On the Road Call 2 (2023—2025)

Imagine Climate Dignity: Artistic Collaborations

The project Shaken Grounds, Shifting Skies by Nikolaus Gansterer, Mariella Greil, Peter Kozek and Lucie Strecker with Nicola Fornoni, Helga Franza, VestAndPage (Verena Stenke and Andrea Pagnes) was selected in the international call of the Section for International Cultural Affairs in the Foreign Ministry and the Austrian Cultural Forums in co-operation with the Künstlerhaus Vereinigung Wien.

The starting point for the call is a broad understanding of dignity that is not limited to the dignity of people, but also includes the dignity of nature. On the one hand, climate dignity means that all people have a right to live in a sustainable world in which their health, freedom and livelihoods are not impaired by climate change. In terms of climate justice, this applies specifically to the people, communities and countries that are or will be most affected by the impacts of climate change and are therefore particularly worthy of protection. Climate Dignity also emphasises that the effects of man-made climate change and the associated loss of biodiversity not only threaten human dignity, but also endanger nature and its flora and fauna. The "more-than-human" concept of Climate Dignity thus places the interdependence between humans and nature in all its manifestations centre stage. Anyone who harms the dignity of nature also harms human dignity.

Shaken Grounds, Shifting Skies explores the interactions between climate change and seismic forces through artistic research practices. The project takes the geologically highly active Phlegraean Fields near Naples as a starting point to question the figure of artists as seismographs. Earthquakes and lava eruptions have characterised this region for thousands of years and have been read as natural or as a punishment from the gods and goddesses. Oracle sites and myths were created here. Today we know that this is Europe's largest supervolcano. Extensive magma chambers raise and lower the ground, and evacuation plans have only recently been updated in case of an eruption. While geo-engineers want to slow down global warming by releasing sulphur particles into the stratosphere like a volcano, geophysicists are investigating the extent to which rising sea levels influence underground lava flows and thus trigger seismic activity worldwide. The planet's reactions to human intervention in the earth's structure are complex and unpredictable, facts and fictions cannot be clearly distinguished.

The artistic team of Shaken Gounds, Shifting Skies therefore moves in epistemological and ontological zones of transition when it traces the relationships between technosphere and geosphere in times of climate change. Artistic-performative practice, geological field research and somatic methods for body perception, consciousness and attention enable an examination of the intertwined phenomena of the Anthropocene and the associated socio-ecological responsibility. The process will be recorded in various media. Selected documents will be shown at the Austrian Cultural Forum in Rome in 2024 and at Künstlerhaus Wien in 2025.

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