Julia Bentz

Nature speaks – creative writing lab

Published on July 9, 2021July 9, 2021 by Julia Bentz

When dealing with socio-ecological problems such as climate change, people typically address it exclusively from a human-centric perspective, prioritizing anthropocentric values, needs and visions. Learning to appreciate non-human perspectives, however, is crucial for socio-ecological harmony.

Inspired by project SUSPLACE´s Toolkit for arts-based methods, we used a creative writing exercise in a storytelling workshop to helps us to see more-than-human viewpoints by asking participants to embody the perspectives of specific beings and natural entities, such as animals, plants, rivers, forests, or mountains.

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Photo by Catriona Forrest. Storytelling Workshop, Glasgow, 25 Nov. 2018

Blueprint stories for desirable futures

Published on July 9, 2021July 9, 2021 by Julia Bentz

ART FOR ADAPTATION promotes art-and-science workshop such as the Blueprint Stories. In this workshop, participants create an image/story for an imaginary museum in the future. The image/story creation involves creative writing and cyanotype photographic printing.

This workshop explores the transformative potential of art through challenging current thinking on climate change and presenting new ways of approaching it. Participants embark on an imaginary journey to the future and use creative-artistic practices to develop alternative narratives (image/story) and share insights. While learning in a playful way about the topic of climate change, participants experience the creative potential of artistic practices. Creative writing techniques and cyanotype printing elicit the image/story.

Cyanotype is a simple photographic printing process that produces cyan-blue prints. Discovered in 1842 by the English scientist and astronomer Sir John Herschel, it was used for reproducing notes and diagrams, and for documenting plant life. In this workshop we use cyanotype prints to illustrate core values and messages for present generations imagined and gathered and on a journey to the future.

On the festival Andanças taking place in Castelo de Vide, Portugal (1-5 August 2018), ART FOR ADAPTATION promoted two Blueprint Stories workshops.

Facilitators: Sofia Regalo (cyanotype printing), Julia Bentz (science, storytelling)

Photos: Ana Isa Mourinho

Open Call! 2018-2019

Published on July 9, 2021July 9, 2021 by Julia Bentz

The Climate Odyssey (Odisseia pelo Clima) aims to engage communities in an art-science-practice project on climate action. It seeks to contribute to new approaches to climate change using the potential of artful and participatory elements to increase awareness and agency for the topic of climate change. The project aims to co-create with the local communities a thematic trajectory (‘odyssey’), which elicits local stories of change and transformation and make visible the various aspects (social, cultural, environmental) of climate change.

Between February and June 2019 the project promotes weekly interactive art-and science workshops engaging local participants in the co-creation of the community theatre Climate Odyssey to be presented to the public in a neighbourhood festival in the end of May 2019 (Festival de Telheiras).

More fotos and updates here

Transformation through art? – Podcast with students of Freie University Berlin (in German)

Published on July 8, 2021August 17, 2021 by Julia Bentz

There is still a huge gap between what we know about sustainability and climate and how we act on an individual and collective level. It is clear that we need a profound change, a transformation. But how do we do that? And what exactly does transformation actually mean? The negative scenarios are well known, but how do I imagine a future worth living in? And how can I shape it actively and creatively?

These are questions that the students of the seminar “Shaping Sustainability – Transformation through Art” investigated. In groups they designed projects that dealt creatively with the topics of urban agriculture, creative activism, art and new ways of thinking, architecture, mobility, urban planning and nutrition.

In the podcast you can hear how they imagine a sustainable future and what are their ideas to actively contribute to that future with creative yet concrete projects. Check out the blog and enjoy listining!

Concept and idea: Dr. Julia Bentz, Projekt www.artforadaptation.com
This podcast was recorded and produced by www.kitmusicproduction.com/ with the support of Freie University Berlin, Unit for Sustainability and Energy Management.

Decolonizing transformations through ‘right relations’ – article published

Published on July 8, 2021July 9, 2021 by Julia Bentz

Back in 2017 and 2018 I interviewed artists and knowledge keepers in Canada BC about the power and potential of art and story in contributing to equitable and sustainable transformations. Back home I shared my experiences with my two colleagues Irmelin Gram-Hanssen and Nicole Schafenacker and we saw there were commonalities with their research but also open questions that we wanted to explore together.

Below you find the result of this exploration with them. This article was just published with the title “Decolonizing transformations through ‘right relations'”. It is part of a special Feature: On the ‘How’ of transformation: Integrative approaches to Sustainability. You can access it with the following link: https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s11625-021-00960-9.pdf.

In it we highlight the intimate connections between climate change and colonization and argue that decolonization will be an integral part of equitable and just transformations toward sustainability. We engage with the idea of ‘right relations’ as a way of decolonizing transformations research and practice and offer four characteristics for transformations researchers to embody: listening deeply, self-reflexivity, creating space and being in action. While we acknowledge the acute need for decolonizing relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and societies in particular, we extent the idea of ‘right relations’ to all people and all places in an effort to co-create a decolonized humanity.

