Creative Climate Leadership Podcast

Creative Climate Leadership Podcast Trailer Bonus Episode 5 Season 1

Cultural Policy

00:00
The fifth episode explores what cultural policy is, its significance, and how it can influence societal change and play a role in social change, especially concerning climate and sustainability goals. The episode features Solveig Korum, Senior Advisor for Culture and Sustainability, and Rie Alkemade, Project Officer at the Cultural Relations Platform who discuss importance of preserving cultural practices and rights, particularly those threatened by climate change, and the potential of the cultural sector in promoting innovative and creative thinking in policymaking. The episode addresses how cultural policy can facilitate deeper, more meaningful intercultural exchanges and collaborations. Solveig and Rie discuss the need for policy that supports artistic initiatives related to sustainability and fosters dialogue between different sectors of society.

Rie Alkemade
Rie is a project and relations manager and a cultural producer with a keen interest in the creative artistic and cultural fields, and is a Project Officer for the Cultural Relations Platform. Her focus and passion has been primarily on cultivating sustainable partnerships and networks at a people-to-people level through fostering intercultural dialogue and exchanges based on mutual co-collaboration. Rie is an alumnus of CCL Benelux (2023).

Dr Solveig Korum
Solveig is an academic who works as an advisor for culture and sustainability at the R&D department of Kulturtanken – Arts for Young Audiences Norway. She is the co-founder of NaCuHeal Senegal, an NGO that operates tree-planting programs in West Africa and teaches Kundalini yoga at University of Oslo. Solveig is an alumnus of CCL Scandinavia (2022).

Song credit: Let The Light In by Marte Wulff (CCL Scandinavia 2022) and Chirkutt (Bangladesh). 

Links and references:
Kulturtanken - https://www.kulturtanken.no/en/
Cultural Relations Platform - https://www.cultureinexternalrelations.eu/
UNFCCC - https://unfccc.int
Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage - https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention
Faro Convention - https://www.coe.int/en/web/culture-and-heritage/faro-convention
2005 Convention on Diversity of Cultural Expressions - https://www.unesco.org/creativity/en/2005-convention
MONDIACULT 2022 - https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/mondiacult-2022-states-adopt-historic-declaration-culture
Global Cultural Relations Programme - https://www.cultureinexternalrelations.eu/global-cultural-relations-programme
Culture|2030 indicators - https://sdghub.com/project/culture2030-indicators 
Let the Light In - https://open.spotify.com/track/60YTkv3srf1EnbujqXbsXQ?si=e8146b3398eb489e


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What is Creative Climate Leadership Podcast?

This is a podcast about the leading role of the arts in this age of converging crises. It features remarkable stories of individuals navigating the climate crisis and leading transformative creative projects in music, performing arts, galleries, film, and independent organisations across the world. As demands and solutions evolve, what kind of leadership is needed? Who does that involve? And what is leadership in the creative sector context anyway?
Over six episodes, Emmanuella Blake Morsi hosts a diverse array of alumni from the Creative Climate Leadership programme (CCL) – artists, activists, academics, and professionals from various disciplines, exploring crucial topics like climate justice, effective communication, emerging technology, policy, and artistic practices. Produced by Hum Studio Interactive and Julie's Bicycle. Cover art by Emmanuella Blake Morsi

{Emmanuella}
0:02

Hi and welcome to the Creative Climate Leadership Podcast. This is a podcast about the radical leading role of the arts in this age of converging crises.

I'm your host Emmanuella, aka Emma Blake Morsi and in this series we speak to those doing remarkable work behind the curtains and on stage, generating systemic change in the creative sector and beyond.

Really excited to be able to explore a bit more in depth today about our past and present and future policy, getting a bit more into legislative challenges and cultural exchange opportunities. How can platforms such as the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) Conference of Parties (COP) drive change? In what ways could Indigenous communities and cultural discussions influence international and local policy? We are joined by Solveig Korum, who's a Senior Advisor for Culture and Sustainability for Kulturtanken, and also took part in CCL Scandinavia in 2022, and Rie Alkemade, who's a Project Officer for Cultural Relations Platform, and also took part in CCL Benelux.

{Rie}
1:11

So my name is Rie. I'm a Project Officer at the Cultural Relations Platform, which is a project that's funded by the EU. We're based in Brussels, and we work on engaging in sustainable long-term and meaningful cultural relations activities between EU institutions and partner countries. On a more personal level, I'm Japanese and I'm Dutch, and my background is actually primarily more in working in the visual arts sector. I've worked with a lot of small-scale organisations in the field of cultural exchange and also some larger festivals, looking at how visual arts could be used to discuss large-scale societal topics.

{Solveig}
1:11

Yes, my name is Solveig Korum, and I work with the Kulturtanken Arts for Young Audiences Norway, which is an underlying agency of the Norwegian Ministry of Cultural Affairs.
Well, right now I've worked with Kulturtanken, but I've also been working across different underlying agencies with the Ministry and closely also with the Ministry to look at how we develop cultural policy to advance the sustainability goal and the climate in particular. And my background is from music. I have a PhD where I wrote about the role of music in international development, so basically about the role music takes in society and in different contexts, especially in developing countries. Also, I have a background in tree planting from Senegal. I used to live there and run the tree planting project.

