Conversation about the expression "cultures of sustainability"
Here you will find the conversation among members about this expression that was used as subtitle for the international network...
This conversation initially took place on the mailing-list. This is why so many individual texts follow each other, under this single wikipage...
For information: Hans Dieleman selected some part of this conversation thread and put them on his website, before the wiki was created, into two topics:
Conversations on the concept of sustainability: http://artopie.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61&Itemid=84
Conversations on the culture of sustainability: http://artopie.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60&Itemid=84
In a different way I don’t feel “comfortable” in the idea of a «culture of sustainability» (and I star from that point of the Lunenburg Agenda, because it’s the nearest to my experience, and to my everyday life).
I’m lost in that definition in which I feel uncomfortable, It’s really hard to speak about feelings and to put words on it but when you speak about “culture of sustainability” I have the impression that you’re speaking about something with a concrete identity, something that we have the “mission” to create, a culture in favor of sustainability. These words for me mean like: “culture and sustainability are 2 different things, that never touch each other on the time, and now we have to think about a form of culture that can go on with sustainability”.
Maybe yes, maybe I have not understand, but what I think, it’s that culture have, from everyday through time, walk on the same way and direction that sustainability. Sustainability need of culture to “materialize” herself, now, I think, we have only to link the 2 identity. I think that sustainability it’s a universal element of the culture, but not everyday they go in the same direction. I means “ a culture of sustainability” have to grows up by herself, because we need of that (in the same way that men have the need of communicate so they created before a language by signs, and after by sounds). She’s is still alive in the works of a lot of artist that create in that direction, but that don’t give a “label” to their creation, we only have to show it linking artist and scientific reflection.
(by Francesca Cozzolino, Apr 20 2007)
In the German network of Cultura21 and especially in the local Group Cologne there is a serious discussion about the word Sustainability and the German translation “Nachhaltigkeit” (Durability?). The artists are not satisfy with this mainstream-word - especially the artists, who think critical, social or ecological. For me also this artists are an important internal target group. In the project “Subkulinaria” we avoid the use of the word “Nachhaltigkeit” - at the same time we wrote about the idea behind the sustainability, for example about a “social-ecological development”. Also Oleg spoke in Lüneburg about the danger of an institutionalisation - and the German Nachhaltigkeit is also an institutionalisation. How and where does our international network (or the cultural dimension itself) want to make the difference from/than (?) this kind of institutionalisation? For me/us it is an important question.
Culture in the “sustainability” means for me also an intermediation between different cultures of social-ecological development - and intra- and intercultural intermediation. It is also the intermediation we need between sciences and arts, rationality and emotions. The question is: Why do we use only the language of the sciences in speaking about alternatives (”sustainability”) - and not the language of the arts? We need a cultural diversity, for example a diversity in the language, in speaking about alternatives. More words for the same dream? Ore the same words for very different goals?
The second point: I prefer to speak about “cultures of sustainability” - and not about one culture of sustainability. Sustainability needs a diversity - and it is a very big difference to the monoculture of the globalisation. I don’t believe in a ecological modernisation from a centre to the peripheries. There were a lot of ecological cultures in the past, in the peripheries, that became destroyed through the modernisation. The problem is not to conserve or maintain traditions against the modernisation. The problem is the self-reliance and the self-determination of cultures. I think that self-reliance in a region can be more ecological than values from a centre, from the top to the bottom. The goals and the process are for me strong related.
(by Davide Brocchi, Apr 21 2007)
I feel very much releaved by what you have formulated very on the point, very beautiful! “unconfortability with this word “Nachhaltigkeit”, “Sustainability”, durabilité, ...
Sustainability need of culture to “materialize” herself!
Yes, we have all this interesting and important terminations artopie, cultura 21, social land art, ......tam tam tam tam may be hundreds of very important words and doings on our planet
I just imagine how long the page of writings this names for “.the bad word” would be on our planet writing them all one after the other.
I think you have made a conception for our may be first collective piece of art and sociology a poster of Sustainability “bad word” need of culture to “materialize” herself
Could this be a collective work of us? The list of the global arts and bad word: sustainability at all without the “bad word” I like to ask Sacha if this is what you mean by non- sustainability? Is it the word or is it what is behind the word?
(by Insa Winkler, Apr 21 2007)
I quickly react to Insa’s question right after it: No, I do not think of the word “unsustainability” in these terms. For me, our contemporary western culture is in most of its characteristics the opposite of a culture of sustainability. So for me, also to react to Francesca’s first post, cultures very often go against sustainability. So by cultures of unsustainability I concretely mean for example the culture of consumption, the culture of colonialism, the faith in technological progress, among other cultural trends...
