We had the pleasure to meet with some very inspiring minds and encouraging positive energy from several fantastic people this week. Firstly, we met with Katarina Pierre, Director of the art museum in Umeå, (Bildmusset), this week and were guided through the latest exhibitions they have on show right now. We have been developing ideas to collaborate with the art museum, artists and students of art at the university, and disucssed methods to provide a space to help visualise art that can inspire thoughts, discussion and action for sustainability. The interdisciplinary nature of art is a great tool for all to help address sustainability challenges with help from new perspectives and to develop transformative mindsets.

At the art museum in Umeå, there has been an exhibition of Nancy Holt’s work that crosses her natural science background with her love for art to produce some inspiring work about what we see and how we see, changing perspective through minimalist tools. She is influenced by the outdoors, quite like many teachers of sustainability. The cultural difference between Nancy Holt’s work and the Northern Swedish art is quite striking, giving the viewer time to practice the art of reflecting over different perspectives in one visual space. One piece that stood out for me is a piece on children where the 1000 questions are placed on a canvas (by Andjeas Ejiksson, 1000 frågor, 2022), questions that represent the curiosity of the young mind.

We also discussed the inspiring work that has been ongoing at Stockholm School of Economics, in the project Art Initiative that incorporates art into the business education to inspire students to become self-aware, culturally literate and more reflective; a very important skill for the competence of intra-personal thinking for sustainability. When teachers cross disciplines to provide more tools for their students, the students gain more tools for their futures.  

A little tip came through. It might be short notice for some, but for those who can…Accelerator and the interdisicplinary platform ART FOREST (The Arts for Resilient Futures) at Södertörns University are holding a discussion (in English) about Art in the Climate Crisis on the 1st of February.

Jos Eussen, professor at Maastricht University and project leader of The OPEDUCA Proect, reached out to meet with us to discuss our project this week, too. His stories from years of experience in many different contexts gave great encouragement for what we are trying to achieve, and how much our work can help others to reach the next steps in their journey to advance education for suatainability. It was also lovely to hear the passion for support that can come from like-minded projects in different countries around the world, thank you all. We look forward to meeting more with Jos, and more with others that can help to spread this movement further.

Thank you for your mutual enthusiasm for art in education and the importance of using outdoor autonomous activities for learning. Disrupting the norm and questioning the traditional, while playing within the norm can be quite a complex field to navigate. Using the interdisciplinary nature of sustainabilty education as a tool to show how simple methods can open up to several learning experiences at the same time is exactly the type of learning activities we would love to share with you all. Sometimes the simple changes with simple techniques can create much more complex learning experiences for students, ready to ask those thousand questions.

We’ve also been talking with some more IT specialists to discuss how we can develop our platform to incorporate all our big ideas that we want to be able to provide for you all. The possibilities to automatise some of our functions should be up and running soon. There will also be an additional chat bot that can help you to navigate around the website to find the information you would like more easily. Let us know how you would like information for your ESD and we will design it. What is missing for you?

We have many other plans that are in the idea stage but should be released soon, so keep checking in on our work.  With these updates, you will be able to share your experiences and find advice for your own ESD practices. We love to hear your stories and how inspiring your ideas can be, so keep them rolling in and let everyone know about the wonderful work you are already doing. This week, we would like to hear more about your work with Art in our discussion forum.

Would you visit a virtual art gallery? How could you apply a virtual art gallery in your lessons? Could the creation of a reading group be implemented in your department, faculty or across the university? What help would you need?