Art and Sustainability: Connecting Patterns for a Culture of Complexity

Upcoming book publication

Sacha Kagan. Art and Sustainability: Connecting Patterns for a Culture of Complexity. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011.

Will be available in July 2011, ca. 476 p.,  ca. 39,80 € – ISBN 978-3-8376-1803-7

The publication proposes an understanding of “culture(s) of sustainability”, “aesthetics of sustainability” and “art and sustainability”,  based on an in-depth theoretical elaboration and a critical discussion of several artists.

What is the cultural dimension of sustainability? This book offers a thought-provoking answer, with a theoretical synthesis on »cultures of sustainability«. Describing how modernity degenerated into a culture of unsustainability, to which the arts are contributing, Sacha Kagan engages us in a fundamental rethinking of our ways of knowing and seeing the world. We must learn not to be afraid of complexity, and to re-awaken a sensibility to patterns that connect. With an overview of ecological art over the past 40 years, and a discussion of art and social change, the book assesses the potential role of art in a much needed transformation process.

A4 flyer with the table of contents: PDF file

Links: Book page on the publisher’s website / Order page on the publisher’s website

A ‘short impression’ of the book, by Prof. Dr. Hans Dieleman, is available on the eco/art/scot/land blog: click here to read

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.