Just Art? New project aims to harness the power of artistic research for climate justice

A large consortium receives 6,8 million euros from the Dutch Research Council as part of the Dutch Research Agenda to put art at the center of climate justice, from Aruba to the Wadden Islands.

As the impacts of climate change accelerate, it is becoming increasingly clear that those least responsible for the crisis are also those most likely to be the hardest hit. This is one of the central tenets of climate justice, a framework that highlights the deep inequities and injustices shaping responses to climate change.

JUST ART: Creating Common Grounds for Climate Justice Through Artistic Research brings together artists, researchers, campaigners and communities in rural and urban regions across the Kingdom of the Netherlands to address these injustices and take urgent action together to shape more just futures.

From Aruba to the Wadden Islands

Led by the University of Groningen (Prof. Dr. Ann-Sophie Lehmann, Art History & Material Culture, Faculty of Arts) the project will see ten higher education institutions collaborate with 40 societal partners to amplify marginalised voices, illuminate systemic injustices, and cultivate new strategies for more just forms of climate action. The complexity and scale of the climate crisis can feel overwhelming.

Artistic practice and artistic research can open up new ways of understanding the intersectional dimensions of this crisis so that people feel empowered to act, in whatever way they can. This grounded approach is central to the JUST ART project. From Aruba to Brabant, from the Wadden Islands to Twente, and from the polders to Curaçao, JUST ART will promote climate justice in contexts where the crisis is most acutely felt, and where action is most urgently needed.

Art moves people

At its core climate justice sheds light on the multiple ways climate change reinforces existing injustices, especially those related to race, class, gender, geography, colonial history, and the relation between humans and other life forms. Art and artistic research are vital in this context not just because they can help to imagine other ways of being in the world, but because they can foster meaningful dialogue and collaborative practices across disiplinary, geographical, and cultural borders. JUST ART will galvanise emerging work at the intersection of artistic research and climate justice, and catalyse new creative collaborations within and beyond the Kingdom of the Netherlands.