Gallery Climate Coalition
GCC is an environmental charity and international coalition of over 1000 arts organisations. Their mission is to create an environmentally responsible art world through knowledge sharing, community building, campaigning and advocacy. Key targets are to reduce the sector’s CO2e emissions by a minimum of 50% (from a 2019 baseline) and achieve near-zero waste by 2030. As a registered charity, GCC does not operate for profit and provide our membership, tools and resources free of charge. GCC relies on voluntary donations to maintain operations. Read more on their website here.
Atelier LUMA
Atelier LUMA was founded in 2016. It brings together a team of designers, engineers, scientists, and experts from the fields of culture, craftsmanship, humanities, and social sciences and innovation, who explore the potential of non-extractivist, and often discredited, local materials, such as invasive plants, agricultural coproducts, algae, and industrial waste.
Housed since 2023 in Le Magasin Électrique, Atelier LUMA operates as a collaborative platform, working with local actors and partners, including farmers, craftspeople, and manufacturers to create sustainable and local solutions. Over the years, Atelier LUMA has expanded its research scope and reach from the Arles bioregion to the international level by taking part in European projects and accompanying other institutions in their research.
Rupert
Located in the picturesque area of Valakampiai in Vilnius, Rupert is a privately initiated and publicly funded centre for art residencies and education. Rupert’s mission is to establish close cooperation between artists, thinkers, researchers and other cultural actors through transdisciplinary programmes and residencies.
Its activities began in 2012 and in 2013 when it moved into ‘Tech Arts’, a creative hub designed by architect Audrius Ambrasas. Only a short distance from the lively city centre, Rupert is situated next to one of the small beaches of river Neris, surrounded by peaceful fields and a forest. Rupert is committed to integrating with the social and cultural life of Vilnius and Lithuania, while also maintaining a strong international focus. Rupert manifests this mission through three interrelated programmes: the residency programme, the alternative education programme and the public programme. They are dedicated to creating platforms for conversation, research and learning. Through these programmes, Rupert supports local and international artists and thinkers in realising their projects and establishing their creative practice on an international scale. All of Rupert’s activities are free.
E-WERK Luckenwalde
E-WERK Luckenwalde has a pioneering ecological and economic model, producing and supplying renewable electricity Kunststrom (Art Power) to the building and national grid. As a not-for-profit institution, E-WERK reinvests all revenue from energy production into its contemporary art programme.
E-WERK is the first contemporary art centre in the world to be powered by its own production. E-WERK is located 30 minutes south of Berlin in a former coal power station built in 1913, ceasing production in 1989. In addition to energy production and contemporary art exhibition spaces, E-WERK also hosts 12 artist studios.
about
the sustainable institution is a long-term international programme divided into three phases: a symposia series, artist residency and digital toolkit in partnership with LUMA Arles, Rupert Centre for art, residencies and education and Gallery Climate Coalition. The project is a call to action to innovate new sustainable approaches and stimulate human, economic and ecological change to the cultural landscape.
the sustainable institution symposia series focuses on change from an economic, humanitarian and ecological perspective. For more information on the symposia series please click here.
In April 2023, Rupert presented Earth Bonds, a symposium which explored the fraught relationship between cultural institutions, artistic practices, advanced technologies and the material implications of climate change. In May 2023, LUMA hosted Every building is a prediction, and every prediction is wrong, which presented key bio-regional design practice solutions. In July 2023, E-WERK presented Burn Out; a symposium-performance programme focused on human sustainability, climate and capitalism, de-growth and environmental imperialism.
the sustainable institution artist residency is an opportunity for creative practitioners to produce new solutions in the fight against climate change and mitigate the environmental burden of exhibition making.
the sustainable institution is an open call for all creative practitioners including artists, architects, design studios and scientists to develop material or immaterial prototypes in the fight against climate change and mitigate the environmental burden of exhibition making. The grant is intended to provide support towards the research and development of a prototype, an early sample, model or idea of a concept or process towards sustainable exhibition making. For more information and to meet the 2023 winners, Beth Collar, bones tan jones and Kirsty Robertston, click here.