Culture Shift: Working with the Arts and Culture for Mitigation and Adaptation

1. Culture Shift: Working with the arts and culture for mitigation and adaptation Ben Twist & Gemma Lawrence Creative Carbon Scotland Ewan Hyslop Historic Environment Scotland @CCScotland

2. Climate Change is already affecting Scotland The MITIGATION necessary to reduce climate change to manageable levels will require a big change in our ways of life The ADAPTATION to the changes that are already coming and that will come will lead to big changes in our ways of life The arts have a central role to play in bringing about the major cultural shift required to facilitate the social change A major social change is coming UNESCO’s Mexico City Declaration makes clear that culture in its widest sense is the ways in which we live in the world ‘The arts’ express, reflect and so can ultimately help shape the wider culture Climate change is a product of ways of life - our wider culture – based on consumption We therefore need a cultural shift from a culture of consumption to a culture of stewardship

3. … in its widest sense, culture may now be said to be the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a society or social group. It includes not only the arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs… Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies UNESCO World Conference on Cultural Policies Mexico City, 1982

4. It is not enough to demand insight and informative images of reality from the theater. Our theater must stimulate a desire for understanding, a delight in changing reality. (Bertolt Brecht – Essays on the art of Theater 1954)

5. Difficult to see how it plays out Hard to communi-cate the problem Contra-dictory solutions Wicked problems Do the same thing, get the same results Can’t see publicly acceptable solution Silos and multiple parties Complex system

6. Difficult to see how it plays out Contra-dictory solutions Hard to communi-cate the problem Art loves contradiction! Art can make analysis clear Thought experiments Wicked problems Can’t see publicly accept-able solution Art can help explain and lead to under-standing Do the same thing, get the same results Artists great at innovation & experiment Artists used to dealing with complex systems Artists experienced in collaboration Complex system Silos and multiple parties

7. Difficult to see how it plays out Contra-dictory solutions Hard to communi-cate the problem Art loves contradiction! Art can make analysis clear Thought experiments Progress! Can’t see publicly accept-able solution Art can help explain and lead to under-standing Do the same thing, get the same results Artists great at innovation & experiment Artists used to dealing with complex systems Artists experienced in collaboration Complex system Silos and multiple parties

10. Can the arts help you to…

11. Can the arts help you to… …Represent ideas in concrete form to explore them and engage different publics …Let people not have to worry about the facts …Make the invisible and implicit visible and explicit …Hold contradictory ideas in positive tension …Innovate and think non-linearly …Imagine different futures and play out ‘thought experiments’ …Break conventions & challenge established norms …Communicate emotional truths …Analyse how the way things are came to be …Synthesise, reinterpret and develop complex ideas to contribute to thinking …Bring communities together or help to make new ones

12. Culture Shift: Working with the arts and culture for mitigation and adaptation www.creativecarbonscotland.com Tel: +44 (0) 131 529 7909 ben.twist@creativecarbonscotland.com gemma.Lawrence@creativecarbonscotland.com @CCScotland Thanks for listening! • Creative Carbon Scotland is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Registered Charity No SCO42687