February 13, 2010
Aarhus Art Building,
Centre for Contemporary Art
OPEN CALL FOR PROPOSALS
IMAGINE
Towards an eco-aesthetic, 2011
The Aarhus Art Building,
Centre for Contemporary Art, Denmark
Artists and curators are
hereby invited to submit
proposals for 2011.
Deadline March 15
http://www.aarhuskunstbygning.dk
Only when people are in a position to use their own creative
potentials, which can be enhanced by an artistic imagination, will a
change occur [….] Art can and should strive for an alternative that
is not only aesthetically affirmative and productive but is also
beneficial to all forms of life on our planet.
Rasheed Araeen: Ecoaesthetics. A Manifesto for the Twenty-First Century
In the autumn of 2009, Rasheed Araeen, editor of the respected
periodical on art and culture Third Text, launched a frontal attack on
the modern ego and the recuperation of the avant-garde. Instead of the
continued rigid production of objects and a stubborn anchoring in art
institutions, Araeen pleads for a collective artistic imagination as
the only road towards “[ ] rivers and lakes of clean water, collective
farms and the planting of trees all over the world.”
From what is perhaps a slightly one-track masculine perspective,
Araeen’s manifesto examines earlier failed attempts to step down from
the pedestal of the bourgeoisie in favour of a collective commitment
to our surroundings and the environment. Nevertheless, the notion of
art as a positive, giving alternative unhampered by the restraints of
either representation or negation is relevant in a new decade in a new
millennium.
In trying to conceive of such an alternative it seems a reasonable
first step to take a closer look at alliances between art and
sustainable development For at the roots of the idea of sustainability
lie an ethical imperative and a persistent struggle against inequality
parameters that seem indispensable today if we actually want to
imagine change and alternatives.
The notion of sustainability first aroused political attention in the
1970s, although it can also be traced back to the 1960s in the shape
of various grass-roots movements. In 1972 the UN Conference on the
Human Environment was held in Stockholm this was the first of its
kind, and at the same time the first transnational forum that even
considered the environment and society as a single, interconnected
issue.
The conference was strongly influenced by the book Limits to Growth
published by the global think tank Club of Rome the same year, in
which the problems of exponential growth vis-à-vis the limited
resources of the Earth were outlined. The book inspired thoughts about
the limits of growth in terms not only of the human population but
also of economic factors. This realization that the Earth was not an
inexhaustible storehouse of resources contributed to the development
of a notion of sustainability that takes the future generations of the
Earth into account.
The correlation between ecological and social issues is a fundamental
aspect of thinking about sustainability, and consequently also
involves concepts like responsibility and ethics. Similarly, in
various movements that have consistently had sustainability as a
central point of reference since the 1970s, for instance Social
Ecology and Ecofeminism, sustainability is inextricably bound up with
an astute critique of the dominant hierarchical structures.
The notion of sustainability thus includes the consideration of social
structures, subjection and domination, ethics and economics on an
equal footing with consideration of the environment and the ecology.
If art today is to have the above-mentioned positive starting point,
it needs to think about this complex apparatus as a whole and imagine
an alternative. Only thus can we move towards an art that is healing
and affirmative and thus towards an eco-aesthetic in the new
millennium.
With this background the Aarhus Art Building is hereby issuing an Open
Call for Proposals for 2011. We welcome suggestions for group
exhibitions, solo exhibitions and workshops as well as suggestions for
projects in public space. Guidelines can be found at
www.aarhuskunstbygning.dk. The guidelines must be followed in the
application to make it eligible for consideration.
