Transformative Territories
This programme, Transformative Territories: the performative transition through the arts, aims to explore the role of the arts and transformative artistic practices at a territorial scale.
Aware of the need to redefine the meaning of artistic practices in our societies and to give practical shape to the ambitions of the New European Bauhaus, COAL is developing a project from 2024 to 2026 in collaboration with five European partners, with scientific guidance from the Centre des Politiques de la Terre and the Institut Michel Serres, and with the support of Creative Europe.
Transformative Territories: the performative transition through the arts explores the role of the arts and transformative artistic practices at a territorial scale, connecting artistic creation, ecological transition and social engagement.
Read more
The six cultural actors brought together in the Transformative Territories cooperation programme have long been working to build an alliance between art and sustainability. Their objective is to contribute to the development of a culture of sustainability, creating alternative artistic, scientific and political narratives of ecological transformation and solidarity within our societies.
Five of them have founded atypical, non-institutional cultural spaces—true open-air laboratories—where they experiment with concrete and realistic “ecotopias.” Rooted in rural or agricultural contexts, these spaces foster close relationships with local territories, everyday life, biodiversity and natural cycles.
INLAND–Campo Adentro (Spain) connects art and rurality through initiatives based in Madrid, Mallorca and the mountains of northern Spain. Founded in 2009 by artist and agroecologist Fernando García-Dory, the project bridges artistic practice and agroecology.
In France, artist Olivier Darné created Zone Sensible, a permaculture farm in Saint-Denis on the outskirts of Paris, aiming to rediscover the richness of suburban landscapes through artistic and ecological practices.
In the Czech Republic, American artist Barbara Benish founded ArtMill on the site of the former Červený Mlýn mill, a space dedicated to sustainable, situated and non-hierarchical artistic experimentation, linking local and international perspectives.
Since 2019, Locus Athens has developed Tavros, a space named after the Athens district in which it is located, referencing its Turkish migratory history and promoting art committed to ecology, democracy and equality.
The Instituto Terra Memória connects the town of Mação (Portugal) with intercontinental partners around the social, environmental and cultural challenges of the ecological transition, working through archaeology and memory.
As programme coordinator, COAL has supported the emergence of a new culture of ecology and ways of living since 2008. Through initiatives such as the COAL Art and Environment Prize, it has highlighted hundreds of artists worldwide who contribute to transforming territories, lifestyles and modes of production.
Together, these six partners act as laboratories for Transformative Artistic Practices—collective, participatory and transdisciplinary approaches that offer culture-based solutions for the ecological transition of territories and our ways of inhabiting the Earth.