{Emmanuella}
2:46

Before we get into the whole conversation about it, actually, what is cultural policy? What does that mean? Solveig would you like to put forward a definition for us to explore today?

{Solveig}
2:55

Well, I think that would be very useful, at least, for us to have a point of departure, because I do think both with cultural policy and even the word "culture" in itself is one of the most complicated words to define. With culture, it's basically the difference between this broad lifestyle concept that refers to all domains in life, and also the opposition to that, or part of that, is that sectorial understanding, like cultural sector as a limited sector of society for cultural heritage and artistic creativity and the products of the sector and institutions and all that ecosystem within the sector.

And I do think in terms of climate action, both those understandings are very relevant, because it is ultimately about building a new culture in our society, how we interact, which kind of images we see, how we imagine the futures, how we relate to each other. All this is basically part of that broader cultural picture. But in terms of cultural policy, which is what we would talk about right now, I do think it would be useful to kind of limit that conception to talking about the government's actions, laws and programmes and the toolbox that we have to regulate and protect and encourage, through plans, but also financially and otherwise support activities related to the arts and the creative sectors, and also to the cultural heritage sector. And I also think it's important to state that cultural policy is not only something that we do at the national level, it can be on the international level, like the EU, for example, and other bodies on the international level. It's very national at the level of each country, but then you also have regional and local cultural policies. And all this together is kind of like the sum of all what we will talk about in this episode, I guess.

{Emmanuella}
4:54

And so with that kind of context as a baseline, I would love to put forward for you both to kind of explore as an open provocation. How do you feel like culture should inform policy decision making?

{Rie}
5:08
I think one of the things that is a really big strength of the cultural sector, and by that I mean people working in the artistic and creative arts, as Solveig pointed out, is that there's a lot of room there for experimentation, for creative thinking, for being out of the box.

And I think a lot of that can link to policymaking to be slightly more innovative and sort of try to be, as you pointed out, Emmanuella, less rigid, less bureaucratic. I think there is this really strong potential for cultural sectors to promote more out of the box thinking. And I think that is something that is necessary when you look at where we are in the world at the moment a lot of times with climate change, for example. We need to do things maybe a little differently. We need to change the way people think, which will hopefully then lead to changing the way people act, react, do things. And speaking as someone who's from the cultural sector, I think there is this really strong potential there that we could look at exploring more. And the way policy can do that is by facilitating those kind of creative thinking, exchanges, and collaborations. I think that's really such a strong potential that we can tap into moving forward in having slightly more innovative ways of working. I think that's maybe just as a basis, a good starting point.

{Solveig}
6:40

Well, I do think it's very interesting to look at how cultural policy has moved from being like, from focusing on the arts and aesthetics, not only but mainly, and into addressing broader concerns in society. And we have seen this shift about culture, how it should provide high quality experiences and participatory experience to as many people as possible. So making culture accessible to marginalised groups, and not only accessible, but also making their cultural expressions part of what we consider valuable in supporting in cultural policy. And also moving from there to how cultural policy now is evolving into a driver itself or enabler of social change. And that's something that I'm seeing a big shift right now, both in how cultural policy is made, but also what we are talking about.

Because I read this academic article recently by this Norwegian researcher, Piedmont Setz, and he argues that cultural policy, we see a crisis in cultural policy. And his argument is that there are like seven challenges. And those are that we have big challenges in democratising culture, speaking about all these different groups and minorities and all that. So that's one challenge. And also kind of how public support for culture is also like outdated in many ways. And we tend to keep on support to the traditional cultural institutions and the ecosystem that we used to know from before, which is probably not that relevant anymore. And that's something that we need to address.

And then we also see how artists continue to struggle with poverty, despite of public support schemes in this. So that's also an issue that we must think differently to address. And also something that we see, which is very much linked to the issue that we're talking about, to climate and sustainability goals, is that how cultural policy tends to remain very national, in spite of artists operating more globally, but also kind of how these issues that we need to tackle are also more and more global issues. So how do you go about that? That's also something. So I shouldn't list all the challenges, but they're just some of them. And also one important point is that in time of crisis, we see that there is a big pressure on the public budgets. And then with all this crisis going on and all the fronts, it's very difficult to legitimate somehow and increase support to culture, unless we make ourselves relevant as part of the solutions to the crises that we are meeting in our society. So I do think that we have this legitimacy crisis for cultural policy right now, but there is also a potential solution when linking it to the climate and making it to the sustainability goals and the broader picture. And that doesn't mean that we should instrumentalise cultural and cultural action in itself. It should be free, artists should be free, expression should be free. It's not what I'm saying, but we should be able to support that and be able to talk about the importance of it and the meaning of it and the impact on the society level as well. And keep those thoughts in mind at the same time.

