Call for Proposals: Trans-Generatives 2030

Apr 13, 2021

Submission Deadline: June 15, 2021

The TRANS-GENERATIVES 2030 inaugural initiative by the UNESCO Chair at ARTEM-ICN and the CEREFIGE-Université de Lorraine, in collaboration with the National School of Art and Design in Nancy (ENSAD), proposes to build a network of sustainable practices, research and education across a diversity of regions, countries, communities and cultures, focused on introducing imaginary, symbolic and aesthetic dimensions into functional rationalities, in order to feed and influence decision-making processes towards sustainability transformations.

The issue of sustainability and the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals (UN Agenda 2030) requires a global and collective effort, particularly in the fields of social economic organizing and the production of value. This effort is often hindered by the excessive attention paid to specialization and individualism at the economic and social level, which leads to the destruction of values, both material and immaterial, in favor of a continuous acceleration of consumption and cycles of expiration and renewal of goods and services, including in the areas of the common good and culture. The race for innovation means successive crushing of actions, goods and identities into worthless waste (Zsolnai 2014; Baumann, 2005). A change of mentality is necessary, oriented towards inclusiveness and based on the recognition of difference and borders as territories to explore. New models of collaboration and transdisciplinary partnerships are needed, which collectively address complexity in sustainable ways (European Partners for the Environment (EPE), 2020), and co-produce knowledge with broad participation and root action, and consideration of diversity.

We propose to answer questions about the development of inclusiveness, the exploration of differences and the creation of participative knowledge, through the integration of the arts with the humanities and natural sciences, thus grounding a crosscutting sustainability science (Unesco Bridges, 2020). Only an approach that mobilizes all human capacities, at the conjunction of the imaginary and the rational, can foster a truly intercultural understanding of change, and ground more inclusive approaches in the field of social, economic and cultural organization. By relying on descriptive complexity, anticipation, dysfunction, disruption, interdisciplinarity and the search for alternatives, which are the ordinary means of art, we can work to transform our conceptions of the human being and his or her relationship to the world.

Nevertheless, it can be difficult for private or public socio-economic organizations constrained by the scarcity of time and resources of all kinds, framed by specialized functionalist schemes, to set up and manage such unusual transdisciplinary approaches. Yet it is through concrete experimentation at all levels that the bridge to a more sustainable future can rise. This is why Trans-Generatives 2030 leans in on art and the imaginary to evoke novel understandings and invoke individual and collective sustainable actions.

When:
Online : November 12th, 2021- December 17th, 2021

Physical and Online (Nancy, France) : December 9-10, 2021

What:
During the four weeks of the event, a physical and online program will propose workshops, conferences, round tables, performances, experiments, webinars, co-imagined and co-organized by the organizers, the contributors (you), their partners and participants, with two days of physical meetings in Nancy as a highlight.

Who:
co-organized by the UNESCO Chair at ARTEM-ICN “Art and Sciences for Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals” and the CEREFIGE / Université de Lorraine scientific research axis “Creativity and Sustainability” in collaboration with partners: ENSAD Nancy (Alliance ARTEM) ; Business Ethics Center (Corvinus University); Albert P. Viragh Institute for Ethics in Business (Duquesne University); International Humanistic Management Association.

For whom:
local, regional, national or international communities, organizations, associations, institutions and companies seeking new inclusive and sustainable models of action impact.

Extension:
The Trans-Generatives2030 event is proposed to be the start of continuous development activities. Further events for collective activities will be: (1) the AAE Summer School where researchers, doctoral students and master students from several international universities will gather together in March 2022 for reflecting and developing the outcomes of the Trans-Generatives2030 activity further. (2) the ARTEM OCC conference (end of March 2022) where participants to the Trans-Generatives2030 event will have the opportunity to present and discuss their outcomes in front of an international academic community. Participants to the Trans-Generatives2030 event are therefore invited to participate as well in these events.

For more information and to submit a proposal, visit the Trans-Generatives website.