Arts, sport and culture

The aim of this page is to recognise, celebrate and encourage the self-empowerment of community agency networks (CANs) and community groups' activism for sustainability with and through Arts, sport and culture. Arts, sports and cultural events and resources can help increase awareness of sustainability issues, provoke discussion and exploration of new ideas and solutions. Learn about how communities positively impact through different projects and collaborations.

News

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  • News Legislative theatre: how this interactive artform empowers communities to create social change, theconversation.com (Feb 06, 2025)
  • News I used to conserve artworks. Now I am in prison for taking climate action, Margaret Reid, theguardian.com (Oct 29, 2024)
  • News We need stories, characters, mythologies to firm up our resolve to tackle climate catastrophe. Swarm Dynamics are animating these, for NGOs and others, Daily Alternative (Oct 28, 2024)
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Read more

Video

Events

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  • Event May 2 - 4, 2025 (Fri - Sun) first weekend of May every year — Jane's Walk, How to Lead a Jane's Walk, Video, janeswalk.org
  • Event Apr 18, 2025 (Fri) — International Day for Monuments and Sites, April 18 each year, icomos.org
  • Event May 5 - 11, 2025 (Mon - Sun) — Screen-Free Week, can be celebrated at any time of the year! Though traditionally has taken place the first week of May, screenfree.org
  • Event Aug 09, 2025 (Sat) — International Day of the World's Indigenous People, observed on 9 August each year to raise awareness and protect the rights of the world's indigenous population, un.org
  • Event Dec 11, 2025 (Thu) — International Mountain Day, Dec 11, annually, fao.org
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Community action projects

Legislative Theatre

  • The People Act Legislative Theatre, on youtube.com, bringing residents, policymakers and activists together into creative, fun and constructive dialogue, to co-create more equitable and effective policies and laws. Connect with UK and international practitioners, thepeopleact.org, added 16:16, 10 February 2025 (UTC)

Benches and seats as public art

Green Fairs

Green Fairs can be a way of promoting sustainability in a relaxed and fun setting. Some pay a lot of attention to their own carbon and environmental footprint.

Street party

From Wikipedia:Block party

A block party or street party is a party in which many members of a single community congregate, either to observe an event of some importance or simply for mutual solidarity and enjoyment. The name comes from the form of the party, which often involves closing an entire city block to vehicle traffic or just a single street. Many times, there will be a celebration in the form of playing music, games, dance and activities with food such as popcorn machines and barbecues. When multiple streets become cordoned off, those are referred to as street fairs.

As a form of activism street parties are festive and/or artistic efforts to reclaim roadways as public space by large groups of people. They were made known in Western Europe and North America by the actions of Reclaim the Streets, a widespread "dis-organization" dedicated to reclaiming public space from automobiles and consumerism.

Other ideas

  • Advocate and promote Green sports and recreation and associated community sports facilities
  • Advocating environmentally friendly sports events
  • Local distinctiveness events
  • Community choirs
  • Community maps
  • Community art from recycled materials
  • Adventure playgrounds created from recycled materials
  • Green film festivals
  • Green arts and drama events
  • incorporating arts programs into the activities of community centres
  • setting up Arts centres

How to's

Other resources

Together with the music of Rising Appalachia, the Rise Collective is used to support many of the Smith sisters' community-based projects uniting the arts and justice. Having themselves been community activists during their travels, Leah and Chloe Smith want their art to also be a source of activism, as well as of cultural development.

Quotes

"With the increasing awareness of movements like Extinction Rebellion and Fridays For Future, citizen activism is a social trend that's here to stay. There's incredible technology at our fingertips and when used strategically, it has the potential to influence millions." Gabriella Tavini...thealternative.org.uk.

"The twentieth century has transformed the entire planet from a finite world of certainties to an infinite world of questioning and doubt. So, if ever there was a need to stimulate creative imagination and initiative on the part of individuals, communities and whole societies that time is now. The notion of creativity can no longer be restricted to the arts; it must be applied across the full spectrum of human problem-solving." Our Creative Diversity, UNESCO

Arts, sport and culture and polycrisis

  • culture declares emergency, "a growing movement of individuals and organisations involved in arts and culture who are declaring a climate and ecological emergency. This means truth-telling, care-taking, and change-making" link checked 08:01, 22 May 2024 (UTC) Video: Culture Declares on youtube.com
  • Culture takes action: Tools for an emergency response, culturedeclares.org, added 15:53, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Fossil Free Football, Kicking fossil fuels out of football, press releases from fossilfreefootball.org, added 10:20, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
  • writersrebel.com, added 15:37, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Conviviality

One root of conviviality originated in 19th‐century France. Convivialité is very common in contemporary French and has also established itself in English as a loanword, as well as more recently as a term in discussions about cohabitation in immigrant societies. Its coinage can be traced back to Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin and his book Physiologie du goût from 1825. The gastrophilosopher understood conviviality as the situation, common at the table, when different people come together over a good long meal, and time passes swiftly in excited conversations.

From Wikipedia:Conviviality

The English word "conviviality" means "the enjoyment of festive society, festivity", or, as applied to people, "convivial spirit or disposition".

Appropriate Technology Movement

Based on the “intermediate technology” by the economist Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher in his work Small is beautiful, the Appropriate Technology movement encompasses convivial technological choice, to promote characteristics such as autonomy, energy efficiency, decentralization, local production, and sustainable development.

Conviviality in left-wing politics

Conviviality, or Convivialism, is the ability of individuals to interact creatively and autonomously with others and their environment to satisfy their own needs.[citation needed] This interpretation is related to, but distinct from, several synonyms and cognates, including in French the enjoyment of the social company of others (convivialité), and Catalan popular discourse, informal neighborhood level politics, and social cohesion policy (Convivència) that views conflict in shared public space as inevitable and ultimately productive and preferable to order imposed by authorities.

This interpretation was introduced by Ivan Illich as a direct contrast to industrial productivity that produces consumers that are alienated from the way that things are produced. Its[ambiguous] focus on joyful simple living, the localisation of production systems, links to Marxist economics, and Illich’s simultaneous criticism of overconsumption have resulted in conviviality being taken up by a range of academic and social movements, including as a pillar of degrowth theory and practice.[citation needed]

See also: Arts, sport and culture UK, Community involvement, Rural sustainability, Social inclusion, Urban sustainability, Save the planet board game, Degrowth

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