Bridging the gap: understanding relationships between art, “intangible” community assets, and climate actions and outcomes

A sense that arts practices have a critical role to play in supporting sustainability is long-standing; but, how arts can contribute to addressing these challenges is a question that is becoming more urgent due to climate change. Where science has lacked effective communication about climate change impacts, there is a hope that arts can create narratives and visualizations that help form a common language and change perceptions. Meeting the challenge of sustainability will also require engaging with multiple dimensions of understanding and arts practices hold promise for exploring cultural and aesthetic dimensions, in particular. However, efforts to link arts and arts-research to climate change impacts have shed light on a critical trade-off – either arts practices retain their aesthetic-focus but lead to non-linear outcomes with poor measurement prospects, or arts practices adopt a linear and measurable process but lose their aesthetic, exploratory, and emergent core capabilities. The goal of this research project is to gather existing information and knowledge to develop a middle approach. Rather than focusing on direct links between arts practices and climate outcomes, this project will review existing literature to uncover subjective, normative, and intangible outcomes (or ‘bridging outcomes’) of arts practices that are critical for inspiring transformative action on climate change. The results of this study will contribute to the efforts of the Metcalf Foundation (Dr. Maggs) in devising climate change-related recommendations, program development, and targeted investments. These, in turn, will better position the arts sector to support sustainability and climate change-related societal goals.

Faculty Supervisor:

Kelly Vodden;Cameron Forbes

Student:

Partner:

Metcalf Foundation

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Other services (except public administration)

University:

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Program: