This year’s Venice Biennale showed impressively to just what extent climate change has become a topic and starting point of works by numerous artists from all over the world. Quite a few sculptures, installations, and video works made reference to species extinction, marine pollution, and the exploitation of natural resources. Our ecosystem is being pushed over the edge, with horrific consequences that the arts—just like other fields—can no longer ignore. But while artists working in film, music, and literature have been referencing this crisis for a while, now, it would seem as if the cultural scene at large still rests upon a system of values that has long since become incompatible with current levels of ecological awareness. Virtually no renowned orchestra can do without world tours, as travel enhances an orchestra’s image and makes its musicians internationally renowned and celebrated. This entails flying thousands of kilometres—a practice that’s overdue for a long, hard look from an ecological standpoint. This also goes for programmes printed on paper just as it does for opera and concert houses with obsolete energy infrastructure—and even the musicians’ instruments themselves frequently cannot stand up to critical scrutiny through an environmental lens. Take those made from rare tropical woods such as mahogany, rosewood, and grenadilla, for instance. Environmental activists have been decrying such artistically motivated resource depletion for decades.
In other fields of art, too, much needs to change. While it may be the case that the film industry employs “green coordinators” to ensure environmentally conscious filming, its protagonists still travel all over the world for international festivals. And valuable paintings for large-scale exhibitions need special conditions in terms of exhibition hall temperatures and humidity that can only be artificially maintained, which likewise consumes energy. The arts are hence most definitely among those areas that have an ecological footprint. Minimising it would require commensurate awareness—on the part of art world protagonists as well as audiences.
