What do the arts have to do with the Earth’s climate?

To me, sustainability means…
thinking, deciding, and acting—in such a way that human beings (and hence our society, the world, culture, music, etc.) end up doing better than they’re doing now. And where this is concerned, I really like the term “grandchild-optimised”.

Climate change is relevant to the cultural world because…
it entails massive and lasting changes to the conditions under which cultural work is done in light of imperatives like saving energy and changing production processes.

Art can change the world by…
connecting, inspiring, enthusing, motivating, encouraging, and strengthening people as well as spurring them to act.

Climate change makes itself noticed in my work as…
the availability of more and more IT options in parallel with climate change running all the way to AI (which doesn’t exactly make things any simpler in an ethical sense).

My personal contribution to climate protection is…
not traveling to any far-off places, purchasing and using the “Klimaticket”, working at home whenever possible, and making sure I myself regionally and seasonally.

For the future, I’d like…
less cars and more trains, which means: the expansion of the regional and international rail networks. Less is more—which means thinking differently about energy consumption and use as well as about how we use natural and personal resources. And we need less talk and more action—which means making sustainable (grandchild-optimised) political and individual decisions in the interest of achieving the climate goals.

In our series “What does art have to do with the Earth’s climate?” the “green mdw” initiative invites concerned individuals to speak out on their personal approaches to this issue. After all, the connections are obvious—or are they? Just how diverse are the perspectives from which mdw faculty members, students, administrators, alumni, and other active artists think about our climate, sustainability, and their own professional practice? As the environment and sustainability spokesperson of the hmdw (the mdw’s student union), music educator and choir director Kinga Bernhauser faces these questions head on.

Further information on the agenda of the green mdw can be found here.