Action-oriented research for sustainability aims to support interventions at the science-society interface where both researchers and societal actors generate knowledge about how to deal with wicked sustainability challenges of our time, such as climate change or loss of biodiversity.

Our institute is a “Home to Theory that Matters in the Life and Sustainability sciences”. As an center of advanced studies, the KLI has recently started engaging with action-oriented research capitalizing on its excellent track record in evolution and cognition research. As part of this shift, we believe the arts can and should play a key role. Because of their creative and experiential nature, the arts can help generate new theories and practices that disclose imaginaries, foster learning, and empower people to move towards more sustainable and just futures.

With the StartClim 2020 grant, Guido Caniglia (KLI) and Dominika Glogowski (artEC/Oindustry) will organize a pilot workshop involving KLI researchers, guest and local artists as well as local activists and scientists engaged in citizen science projects. The workshop will take place in Winter 2020 and will make use of transdisciplinary methodologies that support synergistic work and mutual learning at the Science-Art-Society interface.

Our workshop will lay the foundations of a learning-based and action-oriented ClimArtLab. This peculiar lab is based on the principle that “making is connecting and connecting is making”. Starting from the workshop, scientists, artists, citizens, and activists will make things together. We will create experiences, experiments, and integrate scientific theories, artistic practices, material cultures, and societal imaginaries. Together, we will create newer and deeper esthetic, perceptual, experiential, and mindful alternative for the future.

Edited by KLI Communications Officer Lynn Chiu