2021 Learning Exchange

A drawing of 2 hands holding the world"Hands" by Georg Engeli, 2021

Culture and/as Sustainability

Haga clic para la versión en español

by Ana Cabria Mellace, Executive Director of Fundacion Cambio Democratico (Argentina) and Culture as Sustainability Learning Exchange team member

The 2021 Learning Exchange is coming!

And the stage is for: Culture as sustainability

IMPACT has already produced six Learning Exchanges (LE), rich spaces of conversation among peers that, through dialogue, promote inquiry, reflection and learning. Critical issues that mobilize the ecosystem of art, culture and conflict transformation have been at the center of each conversation .

In 2021, the central topic of the LE will be Culture as Sustainability. Culture plays a key role in how we think and act for the common future. It is still under discussion how culture is presented in the sustainability scenario. A European Investigation Report[1] proposes three approaches: culture in sustainability in which culture becomes the fourth pillar of sustainability, along with the social, economic and ecological pillars; culture for sustainability, considering culture as a means to achieve economic, social and ecological sustainability; finally, culture as sustainability, where culture is a necessary basis upon which to achieve the general objectives of sustainability. In this representation, culture is also the stage, and sustainability is integrated in it. We believe in culture as sustainability since now, as never before, it is evident that we are facing a paradigm shift, and in that change, culture is at the base and runs through any possible new way of being together in the world.

Numerous networks, platforms, groups of artists, peace builders, Indigenous people, and groups of women and of young people around the world are creating knowledge and developing actions that contribute to this paradigm shift. IMPACT wants to contribute to the process of connection and deepening of reflection and action between them. That is why we propose this new dialogue.

When? LE Culture as Sustainability will take place the first week of November and it will be an online global conversation, where words, images and sounds, heart and reason will intersect to reflect and generate possibilities for action around issues that are essential to sustainability. IMPACT works with a core team to promote partnerships, preparatory events and the design of a unique space.

This Learning Exchange will be carried out on the Peace Direct platform, simultaneously in English and Spanish, based on the design and facilitation of a diverse group of co-conveners engaged with art, culture and conflict transformation.

Be part of this! More information will be available soon. Look out for the special issue of the newsletter announcing the details.

If you want to know more about the paradigm shift, interdependence and the need for action for sustainability, read: Carmen Olaechea's Thoughts on Culture and Sustainability


[1] Dessein , J., Soini, K., Fairclough, G. and Horlings , L. (eds) 2015. Culture in, for and as Sustainable Development. Conclusions from the COST Action IS1007 Investigating Cultural Sustainability. University of Jyväskylä , Finland .