- Posted on October 12th, 2020
Creative Climate Leadership Comes to Sweden and Scandinavia
Creative Climate Leadership (CCL) is a training and transformation programme to empower artists and cultural professionals to take action on the climate and ecological crisis with impact, creativity, and resilience.
Led by Julie’s Bicycle, it will be presented in Sweden thanks to a collaboration with visual artist and sustainability scientist Diego Galafassi and the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), supported by the Swedish Postcode Foundation.
“We are all aware of the challenges we face due to climate change, but still it is difficult for most of us to change ingrained behavior. We believe that arts and culture are vital resources for behavioral change and has a role to play when it comes to climate change. We are therefore proud to support Julie’s Bicycle in their work to focus on cultural leadership development for climate action in Sweden and the Scandinavian region,” says Marie Dahllöf, Secretary General at the Swedish Postcode Foundation.
The programme will feature:
- Two editions of the CCL programme of leadership development, learning, and peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. Two CCL cohorts of 24 participants will be recruited: the first program (spring 2021) will be open to participants living and working in Sweden, the second (autumn 2021) will be open to participants from the wider Scandinavia region.
- Each intensive is followed by inclusion in an ongoing international network of colleagues that supports ongoing action, learning and exchange. In the 12 months following the initial training, participants will be supported through regular webinars, an alumni newsletter, and access to a limited number of ‘seed funding’ grants to support legacy CCL Action projects.
- A CCL Summit will take place in Sweden in the second half of 2022, bringing together both cohorts of participants with cultural and environmental funders and policymakers, climate campaigners, and the wider creative community to sustain momentum and energy in Sweden’s creative climate movement.
Applications for CCL Scandinavia are open
The cultural community is a critical – and often overlooked – partner in the urgent response to climate change. The arts and creative industries have a history of inspiring people of all ages, ethnicities, cultural, and political persuasions to understand and connect to big issues – often deeply affecting people who might otherwise not have the interest, energy, courage, or endurance to act. Through the values reflected by cultural spaces (festival sites, theatres, music clubs, arts centres, and museums), the voices of artists and cultural leaders, and the artworks themselves, culture – very publicly – can demonstrate and inspire practical steps to reduce emissions, innovate solutions, shift public attitudes, and champion ecological values, sharing learning and reaching millions of people to make the transition we now need.
The programme is designed for performing, visual, media, music, and other artists; cultural workers including producers, presenters, curators, administrators, funders, policy makers, and others; and those change makers working outside of the arts interested in using creative methodologies and collaboration to address climate and ecological challenges.
Creative Climate Leadership is for performing, visual, media, music, and other artists; cultural and creative workers including producers, presenters, curators, administrators, funders, policy makers, and others who are ambitious and passionate about using their cultural and creative expertise in service to the ecological crisis and climate justice.
Applicants must be based in and/or working in Sweden.
Creative Climate Leadership is here to galvanise a global creative climate movement that is creating a new cultural ecology fit for our changing world: from activism to organisational leadership and business strategy, artwork to policy change.
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“Participating in the Creative Climate Leadership programme transformed me from a passive, mostly pessimistic spectator into an empowered participant. It connected me to a network of passionate actors from all parts of the globe and of various backgrounds. I keep on seeing the added value of hearing everyone’s voice and unleashing our potential in solving probably the most pressing challenge of our time.”
“The CCL course has given me a much clearer understanding of climate change as an ethical, socio-economic and political issue and of how my thinking around equality, human rights, collective rights and environmental justice interrelate.”
“CCL was an invaluable experience for me. It was a great opportunity to connect with like-minded people who have similar concerns to myself around climate and environment and are trying to figure out how the ‘creative industries’ address these issues. Since the week took place I have benefited from belonging to an international network, through which I have been able to share ideas, thoughts and receive feedback.”
About the Partners:
Creative Climate Leadership has been created by Julie’s Bicycle and brought to life with local partners and supporters around the world, including mitos21, Creative Europe, PiNA, the University of Arizona, and EcoArts Connections.
Julie’s Bicycle is an international leader in arts, culture and climate change based in London and founded in 2007. JB creates pioneering arts/cultural environmental policy, maintains the largest global digital resource on creative action on environmental challenges, convenes and supports numerous networks and campaigns bringing together arts and climate change, and empowers organisational change, impact reduction, and skills and training across the creative community including in performing arts, music festivals, venues, museums, visual arts.
Diego Galafassi is avisual artist and sustainability scientist from Brazil living in Stockholm. His PhD from Stockholm Resilience Centre (Stockholm University) focused on the role of co-creation of knowledge and artistic practices in transformations towards sustainability (Thesis: The Transformative Imagination: Re-imagining the world towards sustainability). He is also a writer, producer and director of documentaries, experimental cinema and performance. https://www.diegogalafassi.live/
Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) is a world class sustainability centre for research, teaching and impact working to understand and catalyse social change and transformations in relation to material limits in the biosphere. https://www.lucsus.lu.se/
Svenska Postkodstiftelsen (Swedish Postcode Foundation): The Swedish Postcode Lottery’s belief is that the world is getting better with the help of strong nonprofit organizations. The Postcode Foundation supports non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Sweden and internationally, that actively contribute to the global goals and create positive changes through concrete efforts. https://postkodstiftelsen.se/
Image from Creative Climate Leadership in Wales, 2017. Credit Jorge @ Studio Cano
