AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

IMAGINE
Towards an eco-aesthetic, 2011

Artists and curators are hereby invited to submit proposals for 2011.

'Only when people are in a position to use their own creative potentials,
which can be enhanced by an artistic imagination, will a change occur [....]
Art can and should strive for an alternative that is not only aesthetically
affirmative and productive but is also beneficial to all forms of life on
our planet.'
Rasheed Araeen: Ecoaesthetics. A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century

In the autumn of 2009, Rasheed Araeen, editor of the respected periodical on
art and culture Third Text, launched a frontal attack on the modern ego and
the recuperation of the avant-garde. Instead of the continued rigid
production of objects and a stubborn anchoring in art institutions, Araeen
pleads for a collective artistic imagination as the only road towards '[…]
rivers and lakes of clean water, collective farms and the planting of trees
all over the world.'

>From what is perhaps a slightly one-track masculine perspective, Araeen's
manifesto examines earlier failed attempts to step down from the pedestal of
the bourgeoisie in favour of a collective commitment to our surroundings and
the environment. Nevertheless, the notion of art as a positive, giving
alternative unhampered by the restraints of either representation or
negation is relevant in a new decade in a new millennium.

In trying to conceive of such an alternative it seems a reasonable first
step to take a closer look at alliances between art and sustainable
development For at the roots of the idea of sustainability lie an ethical
imperative and a persistent struggle against inequality – parameters that
seem indispensable today if we actually want to imagine change and
alternatives.

The notion of sustainability first aroused political attention in the 1970s,
although it can also be traced back to the 1960s in the shape of various
grass-roots movements. In 1972 the UN Conference on the Human Environment
was held in Stockholm – this was the first of its kind, and at the same time
the first transnational forum that even considered the environment and
society as a single, interconnected issue.

The conference was strongly influenced by the book Limits to Growth
published by the global think tank Club of Rome the same year, in which the
problems of exponential growth vis-à-vis the limited resources of the Earth
were outlined. The book inspired thoughts about the limits of growth in
terms not only of the human population but also of economic factors. This
realization that the Earth was not an inexhaustible storehouse of resources
contributed to the development of a notion of sustainability that takes the
future generations of the Earth into account.

The correlation between ecological and social issues is a fundamental aspect
of thinking about sustainability, and consequently also involves concepts
like responsibility and ethics. Similarly, in various movements that have
consistently had sustainability as a central point of reference since the
1970s, for instance Social Ecology and Ecofeminism, sustainability is
inextricably bound up with an astute critique of the dominant hierarchical
structures.

The notion of sustainability thus includes the consideration of social
structures, subjection and domination, ethics and economics on an equal
footing with consideration of the environment and the ecology. If art today
is to have the above-mentioned positive starting point, it needs to think
about this complex apparatus as a whole and imagine an alternative. Only
thus can we move towards an art that is healing and affirmative – and thus
towards an eco-aesthetic in the new millennium.

With this background the Aarhus Art Building is hereby issuing an Open Call
for Proposals for 2011. We welcome suggestions for group exhibitions, solo
exhibitions and workshops as well as suggestions for projects in public
space.

Guidelines can be found at www.aarhuskunstbygning.dk. The guidelines must be
followed in the application to make it eligible for consideration. Deadline
March 15 2010.

from Franklin Furnace