— Sacha Kagan 2007/05/16 18:03
Why the artists are not satisfied with this mainstream-word - especially the artists, who think critical, social or ecological.
I think this could be very interesting question to ask all this artists in the fields of critical, social and ecological art why do they are not satisfied with this mainstream word.
If we have all the statements of the arts this is may be a very important answer to what is art and “mainstreamword”” about.
This could be a very interesting project to do. This sounds like important work to start to go on with cultura 21.
I imagine a big poster with the mainstreamword and we try to crimp this in a rubbish bag, close the lid and then like a wizard we dragging out the new poster of all this names with culture to “materialize” herself.
(by Insa Winkler, Apr 21 2007)
The researcher Melita Rogelj already did a study published on internet in 2000, showing partly why artists do not appreciate the expression ‘sustainability’. I would have to look back into it, I don’t remember the detailed results right now. (And of course, since 2000, we now know even more about the biased mainstream political uses of the term ‘sustainability’...)
— Sacha Kagan 2007/05/17 16:15
Concerning the meaning of the word sustainability. We have the same problem in French, the first meaning it’s “durability” “durabilité, perennité, quelque chose qui reste en vigeur”.... effect I centred all my communication the first day on the French meaning of the word. I spoke with Hans, the first day, about the problem of the different translation in different languages, and different interpretations. Day after day, I came near to the “institutional” meaning. I said institutional, because we are speaking of a term that was fist use by institution (also Unesco) and political power and it is used more for the economic, environmental and politic field (have a look on GOGLE if you write sustainability) than for the cultural one.
The meaning of the French word on the second degree is “developpement durable”... that seem to go nearer to the idea of sustainability given in Lunenburg, and to the concepts related on, like: social changement /transformation. And if we use this concept for the cultural field, I think that we speak about social change by cultural practices in this sense ( and I quote HAns Dieleman): “We need to create new practices and products, restructure our societies and base them on new ideas and worldviews. Artists are involved in various ways. They can make people aware of the unsustainability of our lifestyles.”
I’m totally agree with David when He said that we are speaking with a scientific vocabulary, that it’s far from the artistic one ( I found myself the same situation than you, speaking with some French artist), and I think that It’s also a little be “pretentious”, when have to put scientist in a corner for a little moment and make artists take the place. So what I want to say it’s that we are “aware” that we are using a very fashion word in this moment, but I think that, if we put on a corner the problem of translation, we are thinking about the same idea: a culture of sustainability???????
(by Francesca Cozzolino, Apr 21 2007)
Dear Francesca, I absolutly agree to your objection. It is hard to discuss about a “sustainability”, if we don’t know what it might look like or how each of us defines it personally. I discussed the same topic this morning during breakfast with my flatmates (who are from very different “disciplines”) and we agreed that in a way this might be as well a chance for “Sustainability”, because the ambiguity of the term makes it possible to bring together people with very different backrounds and different ideas about “their” sustainability. I understand sustainability more as a value, which has to be transfered into all areas of life and society. About the “culture or cultures of sustainability” I agree with you that you can unify nearly everything under the term culture, for me the three pillars of sustainability: economy, social, ecology, are in a way all a fruit of culture, therefore sustainability is as well an outcome of culture and has to be open for different interpretations, the question I ask myself now is: How could a culture of Sustainability look like?
(by Lisa Cerny, Apr 22 2007)
I just give quickly one definitional contribution, about the French translation of ‘Sustainability’. The word ‘Durabilité’ is by far not my favorite translation. It indeed corresponds to the German ‘Nachhaltigkeit’ and only carries the meaning of the ‘long term’ which falls short of the ethical richness of the word ‘sustainability’ (in my understanding of it). I do hope that the Lueneburg conference did not leave the impressions to be only about that dimension of the ‘long term’... I also want to insist about the ‘large space’, i.e. sustainability is a storytelling about how all what we do around the world is interconnected here and now (and therefore that, for example, climate change and the western lifestyle have drastic consequences right now for herdsmen in the north-east of Uganda for example...) There are two other translations in French, why unsurprisingly are used by more radical researchers: Soutenabilité (used for example by JB Harribey at the University of Bordeaux, who’s in the line of René Passet) and Sustantabilité (used by some radical French ethnologists to promote cultures of the ‘less’). You will find also uses of the expression ‘développement soutenable’ by radical thinkers instead of ‘développement durable’ which is more mainstream. In the German language, I am feeling so far very unhappy. The only words used, Nachhaltigkeit and Zukunftsfähigkeit, are both obsessed with the time dimension and, I feel, not putting on equal level the spatial dimension (which is ethically very problematic; I will in the wiki, if time allows, tell some words about how the ‘Christian’ Eschatological thinking may be dangerously influencing this exclusive focus on time in many definitions of sustainability/nachhaltigkeit/durabilité).