I am so very thankful and grateful for the insights I received to how we might engage in sustainable and equitable transformations.

Learning about climate change in, with an through art – article

Published on October 28, 2020July 8, 2021 by Julia Bentz

How does one engage young people with a topic that is perceived as abstract, distant, and complex, and which at the same time is contributing to growing feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and anxiety among them?

In a new paper, published in Climatic Change, I argue that although the important contributions that the arts and humanities can make to this challenge are widely discussed, they remain an untapped or underutilized potential. I present a novel framework and demonstrate its use in schools. Art can play a central place in climate change education and engagement more general, with avenues for greater depth of learning and transformative potential.

The paper provides guidance for involvement in, with, and through art and makes suggestions to create links between disciplines to support meaning making, create new images, and metaphors and bring in a wider solution space for climate change. Going beyond the stereotypes of art as communication and mainstream climate change education, it offers teachers, facilitators, and researchers a wider portfolio for climate change engagement that makes use of the multiple potentials of the arts.

Learning about climate change in, with an through art – new article

Published on August 11, 2020July 8, 2021 by Julia Bentz

Learning through the body about climate change and sustainability transformations – video

Published on December 28, 2019July 9, 2021 by Julia Bentz

The whole adventure started back in 2017 when Sara Dal Corso and I, developed the idea of a community theatre project on climate change. After two years of applying for funding, we could finally start in the beginning of 2019 with a very limited budget. Over a 3,5-months period we engaged 15 project participants in weekly interactive art-&-science workshops. Inspirations were endangered species, climate fiction, historic events, utopian visions and many others. From these inspirations small performances started to crystallize and the play was created. The public performance took place at Festival de Telheiras, Lisbon, 26 May 2019. We had three sold out shows! To us it was moving, special and inspirational. It showed the power of community and the importance of meaning-making to create climate action. Luckily Guilherme Ornelas was there to film it to capture the moment and later Elisa Purfürst could edit it.

ART FOR CHANGE: transformative learning and youth empowerment in a changing climate – article published

Published on December 22, 2019July 8, 2021 by Julia Bentz

What’s the potential of art and transformative learning to empower young people to address climate change?

In this new article, Karen O’Brien and I explore how climate-related art projects in education shift mindsets and open up imaginative spaces where students explored and discovered their role in addressing climate change and sustainability challenges.

Read the open access article at: https://www.elementascience.org/artic…/10.1525/elementa.390/

Young people represent a powerful force for social change, and they have an important role to play in climate change responses. However, empowering young people to be “systems changers” is not straightforward. It is particularly challenging within educational systems that prioritize instrumental learning over critical thinking and creative actions. History has shown that by creating novel spaces for reflexivity and experimentation, the arts have played a role in shifting mindsets and opening up new political horizons. In this paper, we explore the role of art as a driver for societal transformation in a changing climate and consider how an experiment with change can facilitate reflection on relationships between individual change and systems change. Following a review of the literature on transformations, transformative learning and the role of art, we describe an experiment with change carried out with students at an Art High School in Lisbon, Portugal, which involved choosing one sustainable behavior and adopting it for 30 days. A transformative program encouraged regular reflection and group discussions. During the experiment, students started developing an art project about his or her experience with change. The results show that a transformative learning approach that engages students with art can support critical thinking and climate change awareness, new perspectives and a sense of empowerment. Experiential, arts-based approaches also have the potential to create direct and indirect effects beyond the involved participants. We conclude that climate-related art projects can serve as more than a form of science communication. They represent a process of opening up imaginative spaces where audiences can move more freely and reconsider the role of humans as responsible beings with agency and a stake in sustainability transformations.

continue reading:

https://www.elementascience.org/artic…/10.1525/elementa.390/

Young people’s call for action – video

Published on June 6, 2019July 9, 2021 by Julia Bentz

Being part of the Organising Committee of the European Climate Change Adaptation Conference 2019, which took place 28-30 May in Lisbon, one of my tasks was to involve youth in the conference. I produced a video with young people and with my sister Johanna Bentz.

The idea was to meaningfully and creatively engage young people and give them a voice to express themselves about climate change and possible responses. The video was co-produced with and about young people and their views on climate change. Students of Antonio Arroio Art High School and St. Julian’s School, Lisbon were interviewed about their perceptions of climate change responses. The film project aims to raise awareness and climate change engagement. The video was displayed for the first time in the Closing Plenary of ECCA and is currently being distributed in social media.

Worldwide, there are few young people participating in public decisions around climate change. These same young people are disproportionately affected by disasters and climate change hazards: they have limited voices in the decisions and policies related to disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation, and community resilience despite calls for their empowerment as important stakeholders in these issues. In addition, young people will grow to fill leadership roles in decision-making organisations, while inheriting the consequences of climate change, policies and actions that are co-constructed today. Actively engaging and empowering children and young people to address the complex problems of climate change is a critical step to achieving resilience at local, regional, and national levels.