Sustainable place-shaping, place-making, place development:  The arts’ role? 

Myriam Greusard

Following Cop26’s poor outcome, the challenge to develop sustainable, place-based alternatives for the future has become even more urgent. As of today, it is undeniable that more and more people want to live sustainably; nevertheless, it is argued that the lack of heterogeneity in motivation factors and the sometimes irrelevant and moralistic discourses are hindering any transformative potential within societies. Increased social fragmentation and inequalities get in the way of the potential of rallying people behind common values and vision of the world. The pandemic has reminded us of the importance of access to tangible local economic and social resources, and the need to rediscover physical spaces – as opposed to digital spaces – in which conviviality and sociability can be beneficial. Therefore, we need to imagine and implement desirable and sustainable ways of living which are not parochial, but rather grounded in dialogue, inclusiveness, and active engagement considering societies multiple cultures. 

Sustainability is a cultural issue and can play a key role in sustainable community development and planning. It has been found that place-shaping supports people’s participation, collaboration, and collective agency, strengthening their autonomy. Also, active participation in cultural life provides the motivation and possibility of increased civic participation, lends cultural visibility to marginalised groups, and fosters mutual recognition and cooperation between different generations and cultures. 

However, challenges remain in identifying what does motivate people enough to get engaged in transforming their ecosystems where different organisms are either collaborating or competing based on their different needs. As such, artists, cultural organizations, and cultural institutions hold transformative potential by challenging the values that condition life choices, including unsustainable economic and consumption models. They have a role in finding unexpected discourses and visions which will trigger interest and excitement, and where imagination, deliberation, construction of meaning are created via the space provided by these new narratives. Nonetheless, being highly equipped to visualise new futures does not suffice to tackle an array of sustainable crises. In essence, artists and cultural organisations need to implement a sustainable place-based approach in the context of inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary work. Collaboration with diverse sectors, knowledge systems, actors, and types of expertise is an effective way to explore long-term desirable and dignified pathways rather than having to survive through an endless series of crises. 

Culture does not solve problems per se, but it is through upheavals that cultural common grounds emerge in which the arts reveal its universal scope beyond each individual circumstances, showing that another world is possible.