ART FOR ADAPTATION is a six-year postdoc project, financed by the Portuguese Foundation of Science and Technology (SFRH/BPD/115656/2016).

During this period it will develop innovative research on the relationship between art and climate change adaptation and transformation, based on the assumption that successful adaptation occurs through processes of transformation. In other words, successful adaptation involves more than strategies and interventions to tolerate warmer temperatures, adjust to drier or wetter conditions, or manage changes in disaster risk – it is also likely to involve the transformation of larger structures and systems (e.g., energy, financial, and social-technical systems), and possibly transformations in beliefs, values and worldviews such as perceptions of human-environment relationships, understandings of causality and attitudes towards individual and collective agency to affect change.

About me

My name is Julia Bentz. I am a regeneration and transformation researcher at the University of Lisbon and a lecturer at Freie Universität Berlin. I have a background in interdisciplinary social sciences (MPhil. Development Studies, PhD Economics) and conduct research on the many interactions between social and ecological systems in a variety of research fields and contexts including climate change mitigation, adaptation and transformation. My special interest has been community engagement and sustainability education. In my project Art for Adaptation and in my recent book I explore the transformative potential of art and story as an engagement practice for diverse communities and social groups. I am also the lead of one of the working groups of the Cost Action “Shift – Social Sciences and Humanities for Transformation and Climate Resilience” and a collaborator in the Horizon project “NBRACER – Nature-Based Solutions for Atlantic Regional Climate Resilience”.