Arts & the SDGs
Why the UN SDGs are important to the arts
The SDGs should be seen as a great source of inspiration, as an educational tool, and as a framework for artists. In our everyday lives, we must ensure we take care of the environment, we should seek balanced economic development, and we need to defend social wellbeing in many fields. One of these fields is art, as a vehicle of expression, a medium or an indictment, on behalf of sustainable development.
Resources
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International Geneva: SDGs through Art
Revisiting the SDGs through the lens of art. Seventeen famous works of art for 17 goals, where the artists were selected to speak to the challenges of the modern world.
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IISD: The Arts as a Force for Sustainable Development
When talking about inclusion and social justice, it is impossible to exclude the creative economy. Explores how governments and societies should tap their creative forces to promote not just economic growth, but also inclusion, social justice, and environmental sustainability.
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UNESCO: Why Culture is at the Heart of SDGs
The bold vision of the SDGs demands creative approaches, beyond the typical linear and sectoral ones that most countries have been used to in recent decades. Cultural heritage and creativity are resources that need to be protected and carefully managed.
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History of Art and Sustainability Relationship
At the end of the 1970s, the Land Art movement, also called Earth Art and Earthwork, came to communicate an important sustainability message. This includes the impact of art on nature at the social and environmental level. Sustainable artists now seek to optimize the use of natural resources to reduce the environmental footprint of their work.
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UCalgary - Art to achieve the SDGs
Faculty of Arts prof champions sustainability in research and curriculum. Asks how to integrate the SDGs into her work, and how projects will have an impact on society.
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What Does Sustainability Mean for the Art World
Artists looking to join in on the current conversation surrounding sustainability are using their work to send a message, either by its theme or the media used to create the piece. The idea of sustainability in art has led to groundbreaking works that leverage unique media and send powerful messages about climate change, political policy, and social injustice. Explores how sustainability inspires social consciousness, how Schools and Institutions are Getting Involved and Includes a list of many types of sustainable art forms and practices.
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How the SDGs Relate to the Fashion Industry
Fashion must integrate efforts to protect the environment and the people working throughout supply chains in order to truly be a sustainable industry. Pinpoints specific goals that relate to the fashion industry.
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WEF: Why Art Has the Power to Change the World
Art does not show people what to do, yet engaging with a good work of art can connect you to your senses, body, and mind. It can make the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, engagement, and even action.
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The Green Museum
A handbook for museums seeking to learn ways to implement environmentally sustainable practices at their institutions.
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Socially Engaged Art
This is not a trend. It is more a reflection of the evolving nature of making meaning in the built environment. Even more than making art, artists want to make meaning. In order to do that, radically new methods are being produced that push across the social and into the sphere of lived existence.
Organizations
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Artworks for Change
Strives to harness the transformative power of art to promote awareness, provoke dialogue, and inspire action. Seek to address issues of serious concern (SDGs) in creative, inspiring, and ultimately positive ways by engaging with audiences fully, creating experiences that are at once emotional, intellectual, and sensory.
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Indigenous Arts Collective Canada
To preserve and revitalize endangered Indigenous art forms and enrich lives through Indigenous arts and culture
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Sustainable Art Market
A french initiative, for those involved in the art market, artists, and environmentalists. Developing courses specifically geared to art professionals who wish to adapt their practices in accordance with the preservation of the environment.
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re/make
Community of fashion lovers, women rights advocates, and environmentalists on a mission to change the industry’s harmful practices on people and the planet. Make sustainability accessible and inclusive through education, advocacy, and transparency.
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Art for Global Goals
A campaign project to create an image for the SDG problems. An international travelling exhibition. Achieving goals is always a form of art. Art is a universal language and an emotional language.
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EcoArts Foundation Gallery
Committed to inspiring ecological regeneration via the arts. Aim to provoke audiences -- policymakers, scientists, artists, and citizens -- to create vibrant, thriving ecosystems. Events, programs and educational media.
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Arts for Sustainability Transformations
Explore how creative practices of arts-science interactions and arts-based research generate relevant perspectives and boost collective capacities to address the urgent sustainability challenges of today. How they can help turn passive audiences watching the drama of unsustainability into empowered actors engaged in SDGs.
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Fashion Takes Action
Fashion's role in SDGs. Non-profit working with industry and consumers, with the goal to shift behaviour toward more positive social and environmental impact. Advances sustainability in the entire fashion system through education, awareness and collaboration.
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Artists & Climate Change
An initiative of The Arctic Cycle. Track artistic work about climate change and gather them in one place as a study of what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject.
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Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts
A Think Tank for Sustainability in the Arts and Culture. Views sustainability as the intersection of environmental balance, social equity, economic stability and strengthened cultural infrastructure. Activities such as research and initiatives positioning arts and culture as a driver of a sustainable society.
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UN Exhibits
Exhibitions organized for the general public at UN Headquarters, featuring photographic and multimedia displays covering topics such as human rights, sustainable development, the environment, women and girls, and more.
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Indigenous Art Centre Canada
Entrusted with the care, development, and maintenance of the Indigenous Art Collection, one of the most important collections of contemporary Indigenous art in Canada.
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Art4Equality
Supports the creation of empowering equality-themed exhibitions and public art by female-identifying artists and allies. Mission to create empowering artwork and exhibitions that can impact social change, raise awareness and inspire the community.
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Threading Change
A youth-led not-for-profit organization envisioning a future where fashion is ethical and circular, rooted in justice with climate, gender, and racial equity at the forefront.
Have more resources for us?
This is a library that we are sharing with our entire youth network, and we'd love it if this could be a collaborative library! You might know even more cool resources related to this academic department and it's intersection with sustainability, and if so we'd love if you were willing to share with everyone! If you have any resources you’d like us to add to our library, please shoot us an email using the form below and we will add them ASAP!
