Art Research Guide

An excellent tool for understanding the multifaceted dimensions of sustainability. The UN Sustainable Development Goals have informed the OCAD U Sustainability Policy.

With the aim to offer an accurate evaluation of where the world stands in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, the Sustainable Development Goals Report presents an overview of the 17 goals based on a proposed global indicator framework, using data provided by the United Nations and other international agencies. (Annual reports available for 2016-2020)

A growing library of photographs to provide inspiration and guidance for campaigners, picture editors and communications practitioners selecting imagery for communicating climate change. All images are captioned with an explanation of how they fit with the seven Climate Visuals principles, and why they work. Each image is linked to its original source and many are available to download for free under Creative Commons licenses for use in blogs, articles and campaigns.

A Think Tank for Sustainability in the Arts and Culture

The research presented in this article strives to answer the question: how do we educate for sustainability? The author provides evidence that arts-based educational research methods and major cultural resources provide very rich learning experiences that extend across disciplinary boundaries and can be crafted into pedagogical practices that help orientate learners of all levels to issues of sustainability. The article addresses the challenge of developing pedagogies for socio-ecological sustainability across disciplines in higher education.

Recent studies of sustainability draw attention to the impact art and culture have on communities. The Earth Charter, which originated in 1968, fostered the idea of ‘a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace’. This article supports the idea that art can make a difference to society and examines four case studies which explore the infra‐ordinary within the immensity of social, political, historical and physical non‐art places. The stance adopted is that of an artist, anthropologist and storyteller casting light onto a cultural landscape that is so ordinary as to be not noticed at all.

In contemporary visual culture, the subject of climate change and the need for commitment to counteract it are increasingly being addressed. The artists' observation concerns not only the natural effects of climate change but also their impact on the social and cultural heritage of the inhabitants of regions of the most endangered areas. Areas most vulnerable to destruction: oceans, coral reefs and polar regions are becoming a particular subject of interest for artists. A reflection of this interest can be the increasing number of exhibitions devoted to the current state of the environment

This study aims to investigate the role of the visual arts for communicating climate change in the context of the Pacific islands, through the perspectives of artists and climate change practitioners.

Art has the power to activate learning and emotion in unique ways—this is true of humans generally, and museum visitors specifically. Yet art galleries are often overlooked in the museum field as forums for dialogue and sites of learning about climate change. This article investigates the significance of artist-led projects and art museum exhibitions in engaging visitors with issues of climate change and greater planetary change through the lens of the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Anthropocene exhibition featuring the work of Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier and the related Anthropocene Project by the same trio of artists.

During the last decade (2005–2015), artists from all over the world have taken on climate change as the subject matter of their work. Encouraged by activists (most notably Bill McKibben), artists have appropriated climate change as a social problem and decided that they too, alongside journalists, scientists, and activists, were called upon to engage with this issue. Dozens of noteworthy exhibitions [...] have placed climate change art on the map as a new and timely genre, displaying relevant artworks both alongside climate negotiations and in dedicated gallery spaces such as the Barbican in London. [...] Although caught in the net of many criticisms, climate change art plays a crucial role in allowing the public to rethink the role of human beings’ everyday activities in irrevocably altering the climate system. In effect, climate change art makes the Anthropocene a cultural reality.