A call to artists for sustainable development | Alice Audouin | TEDxCannes

Art and Sustainability: This new alliance is at the heart of an unprecedented artistic movement. Artists play an essential role in the ecological transition. It may not happen without them! Alice Audouin - pioneer in connecting contemporary art and sustainability - is the founder of Art of Change 21 and Alice Audouin Consulting. She teaches at the Sorbonne.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.
Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Can you imagine the Renaissance

without Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo?

We are living today a transformation
of society, of civilization,

a third Industrial Revolution,

of Anthropocene,

of a transition to the Post-Carbon era...

But where is the artistic movement?

Where are the artists

who follow this second Renaissance?

Every period, every such transformation,

has been preceded, followed

by artistic movements:

Impressionism, the Pre-Raphaelites,

Dada who was born with WWI.

These are the questions I asked myself

at the turn of the century.

I was working at the French State Bank

launching an innovative center
dedicated to sustainable development.

And everywhere I would read
the term "stakeholders",

stakeholders who represent civil society

and who, if we listen to them,

permit to understand social
and environmental issues.

And I was very surprised,
among these stakeholders,

to find only NGOs, sometimes labor unions.

I was surprised not to find
artists among these stakeholders.

Are not artists precisely
the representatives of civil society?

They are beholden to no one

rather, they act in the general interest.

They impart visions and values.

They are often catalysts of new paradigms.

And I realized that in this realm

of sustainable development
and the environment,

there was very little talk
about art and culture.

Sometimes contemporary art
was even considered

as a new extension of capitalism

and vice versa, in the art world,

there was little talk
of environmental concerns.

A phenomenon as important
as climate change

wasn't much present

and sustainable development
tended to be perceived

as an oxymoron,

and ecology as an area
of political activism,

or even as an old hippy trip.

And it's true that the driftwood
sculptures of the 70's

were the subject of scorn in New York.

So there was a gap

and I told myself
that something had to be done.

I organized the first
international symposium,

with the artist as a stakeholder.

In that view, with UNESCO,

we conducted the first search

for artists working on themes

related to sustainable development

with a focus on the environment,

essentially visual artists.

And now you are going to see images

that will show you the wealth
of discoveries we have made,

from then until today.

Behind these images, you have artists

who are much less attached
to the notion of creating art in isolation

rather than acting, being on the field,

in collaboration with stakeholders,

other players, being in the transition,

and you have artists
who convey this future world,

with sometimes extremely original ideas.

To resurrect seeds from the Viking Age,

saying that precisely
they will be the feeding solutions

to adapt to global warming.

Or to also invent recipes to eat insects,

another solution for adapting
to climate change.

To buy permits to pollute,
to create solar lights,

imagine new ways of moving,

adopt a square meter
of the Amazon rain forest,

extremely original and abundant ideas

which are the proof

that artists are into innovation,

into solutions,
much more than into condemnation.

The next step

was to start an association

with a landscaper, a curator

and a philosopher,

who then organized for several years

a prize dedicated to contemporary art
and the environment.

We organized exhibitions,

and we have, again,

found a lot of solutions, artists,

and we managed an extra step

in a dialogue that was extremely nascent

between the world of sustainability

and contemporary art.

And during those six years
we spent doing that,

other revolutions appeared.

And in 2014, they threw me off balance.

There had been the rise
of the social and solidarity economy,

and the figure of the social entrepreneur,
who is in social transformation, too,

seemed to me extremely powerful.

In the meantime,

there has been the creation of movements
by young people in the whole world

who really were a lot more innovative

than what the traditional NGOs

to mobilize on the subject.

For example, the Climates association
which created COP in MyCity,

where everyone performs a role play

in which they take
the place of a negotiator

and simulate climate conferences.

There was also the collaborative economy,

peer-to-peer, open data,
a lot of movements

which showed that there was
a transformation going on.

But social entrepreneurs, artists
and these young innovators

worked very independently.

They did not know each other.

Sustainable development
means acting together;

so I had the idea
to create their meeting.

And I founded Art of Change 21,

the art of change of the 21st century,

21 like COP 21, which was on its way.

When I launched this initiative,

France was about to host this great event.

And like the 21 actors
that I went to look for,

to discover around the world,

young people, entrepreneurs, artists

to bring them together in this project.

From Brazil to China

through the United States,
Bahrain, New Zealand, Kenya.

I invited 21 of those actors to Paris,

in an event called the Conclave.

They were locked up for two days

and they played the game,

not to be in a competition,

not to highlight their own projects,

not to chose the best project among theirs,

but to exchange and imagine together,
as a result of their collaboration,

ideas for actions.

What sustainable development
brings to creation is co-creation.

Four ideas emerged from this exchange,

and the great artist Olafur Eliasson,
whose images you have seen

in this small panorama
that I just showed you,

agreed to be the patron of this initiative

together with social entrepreneur
Tristan Lecomte.

So among these four actions,

I want to talk to you
about one of them, Maskbook.

Maskbook, you see behind you,

by a Chinese artist named Wen Fang.

She was just telling us
about her life in Beijing

where she has to wear
an anti-pollution mask.

She said, "In China,
we do not have Facebook.

Anyway,

since we all wear anti-pollution masks,

it should be called Maskbook."

And we had the idea to turn around

the anxiety inducing image
of this anti-pollution mask

and make it an expressive
medium for everyone:

such masks could be created

using each and every one's
creative talents, with recycling, DIY,

we also mobilized makers,

we did it on 3D printers, in 3D scan.

We also invented,

from a means as small as a mask,

a way to communicate solutions
conveyed by each and every one.

We launched this project
for the Paris Climate Conference,

we collected thousands of masks,

we had an exhibition in Beijing,
in Paris at the Grand Palais,

we organized dozens of workshops

to precisely introduce
to the [circular] economy

the different ways we have,

using this tiny bit of material,

of fabric or whatever else,

to do something and to act
on the pollution-climate change link,

which concerns us all:

global warming will accelerate

the effect of pollution in our health.

This is the example of action
that comes from this interaction,

that does not question whether
it is a work of art or not,

which is addressed to all,

and, of course, I invite you all
to create your portrait on Maskbook.

But we will not stop there.

I will not just ask you

to take part
in an initiative like Maskbook,

via workshops or a mobile application

that we will launch with the United
Nations at the end of the month.

I want to ask you more,

Why?

Some of us have already heard
over a thousand times

Gandhi's words,

"Be yourself the change
you want to see in the world."

I personally prefer that of the artist
Joseph Beuys, who said,

"Each man is an artist."

Today our creativity is at stake.

If we do not change,

if we do not invent a world
different from ours,

it will become unliveable.

What is at stake is our ability
to create a new world,

with new ways to eat, to move,

to rethink our hobbies, our work,

and for that,
your creativity is essential.

All together, using our creativity,

adding it to our neighbour’s,

we can create a universal creativity

that would allow us
to succeed in this challenge

of necessary change,

to become ourselves actors of change,

in order to avoid the foretold collapses,

which are our conditions
of living and well-being on Earth.

And at this crucial moment,
when everyone's creativity is at stake,

artists are our allies,
they are our torchbearers.

If we connect to them,

we will be touched by their ingenuity

they will pass on their "virus" to us

to change the world.

If we connect to their imagination,

they will tell us
that nothing is impossible.

Artists are our best chance.

Thank you.

(Applause)