Networking the arts to save the Earth

Cathy Fitzgerald, film-maker and author of ecoartnotebook.com, has completed a research paper on the “sometimes under-utilised potential of online art and ecology networks“:

Online social networks are a recent global phenomenon of the last five years. This paper considers the value and under-realised potential of online social networks that connect cultural practitioners and organisations who are responding to ecological concerns across the world. That the cultural sector will have a significant role in engaging the world’s audiences and projecting new visions of how humanity may live more sustainably on this finite earth is increasingly recognised. However, while online social networks have in the last few years made art and ecology activities more visible their use has not been strategically utilised or examined in detail and efforts across the sector are as yet scattered and uneven. To fully harness the potential of these radical new and change-making communication tools, art and ecology networks that reference responses to ecological concerns, and in particular climate change, would clearly benefit from implementing online strategies from environmental and political activism, marketing strategies from business, as well as connecting with social media experts and research from the social sciences.

The full paper can be downloaded at http://ecoartnotebook.com/?page_id=1511

By Sacha Kagan

Research Associate at the ISCO - Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization (ISKO - Institut für Soziologie und Kulturorganisation), Leuphana University Lueneburg, Sacha Kagan founded the International level of Cultura21, Network for Cultures of Sustainability, as well as the International Summer School of Arts and Sciences for Sustainability in Social Transformation (ASSiST). The focus of his research and cultural work lies in the trans-disciplinary field of arts and (un-)sustainability. Doctor in Philosophy (Leuphana University Lueneburg) with a thesis on the subject of culture, the arts and sustainability under the perspective of complexity ; M.A. in Cultural Economics (Erasmus University Rotterdam) ; and Graduate of Sciences Po Bordeaux (political sciences). For Cultura21, Sacha is also coordinating the eBooks series, the regular updates on our multi-lingual website, the English section of our webmagazine and the work of our Lueneburg-based interns.