We spoke to Yasmine Ostendorf, founder of Green Art Lab Alliance, about working towards a reduced environmental footprint and climate justice from within the art sector, imagining possible future alternatives, and learning and growing through ongoing collaboration, knowledge production and exchange.

At the end of November, the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) held its first conference, “Decarbonising the Art World”, at the Barbican Centre in London. With the goal of reducing carbon emissions by 50% and defining shared standards to become a waste-free industry by 2030, the conference was also the launching point for the GCC’s Decarbonisation Action Plan. The plan lays out a 10-step strategy – including measuring emissions and setting reduction targets – as well as fifty effective actions that can be taken in areas such as shipping, travel, materials and spaces.

During the conference, the writer, poet and artist Ben Okri held a reading, before which he emphasized the importance of the art sector’s role in building a sustainable future, stating: “I think the art world is potentially extremely powerful for the possibilities of climate change and actually should be one of the leaders” Because it’s through art that we can envision potential alternatives.

Imagining possible futures

Speaking about the relationship between creativity and sustainability, Yasmine Ostendorf, who founded the Green Art Lab Alliance (gala) in 2012, puts it this way: “I find that the domain of imagination, speculation, creativity and being outside of the box is crucial for starting to think about what another system might look like.” She adds that “a lot of the knowledge is already in this world” – we just need to look or listen in a different way. And this is precisely what art can facilitate.

Η συνέχεια εδώ.