Sustainable Societies for the Future

How do we create ideas, paths, and actions for a more sustainable world? How can art function as a catalyst for change? The project Sustainable Societies for the Future is founded on some of today’s most complex and urgent challenges. This publication, released on the occasion of the concurrent exhibition on view at the Malmö Art Museum and a number of seminars and events, directly addresses issues surrounding how cities and human settlements can be transformed into inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable environments.

The statements in this book feature individual and collective contributions by artists and scholars from the Nordic and North American art scenes to awaken discussion, reflection, and perspectives that reflect sustainable pathways for the world. Designed by Olga Prader, the navigation of each text is conceptually categorized through a visual lexicon that follows the mission of the 11 Global Goals set out by the UN, including biodiversity, housing, and gender equality, health and safety, and environmental justice, among other key issues.

We are at a point where sustainability alone is not sufficient. As the pages within Sustainable Societies for the Future suggests, contemporary art can serve as a key speculation into how issues of ecological challenges, access to and preservation of natural resources, social exclusion, balance of economy, forms of protest, and collective responsibilities can be approached via a political and social lens.

The exhibition Sustainable Societies for the Future runs at Malmö Art Museum from 1 February to 23 May 2021.