(by Sacha Kagan, Apr 23 2007)
One Dutch singer/songwriter (Joop Fisher) made a song in the ninety sixties about Princes Esmeralda who was looking for a man. Three candidates got the opportunity to present themselves. The first two knew exactly the right politically correct words to impress a princes and her father. But Esmeralda was not really impressed by them. The third one was ‘Hans’. And Hans said: ‘well, I don’t really know what to say,. . . . and then he described in a very romantic way the girl of his dreams.. . . and he ended by saying . . . and above all the name of the girl of my dreams is “Liesje”. And then immediately princes Esmeralda responded by saying: “my name is Esmeralda but please, call me “Liesje”.
And what about sustainability? Should we call it “Liesje”? One group of artists in Rotterdam a few years ago refused to use the word ‘sustainability’. I don’t exactly remember what they used, but something like ‘IT’. Something undefined and the undefined was the essence of it.
I am working with the word ‘sustainable development’ since 1987 (in the last years I mainly use: sustainability) AND EVER SINCE 1987 THERE IS A DISCUSSION GOING ON around this term. So what is really the problem with the word? Is it the word? Or is it because it is refering to something radical? Are many people feeling that intuitively (OLEG??) Is this the reason why institutions want to chanalize and institutionalize it (control it, incorporate it in mainstream thinking)? Is it about the word? Or its potential radical nature? Maybe something else. Is it because it is by nature undefinied but our institutions cannot cope with an undefined concept? I really don’t know. I hope it is about its potental radicalism (that is why ... the old and the radical ... that is me)
I like those who proposed to use more words, and to speak about cultures or culturations (or whatever) of sustainability (Or maybe: cultures of IT?) yes, I hope we continue this collective searching . . . . .and move to experimenting one day
(by Hans Dieleman, Apr 23 2007)
See also the ‘Babel text’ contribution by Oleg Koefoed, which also stem from this conversation stream...
I’m also really excited for the idea of the wiki, great work SACHA, and thanks also for the “clarifications” on the words sustainability. Things are clearer after your mail and Hans’s answer. And sure that the Lueneburg conference did not leave the impressions to be only about that dimension of the ‘long term’ but make me go more far that the meaning of durabilité.
But, with my mail I really don’t want to add more “polemics” to a discussion that is going on from 1987, I thing that is enough and that it will be better to feel that as Oleg, or to call that ‘culture of IT” or Liesje or why not, continuing that discussion on a wiki page that can be changing by everyone, also visitors. Maybe it will be amusing compare on the same web page all the feelings, impression, definitions, and ideas about sustainability. I see that as a graphic “schema” (as in Oleg “performance” in Lunenburg!) with different colors confounding and crossing themselves!!!
(by Francesca Cozzolino, Apr 24 2007)
We could then create a page in the Green Area of the wiki, where people can give their definitions/ideas of sustainability and work on / modify / discuss definitions ... You can create it by clicking on this link: Sustainability — Sacha Kagan 2007/05/17 17:29
It takes me awhile before I enter this conversation, because I was not sure what it is about. But listening (when I reading your insights, I imagine how it is sound ?) your thoughts, my own intuitive understanding of sustainability start to get lift from its intimate space and become more shared feeling, notion, intuition. It feels great to read your thoughts and to acknowledge my own understanding of sustainability. The narratives each of you suggests may be indeed the beginning of contextualizing the concept of sustainability. The way Hans design it on his web, remind me how the story telling as a research method could be used in order to clear up, create, outline, describe, whatever the concept of sustainability; embracing so many aspects as processes of, strategies to, features of and etc.of sustainability. As a researcher each of us once in a while faced this stage of mapping out the meanings of whatever concept we are busy with (as my self working on creativity). Doing this, sometimes we are running the risk to lose ourselves in endless debate on the meanings, but anyhow this entails also better understanding of the processes behind the creation/emergence of the concept. And this I find very important – to understand how and respectively why the concept of sustainability emerge, as it is a new concept for me, and I’ve never looked at it seriously. Thank you for your inspiring discussion. What I am thinking to do is to collect stories on sustainability (according to my intuitive understanding) and share them with you.
(by Lyudmila Petrova, Apr 24 2007)
