GALA final meeting in Glasgow

The March 2015 Green Art Lab Alliance meeting in Glasgow marked the end of a two year project spanning across Europe. After the conclusion of this final meeting, Creative Carbon Scotland asks how we can continue this investigation into the arts and sustainability.

The Green Art Lab Alliance was a two-year, EU-funded project, working with 19 partners across 17 different European countries that aimed to explore the links between arts and environmental sustainability. From 12th – 14th March 2015 the final meeting of the partners and contributors was hosted by Creative Carbon Scotland and Glasgow Arts at Tramway.

On Thursday 12th March, we heard from a variety of the European GALA partners, and discovered more about great range of approaches being taken to address and drive arts and sustainability discussion at various cultural levels. Over the past two years, partners have chosen to explore concepts in a ‘workshop’ or a ‘lab’ format, with examples ranging from the Georgian ‘Discover Eliava‘ project (a collaboration of foreign and local artists focused on the production of work using waste materials in the context of a changing urban landscape) to a programmed symposium in Rotterdam, entitled “More than Double Glazing“, held by the Jan Van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands.

This was followed by a day of placing cultural sustainability efforts within the Glasgow context, particularly within the framing of Glasgow’s Green Year 2015: a city-wide celebration of environmental sustainability projects in the urban surrounds. Speakers from Glasgow Life and Glasgow City Council outlined the city’s ambitions at a creative and low-carbon level, and GALA partners shared their experiences working within Europe, and under common objectives. Learning and change required at the individual, organisational and structural level were identified as requirements for achieving national carbon reduction targets, and enabling the paradigm shift required of the cultural sector.

The final day of the GALA event took the form of an open programme of 17 artistic workshops, discussions and events, entitled “Glasgow’s Green: Imagining a Sustainable City“, and focused on practical interaction between the arts and sustainability.

Read the full report on Creative Carbon Scotland website.