ÜBER LEBENSKUNST
Initiative for Culture and Sustainability
How do we define "good living" given the global ecological crisis? This question, which is relevant for everyone no matter what social group they belong to, is the central thematic focus of ÜBER LEBENSKUNST (the art of living), an initiative project of the Federal Cultural Foundation in cooperation with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt. In a multi-part programme, the project explores the profound changes our planet is undergoing through art – in performance, visual art, music, discourse and literature. ÜBER LEBENSKUNST brings together actors from widely varying disciplines to identify existing strategies and to develop and test out models of sustainable living fit for day-to-day life. In 2011, ÜBER LEBENSKUNST will turn the city of Berlin into a showcase for artistic projects that bring together culture and sustainability with an event series, campaigns and urban installations and the festival itself from 17 to 21 August.
ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL
The ÜBER LEBENSKUNST initiative project aims to take the reality of climate change, which is still abstract for many people, and relate it to the decisions individuals make in their day-to-day lives and make it more tangible as part of our social responsibility. How will I get to the office today? What will I eat? What will I wear and where do my clothes come from? Each and every individual can change the world and still meet his or her own needs by doing away with routines and reshaping everyday life. This goal requires an alliance to be forged between the realms of art, science, politics and civil society so that new habits can be developed and learned as part of a cultural shift that everyone participates in. They are the key to the art of sustainable living at the beginning of the 21st century that has both a local and global dimension.
FOR A SUSTAINABLE QUALITY OF LIFE
ÜBER LEBENSKUNST seeks out contemporary models of sustainable living in artistic and cultural initiatives – with imagination and sensuality. The project looks at the concrete worlds the city's inhabitants live in. Working together with artists, scientists and activists, projects are being developed in the areas of food production, mobility, resource consumption and education. These projects show that sustainable living doesn't mean having to make do with less, it means having more: a quality of life that doesn't harm the natural environment and heightened awareness and prudence in how we deal with resources in our day-to-day lives. Challenging familiar standards and needs will no longer be seen as a call to downscale but as an opportunity to find new ways of looking at the world.
PROGRAMME
In keeping with the principles of sustainability, ÜBER LEBENSKUNST focuses on Berlin and its inhabitants. This metropolis with residents from 190 countries is a symbol of a model city for the art of sustainable living at the beginning of the 21st century.
The project, which will run over two years, was launched in April 2010 with a CALL FOR FUTURE that received submissions for more than 850 project ideas. In 2011, ÜBER LEBENSKUNST will turn the city of Berlin into a showcase for artistic projects that bring together culture and sustainability: An international jury has selected 14 ÜBER LEBENSKUNST.Initiatives which are receiving support for one year at various locations throughout Berlin. Other projects are coming up with strategies for sustainable living using food, mobility and fashion as examples: a larder (VORRATSKAMMER) with food from the region around Berlin, new models for urban mobility and stories about pieces of clothing and the people who wear them.
The ÜBER LEBENSKUNST.School educational programme, which was jointly developed with the Future Institute of the Free University of Berlin, will bring the issues of culture and sustainability to classrooms throughout Germany and the national committee of the UN Decade "Education for Sustainable Development" added this project to the official measures in the national action plan.
With a festival to be held in August 2011 that will present all of the individual projects that have come into being by then, ÜBER LEBENSKUNST also reflects on the practice of creating contemporary culture and thus about itself. The festival seeks new ways and formats of conveying culture between art and day-to-day life at both the local and global levels.
In the run-up to the festival, the ÜBER LEBENSKUNST.Club will bring together actors from the realms of art, culture and sustainability starting in March. In addition, there will be many readings, discussions and concerts in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt under the auspices of the ÜBER LEBENSKUNST project.
GUIDELINES FOR SUSTAINABLE CULTURAL PRODUCTION
The ÜBER LEBENSKUNST project pursues a strategy of climate neutrality. In addition to a scientific-technical analysis that captures the project's "carbon footprint", an environmental life cycle assessment will be conducted that proposes projects to offset the unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions generated throughout the course of the ÜBER LEBENSKUNST project. Consultants are accompanying the overall project, providing scientific and technical advice on sustainable management and project implementation. Based on the experiences with the ÜBER LEBENSKUNST project, a guide will be created for the sustainable management of art and cultural projects and events which relates to the Berlin-Brandenburg region.
