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SEVEN SEVEN

Creating Common Grounds for Climate Justice through Artistic Research (Just Art) (2025-2030)

Theme:

How can art research be optimally utilised to generate new, more inclusive perspectives on climate justice?

While many feel overwhelmed by the complexity of the climate crisis, art has been actively engaging with it. Offering imaginative scenarios and unconventional approaches, Art and Artistic Research can enhance awareness, imagine futures, empower people through co-creation, and thus bridge the gap from awareness to action.  

But art and artistic research activities are fragmented, and society has little knowledge about their activities, methods and potentials, which leads to society missing out on a powerful ally in the pursuit of a transformative pathway towards a climate-just future. 

JUST ART addresses this challenge by bringing together and strengthening art and artistic research as a coherent force for climate justice. The project connects fragmented artistic practices into a shared research and learning ecosystem, making their methods, insights, and societal value visible and accessible beyond the arts sector.  

JUST ART is a broad national and international consortium involving universities and academies across the Netherlands, museums and cultural institutions, art institutions, festivals, and societal partners. 

Pexels
  • Art and artistic research as essential contributors to climate-just pathways

    Through collaborative artistic research, co-creation with communities, and engagement with scientists and policymakers, JUST ART translates imaginative and experiential knowledge into forms that support reflection, dialogue, and action. In doing so, the project helps bridge the gap between awareness of the climate crisis and the capacity to act, positioning art and artistic research as essential contributors to transformative and climate-just pathways. 

  • Envisaged impact

    JUST ART aims to achieve socio-ecological impact by empowering diverse actors to take transformative action on climate justice through art. As a result of the project, stakeholders in research, the arts, culture, education, community engagement, industry, agriculture, and government and policy-making; along with broader more-than-human stakeholders (such as animals, plants, organisms, etc.), communities, and individuals, will understand what climate justice is, why it matters to them, and how they can act on it. 

  • Researchers & partners

    JUST ART is a broad national and international consortium involving universities and academies across the Netherlands; museums and cultural institutions, including Fries Museum, Groninger Museum, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Textielmuseum Tilburg, Klimaatmuseum, and ISRIC World Soil Museum; art institutions, festivals, and residencies, such as Framer Framed, Zone2Source, Oerol Festival, Into Nature, and EKWC; and societal partners in agriculture, conservation, education, and local governance. 

    On behalf of SEVEN, the project is led by Colin Sterling (Heritage, Museums and the Environment) and Martha Dietrich (Visual and Media Anthropology).   

    This project was initiated prior to the formal establishment of SEVEN. Given its strong alignment with SEVEN’s mission and thematic priorities, it has since been embedded in SEVEN’s research portfolio. 

  • Funding

    Dutch Research Council (NWO) – National Science Agenda (NWA-ORC 2024). 

  • Opportunities for collaboration

    Do you see an opportunity for yourself or your organisation to collaborate on this theme? Please contact Denise Li.