaries of the Imagination discussion between lead researcher and award-winning filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing, The Look of Silence) and Mushroom at the End of the World (2015) author and anthropologist Anna Tsing. In this conversation, the radical thinkers and makers focussed on a critical question concerning communication in the inevitable planetary condition of climate catastrophe, asking: “How on Earth do we tell stories if indeed there may be no happy ending?”

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Reference

Thoms, Jol "Are We Talking About Climate Realism?", online: CREAM , 2022


 

Fossil fuels v our future: young Montanans wage historic climate fight

Excerpt

16 young people, who were between the ages of two and 18 when they filed the lawsuit in March 2020, have already felt the impacts of climate change, from dangerous air quality brought by wildfires to the extreme drought that jeopardizes some of their family-owned cattle ranches. As these environmental consequences mount, young people have emerged as a leading force in the climate activism movement.

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Reference

Uyeda, Lay Revy “Fossil fuels v our future: young Montanans wage historic climate fight”, the Guardian, online, 2022. 


 

This Canadian river is now legally a person. It’s not the only one

Excerpt

Granting rivers legal personhood represents a seismic shift from the bedrock belief in Western society that humans are at the apex of the natural world. But for many Indigenous people, the concept of nature as a sentient equal to humans is nothing new. In Maori culture, for example, ancestors, or tupuna, are embodied in the landscape. “I see the river and the trees as ancestors,” says Uapukun Mestokosho, a member of the Mutehekau Shipu Alliance, the committee that advocated for the river’s legal rights. “They’ve been here long before we have and deserve the right to live.

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Reference

Berge, Chloe “This Canadian river is now legally a person. It’s not the only one.”, National Geographic, online, 2022.


 

Give legal rights to animals, trees and rivers, say experts

Excerpt

Ecuador and Bolivia have already enshrined rights for the natural world, while there is a campaign to make ecocide a prosecutable offence at the international criminal court. The report for the Law Society, the professional body for solicitors in England and Wales, explores how the relationship between humans and mother earth might be recalibrated in the future.

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Reference

Siddique, Haroon “Give legal rights to animals, trees and rivers, say experts”,the Guardian, online, 2022. 


 

O futuro é indígena

Excerpt

Through “O futuro é indígena,” we want to remind people that we Indigenous peoples are the stewards of the Earth’s most critical biodiversity. The world’s largest interconnected communities of species live in our ancestral territories, and it’s our job to protect them.

It is of utmost importance, then, that when we speak of biodiversity, we begin by speaking of us as Indigenous peoples: when our bodies are under threat, so too is the collective body of the Earth and, consequently, the future of both humanity and the rest of the Earth’s community.

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Reference

Aedy, Alice and Terena, Eric “O futuro é indígena”, online, wepresent, 2022.

 

Exxon must go to trial over alleged climate crimes, court rules

Excerpt

The Massachusetts high court on Tuesday ruled that the US’s largest oil company, ExxonMobil, must face a trial over accusations that it lied about the climate crisis and covered up the fossil fuel industry’s role in worsening environmental devastation.

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Reference

McGreal Chris, “Exxon must go to trial over alleged climate crimes, court rules” online, the Guardian, online, 2022.

 

Historic’ vote means Italian state must now protect animals and ecosystems

Excerpt

“The Italian parliament approved a law that means the state must safeguard ecosystems and biodiversity “in the interest of future generations.”

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Reference

Frost, Rosie “‘Historic’ vote means Italian state must now protect animals and ecosystems” euronews.green, online, 2022


 

German judges visit Peru glacial lake in unprecedented climate crisis lawsuit.

Excerpt 

In a global first for climate breakdown litigation, judges from Germany have visited Peru to determine the level of damage caused by Europe’s largest emitter in a case that could set a precedent for legal claims over human-caused global heating.

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Reference

Collyns, Dan “German judges visit Peru glacial lake in unprecedented climate crisis lawsuit” online, the Guardian, online, 2022.


