Founded in Copenhagen, ART 2030 is a non-profit organisation that aims to merge art with the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The organisation believes that through art, they can open people’s heart and minds and ignite their imagination, sparking inspiration for a happy, healthy, sustainable future. Collaborating with esteemed artists and partners from all over the world, ART 2030 coordinates captivating art projects connected to the 17 Global Goals, including public art experiences, panel discussions and performance art.
The organisation educates people on how to enact change while expressing their disillusionment with the current state of world affairs. With the hope of starting dialogue and inciting action, ART 2030 encourages the public and its artists to engage in a plan for peace, planet and prosperity, creating art not just for the wellbeing of the earth but also for the people that inhabit it. The organisation has recently launched a weeklong initiative in New York, corresponding to the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly discussing a shared and sustainable future. Have a look at some of ART 2030’s other projects that address issues of sustainability and inequality, creating awareness through art.
YES
In the photo: Yoko Ono, YES, (2017). Installation view at UN City Copenhagen, 2018. Photo Credits: Courtesy of the artist and Art 2030
Addressing all of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, YES by Yoko Ono urges everyone to commit to accomplishing the Global Goals. Directed by the artist, people write yes in their own language, acknowledging their responsibility in helping to create a better world. YES premiered in the United Nations City in Copenhagen in February 2018 and over the course of the four-day installation, over 500 people pledged their “yes” to the 17 Global Goals.
Hundreds of people from different backgrounds, who speak different languages from Finnish to Japanese, and even Kannada, pledged their commitment to a peaceful and sustainable future. In partnership with ART 2030, Yoko Ono will exhibit YES worldwide, creating a universal pledge from audiences of all ages, cultures and backgrounds, united all over the world.
In the video: Yes by Yoko Ono, UN City Copenhagen, 2018. Video Credits: YOKO ONO AND Art 2030
Tow with the Flow
In the photo: Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen & ART 2030, Tow with the Flow, Roskilde Festival, 2018. Photo Credits: LEES Foto © ART 2030. Courtesy of the artist and ART 2030
Performed in custom-made uniforms from sustainable Scandinavian fashion label sur le chemin, Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen’s Tow with the Flow criticises the globalised textile industry. Incorporating goals 4, 8, 10 and 12, the performance piece calls attention to the atrocious inequalities faced by workers in the textile labour market while creating awareness regarding alternative forms of consumption and production for a sustainable future.
Tow with the Flow is continually evolving. Performers emerge from their dark cloaks and question the conventions of clothing, embracing colour and covering themselves with layer upon layer of fabric, symbolic of textile waste. By working regularly with new groups of young people in different venues all over the world, the project always has a different outcome, allowing people to overcome barriers and work together freely towards a common cause.
In the photo: Lilibeth Cuenca Rasmussen & ART 2030, Tow with the Flow, Gefion High School, Copenhagen, 2018. Photo Credits: Pil Christoffersen © ART 2030. Courtesy of the artist and ART 2030.
Planet Art
In the video: The beginning stages of Planet Art in Amapá. Video Credits: Hello Monday
Planet Art is ART 2030’s most ambitious undertaking yet – a series of projects around the world creating art that will have long-term benefits for the natural world. Dealing with Global Goals like climate action and life on land, the project embraces a larger vision of interdisciplinary collaboration for sustainable art that creates awareness while having a positive impact on all life. Essentially, Planet Art intends to spark a global movement for natural nurture, encouraging people to live in symbiosis with nature.
Planet Art begins with its first large-scale art project of replanting the Amazon forest in Amapá, in northern Brazil. The area has suffered from a lack of environmental protection, sustainable economic development and ethical production. Through combining art and diverse skills, ART 2030 hopes to transform the space and create a powerful, enduring, living statement for a better future. The project in Amapá is still in its initial stages but soon, ART 2030 will accomplish the difficult task of finding an artist to envision this future eco-metropolis and Planet Art will slowly reverse the process of global warming, building a more sustainable future.
