The invitation/call for participation for “Documenting Sustensistan” has just been issued. This will be the 1st edition of Cultura21 Nordic’s video experiment, the Ant Film Festival, which we hope will travel the world in the years to come. Please check the Ant Film Festival page for more.

Intro and world-view

Culture is the main way to increase the importance of sustainability as something to which humans may relate and within which we may act as parts of a time-space-matter meshwork. Culture is not just an addition to politics, economics or technology. It pervades all of them. One of the important contributions of culture to this context is to identify the relationship between existing (climate) crises and sustainable worlds.

Cultura21 envisions a very important role for artists, philosophers, scientists and other cultural actors in the coming years. They must sustain the social, emotional, systemic change that has to take place within and between people - and between people and the rest of the world. They must do this by being creating “chronotopes” for reflection and creation, and offer unexpected, creative approaches to change. They must hold on to the need for deep decisions that development requires from us now.

Sustainability is a matter also of mindsets, of thinking about figures of thought, about paradigms and (cultural) systems. Culture can not fulfil evolution on its own - but without the cultural dimension there will be crucial aspects of human values and the relationship between man and (the) world missing.

Cultura21 Nordic sees sustainability as a call from the world that we understand the connectedness requiring of us that we learn to give more than we take. We must develop a better understanding of what it means to give to future worlds, to future generations. What it means to act in such a way that the current change itself becomes sustainable. How the relationship between culture and all the other sectors of society is changing through this comprehensive change. This is a major change, which many organizations, businesses and other groups have gradually undertaken.

Cultura21 Nordic works to strengthen the understanding and impact of cultural approaches to sustainability in the Nordic countries and to and from the Nordic countries. We are connected in the network Cultura21 international, with groups in Mexico, Italy, Germany and to a wide range of partners particularly in England, USA, Asia, South America and South Africa. Cultura21 Nordic has full autonomy to act according to our beliefs, but enjoys the scope of the network.

Membership / participation

Anyone can become member of Cultura21 Nordic and help to accomplish our goals. We work specifically to develop the role of artists, activists, cultural practitioners and philosophers. But we are also working to strengthen ties between these groups and research, political institutions, business and innovation processes.

Goals for Nordic Cultura21 Nordic

• to enhance sharing of knowledge and practices towards cultures of sustainability in and around the Nordic region

• to develop their own actions (projects, courses, workshops, utilities, etc.) promoting cultures of sustainability

• to increase the visibility of the field, through campaigns and projects, own or in cooperation with private, public or NGO partners

• to build a strong network of groups in the Nordic region over the next 5 years, starting with Copenhagen in 2009

• to develop and test ways to improve skills and create new forms of education in the relationship between art, culture, sustainability and social change

We look for projects that demonstrate the need for sustainable reflection and creation. It may be through questioning of current practices by experimenting with new cultural forms, by demonstrating sustainability by playing with forms of artistic expression and reflection which engender attention on culture and sustainability, or by cultivating new productions and collaborations. We are looking in particular for ourselves and and of others to work in transdisciplinarity (through several areas of knowledge) and transculturality (through multiple cultures), and thus to develop an understanding of connectedness in practice.

Anyone is welcome to propose projects and to seek or provide help for new ideas. You need not be members of Cultura21 to implement a project in collaboration with us, but we hope that all collaborators will recognize the values that we embrace.

Formal info

Cultura21 nordic is organized as an independent, non-profit organisation (Danish CVR 32 38 10 73) based in KPH Projekthus on Enghavevej in Copenhagen.

For all questions concerning membership, funding, projects, etc., please contact the secretariat:

Director Oleg Koefoed +45 5353 9572 oleg@cultura21.dk

Chairman Li Kajsa Paludan +45 6080 7025 kajsa@cultura21.dk

— Oleg Koefoed 2009/09/17 12:01