 

Ten ways to confront the climate crisis without losing hope

Excerpt

I believe we now need to tell stories about how beautiful, how rich, how harmonious the Earth we inherited was, how beautiful its patterns were, and in some times and places still are, and how much we can do to restore this and to protect what survives. To take that beauty as a sacred trust, and celebrate the memory of it. Otherwise we might forget why we are fighting.

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Reference

Solnit, Rebecca “Ten ways to confront the climate crisis without losing hope”, the Guardian, online, 2021.


 

Should rivers have the same rights as people?

Excerpt 

The changes in the legal system deeply affect the psyche. If the law says I’m in relationship with the ocean and the river then it won’t be long before people start behaving as if we are interconnected with the other life forms on the planet.

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Reference

Barkham, Patrick “Should rivers have the same rights as people?”, the Guardian, online, 2021


 

The pandemic is a warning: we must take care of the earth, our only home

Excerpt

It would be a mistake to believe that the pandemic is a crisis that will end, instead of the perfect warning for what is coming, what I call the new climatic regime. It appears that all the resources of science, humanities and the arts will have to be mobilised once again to shift attention to our shared terrestrial condition.

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Reference

Latour, Bruno “The pandemic is a warning: we must take care of the earth, our only home”, the Guardian, online, 2021.


 

Learning about climate change in, with and through art.

Excerpt

The paper provides guidance for involvement in, with, and through art and makes suggestions to create links between disciplines to support meaning-making, create new images, and metaphors and bring in a wider solution space for climate change. Going beyond the stereotypes of art as communication and mainstream climate change education, it offers teachers, facilitators, and researchers a wider portfolio for climate change engagement that makes use of the multiple potentials of the arts.

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Reference

Bentz, Julia “Learning about climate change in, with and through art.” Climatic Change 162, 1595–1612, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02804-4.


 

Can we protect Nature by giving it legal rights?

Excerpt

Rights of Nature offers a potentially transformative approach to environmental advocacy by offering an enhanced potential for alliance and coalition building. Currently, environmental battles are often fought on a case-by-case basis, with individuals and organizations lining up with a specific cause, rather than pursuing the bigger aim of protecting an ecosystem as a whole, now and into the future. By bringing together people who have previously worked separately to protect not only against the next looming threat, but to establish rights that can be enforced into the future, Rights of Nature could open the door to a whole new world of environmental protection.

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Reference

Levang, Emily “Can we protect Nature by giving it legal rights?” ensia, online, 2020.


 

Why all human rights depend on a healthy environment

Excerpt

Yet all human rights ultimately depend on a healthy biosphere. Among the human rights being threatened and violated by the ecosystem degradation and the decline of biodiversity are the rights to life, health, food, a healthy environment, water, an adequate standard of living and culture.

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Reference

Boyd, David R. “Why all human rights depend on a healthy environment”, The Conversation, online, 2020.


 

Human-made materials now equal weight of all life on Earth

Excerpt

The material scale of the human enterprise helps explain how we’ve managed to transform global nutrient cycles, alter the climate, and drive myriad species to the brink of extinction.

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Reference

Stone, Maddie “Human-made materials now equal weight of all life on Earth” National Geographic, online, 2020.


 

Rights Of Nature, Earth Democracy And The Future Of Environmental Governance

Excerpt

Earth jurisprudence, is an emerging theory of law and governance that requires a radical rethinking of humanity’s place in the world, to acknowledge the history and origins of the universe as a guide to humanity and to see our place as one of many interconnected members of the Earth community.

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Reference

Maloney, Michelle “Rights Of Nature, Earth Democracy And The Future Of Environmental Governance”, Green Agenda, online, 2019


 

When Courts meet Nature. A real case on rights of Nature

Excerpt

The Constitution of Ecuador recognizes Nature as a subject of rights. This recognition, dating back to 2008, has been of difficult to integrate and to apply in complex situations because traditionally humans consider Nature as an object , or more specifically, as a resource. Accordingly, Courts of Justice have not given Nature a voice. However, in this case, the Constitutional Court —in a turn of Copernican proportions—recognized Nature as a subject to constitutional rights.

 

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Reference

Echeverría, Hugo “When Courts meet Nature. A real case on rights of Nature”, Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, 2018