Making Art in Times of Collapses ?

Making Art in Times of Collapses? is a lecture developed for art schools, art practitioners and art institutions. It is a response to a deep sense of disorientation regarding my work as an artist in the face of the multi-dimensional crises affecting our worlds and planet. Borrowing notions from different disciplines, the lecture is an attempt at connecting dots between the biophysical facts of our present ecological predicament, its cultural entanglements throughout history and the specific institutional form and role art-making has taken in our modern western societies.

If art indeed has an influence on the making of our cultures, then what role have art and the arts sector played in shaping the colonial neoliberal extractivist culture that is ours and in perpetuating it today?

What forms of artistic practice could embrace and contribute in a concrete and effective way to the unprecedented cultural transformation that is needed to address the combined environmental, political, social, spiritual challenges we are facing today and move towards more ecologically sustainable and socially just ways of life? Does it make sense to make art today, or would our energies be better put to work elsewhere? And if it does, what are the necessary conditions for the emergence and development of such practices?

conception, writing & presention: Christophe Meierhans, 2022
thanks to: Matteo Razzanelli

presentations:
2022 — La Manufacture, Lausanne | KASK biolab, Gent | Where to Land?, Le Maillon, Strasbourg | Vooruit, Gent
2023 — La Nuit des Idées, Bruxelles | RBA-BKO, Bruxelles | Rosendal Teater, Trondheim
2024 — Le Citron Jaune, Port St.Louis du Rhône
2025 — Feed your Future, online