The Big Green

The project starts from an observation many in the field will recognise. The cultural sector cares about the ecological crisis, often deeply and personally, but frequently lacks the partners, the scientific grounding and the shared knowledge and motivation to turn that care into sustained work. Meanwhile, scientific data on climate change has never been more available – and never less sufficient on its own. This is the point Baptiste Morizot’s work makes plain: what has broken down is not only a set of systems but a set of relationships, a fracture in how we live with, listen to and acknowledge other forms of life. A fracture like that is not closed by better information. It is closed slowly, through attention, encounter and shared experience – the material culture works with. Data does not repair relationships in its own, culture might. This is why The Big Green treats art not as communication about the crisis, but as one of the few practices capable of rebuilding a relationship to the living world.

That premise shapes how the project works as well as what it makes. Rather than one central plan rolled out across Europe, The Big Green experiments with emergent strategies: many small, situated experiments that adapt to their own place and feed what they learn back into the whole. It follows the logic that patterns at the smallest scale – how a residency is hosted, how a partnership shares decisions, how a classroom is run – are what larger change is actually made of. The project tests this across several fields at once: in policy, in leadership and organisational practice, in artivism, in community building, in pedagogy and in research. Failure and revision are part of the design; the toolboxes and guidelines produced along the way document what held up in practice rather than what was planned.

Across four thematic years — AIR, SOIL, WATER and ECOSYSTEM — the project embeds artists in natural heritage sites to build new narratives for the places they work in, brings artists and science teachers into classrooms together, trains artivists, commissions new artistic creations through open calls grounded in ecological research, and runs behavioural research on what art actually shifts in people. Alongside this, it builds a shared professional infrastructure: the Green Academy seminar series, mini-conferences, and toolboxes for the wider sector. Each year closes with a festival and a conference where the work meets the public.

Six approaches run through the whole programme:

• Positive utopias — encouraging artists to create forward-looking narratives that expand the imagination and the sense of what is possible, drawing attention to the opportunities in more sustainable ways of living rather than dwelling exclusively on the threats of climate change.
• Artivism — using art as a tool for fostering social change and circulating critical information about ecology and climate.
• Ecological learning — using art as a method of learning about the environment, one that can be more sustainable than what traditional curricula offer.
• Natural heritage interpretation — reinterpreting the role the environment plays in individual and collective identities: our relationship with nature, our responsibility towards it, what we have inherited and what we pass on.
• Research — measuring and analysing how art contributes to behavioural change linked to social-ecological transformation.
• Policy and framework building — sharing best practices, providing guidelines for artist–scientist collaboration, and helping build a policy environment in which the sector’s potential for promoting sustainability can be realised.

Cultural diversity and ecological diversity hold each other up: a culture that has lost its plurality of languages, rituals and local knowledges is far less able to notice and defend the living diversity around it. Therefore, what the project is ultimately after is not a set of outputs but a rewilded culture: restoring the same functions ecological rewilding restores – reciprocity, care, belonging.
Including:

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

About Green Academy

Pro Progressione’s Green Pillar emphasizes the integration of artistic practices with the more-than-human environment. We lead and collaborate on various projects, focusing on sustainability and connecting artists with critical environmental issues.

Although these events are directly linked to projects such as The Big Green, we aim to provide an open platform for the cultural and creative sectors, inviting our partners to join the Academy. Following our 2024 pilot phase, we plan to organize five more lectures next year. These events are open to registered participants and offer not only learning experiences but also the opportunity to form a community of professionals dedicated to environmentally conscious art.

The Big Green project behind Green Academy is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.

Green Academy Seminar Series – Episode 1
Learning to Learn: How to Practise Art for a Convivial Future
Date: 06 June 2024, Thursday, at 18:00 CET.
Lecturer: Prof. Jan van Boeckel

>>>>LINK TO THE RECORDING

Green Academy Seminar Series – Episode 2
How to Build a Beast: Changing the World with Wonder and Joy
Date: 27 June 2024, Thursday, at 18:00 CET.
Lecturer: Issac Yuen

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Green Academy Seminar Series – Episode 3
Braiding Infrastructures for Each Other: The Art of Symbiosis
Date: 28 November 2024, Thursday, at 18:00 CET.
Lecturer: Saša Spačal, Slovenia

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Green Academy Seminar Series – Episode 4
The Colours of Our Earth: Building an Eco-arts Community from the Ground
Date: 23 January 2025, Thursday, at 18:00 CET.
Lecturer: Rui Vasques

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Green Academy Seminar Series – Episode 5
Sensing Earthly Entanglements: Teaching Food and Agri-Culture Through Art
Date: 6 March 2025, Thursday, at 18:00 CET.
Lecturer: Anke Strauß

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Green Academy Seminar Series – Episode 6
Reshaping Ceramics: How to Transform an Art Practice for Sustainability
Date: 10 April 2025, Thursday, at 18:00 CET.
Lecturer: Yuliya Makliuk

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Green Academy Seminar Series – Episode 7
Thinking like a Beaver: An Artistic Guide to Mountain Forests
Date: 22 May 2025, Thursday, at 18:00 CET.
Lecturer: Anna Siekierska

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Green Academy Seminar Series – Episode 8
Green Academy X Interpret Europe: What can culture do for nature conservation?
Date: 18 April 2026, Saturday, at 17:30 CET.
Guests: Cristina Veiga-Pires, executive director of the Centro Ciência Viva do Algarve, and Gonçalo Ferreira de Carvalho, Executive Coordinator at Sciaena

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Green Academy Seminar Series – Episode 9
How to redesign society: learning from creative professionals – Green Academy x Faro Unconference
Date: 24 April 2026, 13:00 WEST.

>>>>LINK TO THE RECORDING

The episodes of the Green Academy are hosted by ecologist, philosopher, and writer Philipp P. Thapa.
Organised in collaboration with the Sustainable Europe Research Institute Germany (SERI.de).

With the support of the National Cultural Fund (Nemzeti Kulturális Alap).