Staging Sustainability – Arts, Community, Culture, Environment

How can we produce art that reflects, celebrates, critiques and advances the cultural life of our community without contributing to the destruction of the setting that inspires these artistic endeavours ?

The Faculty of Fine Arts at York University (Toronto – Canada) invites proposals for papers for Staging Sustainability: Arts, Community, Culture, Environment, a conference taking place April 20-22, 2011.

The conference will provide an opportunity for artists and those who support the arts in a myriad of ways – from scholars, critics, producers and designers to policy-makers, industry and government – to engage in interdisciplinary dialogue about issues associated with the creation of environmentally sustainable arts practice and performance. The conference committee welcomes proposals for papers that consider the relationship between the cultural and ecological aspects of sustainability in the arts, and may encompass aspects of subjectivity with respect to community and identity.

Please forward a 250-word abstract of your proposal, including your name, affiliation, mailing and email address to: Ina Agastra, Executive Assistant to the Dean Faculty of Fine Arts, York University : ffadeanasst [at] yorku [dot] ca

Submission deadline: September 1, 2010

Conference website: www.stagingsustainability.ca

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.