{Emmanuella}
10:00

We touched on something that really excited me, which is, you know, ultimately for yourself, even Solveig, what does decentralising power mean to you and what do you think its role is in driving those cultural shifts?

{Solveig}
10:12

To do deep listening, to listen to the groups that are not, that hasn't had power up to now and that has not been heard in those kind of more formal bureaucratic contexts until now. Because we are very good at, you know, putting like participatory processes and we should listen and all that, but in terms of doing it, really doing it and doing it rightly and from the right space in ourselves, I do think that we have a long way to go still. Because it's, if we say that we will listen to people, it's also that we commit or we should commit at least to to do things differently. And I do think that the system itself, the bureaucracy is kind of a system that was created to maintain itself, just to say it like in a very tabloid way.

{Emmanuella}
11:05
But I mean, that's the truth.

{Solveig}
11:07
Yeah, no, but it's there for a reason. And I do think the need is there to kind of maintain certain discontinuity, we shouldn't kind of overthrow the whole system and just create the revolution, we should make it into a healthy evolution. And then, but as part of that evolution, there is a lot of, you know, this, how can I say, like, we are not open enough to really kind of infiltrate the voices that should be part of the new ‘we’ and the new society into our decision making rooms and decision making processes and the documents that we ultimately produce that make the premises for the, yeah, for this new age.

{Emmanuella}
11:49
Absolutely. And I think actually kind of going to you as well, Rie, I think oftentimes we can have some like misconceptions around not just cultural policy, but the impacts it can have and how it can influence the way we live. I wondered for yourself, is there any kind of common misconceptions on cultural policy that you kind of encounter in your day to day work as well?

{Rie}
12:12

I think the biggest misconception with cultural policy that I come across being someone from the cultural sector is that it only benefits artists or people who are creating things. I think all of us here, and probably most of the people listening to this podcast know that the cultural and creative sectors consists of so much more of an ecosystem than just artists. I mean, artists are integral, don't get me wrong. They're very important to the sector and, you know, they should be supported and we should facilitate the creative expressions. But there are so many other positions within these sectors that also fall in the ecosystem of cultural policy. I think that's one misconception.

I think another misconception is that cultural policy is frivolous. It just is supporting a nice hobby for a lot of people to create nice things. And I think I don't know a single person who has not consumed some form of culture. I mean, we all watch films, we all read books, we all listen to music, and most of the artistic production touches on societal issues, global issues. So I think the conception of cultural policy being somewhat frivolous, and as Solveig said, this is why funding tends to get cut quite easily. That is a big misconception with regards to cultural policy from people who I think don't particularly engage with the field.

And I think that with regards to sort of the deep listening, I think that's also really important for policy makers because one of the issues, well, if we call it an issue, one of the issues with cultural and creative sectors is that a lot of our value systems are more qualitative rather than, I always get this word wrong, quantitative. I mean, it's easy with perhaps other fields and sectors to quantify success, right? How many deals were made in the past year, how much carbon emissions were reduced in the past quarter. I mean, these are a lot of times numbers driven. Whereas with culture, how do you measure the impact something had on someone's well-being? How do you measure the impact it had on someone's way of thinking? These are things that are really difficult to measure. Yeah, exactly. And yet somehow we find ourselves still in this box of trying to evaluate cultural policy outcomes in very numbers driven ways. I think there needs to be a little bit of shift in how this is done because this is how we end up falling into this trap of the programmes we're funding in culture are not working because we don't know how to measure the effect. And a lot of times, if you think of it in the ways of changing the way people think, creating a new culture, these things take time. They're not done overnight. They take years.

{Emmanuella}
15:07

Actually, I mean, even when we think back to COVID as a time that, you know, for many people hasn't stopped, I think contextualising that's important. But actually, when you think about how much culture was integral to kind of upkeeping just the sense of humanity, I think we kind of really lent on not just even just entertainment, but lent on, you know, many different types of art forms to kind of, you know, help us at a time where you are so disconnected.

{Rie}
15:34

I think there's a lot of wonderful people out there who are trying to change the way we evaluate cultural policy, cultural programming, cultural monitoring and evaluation. So I'm unfortunately not an expert in this topic, but I know there are a lot of people out there who are trying to make a shift in that side. I have to say one thing, that cultural policy from what I can see currently working in the EU space, so this is what I can comment on now, sort of funding and cultural policy at an EU level currently, they are trying to incorporate elements of tackling climate change and sort of sustainability in their criteria. So for example, I know that if you, for some EU funded programmes, if you'd like to apply for funding, you have to demonstrate consideration of environmental actions and factors. So you have to clearly outline, for example, that you are initiating this action plan to travel less, maybe host more online meetings instead of, you know, in-person meetings. And another thing that often comes up is there might be a financial incentive for more sustainable travel, particularly for mobility grants. These are just things that I have been seeing sort of in my surroundings. So cultural policy is shifting a bit in that sense. And I think that's one of the positives at an EU level is that they are really identifying that this is an important need in cultural policymaking, moving forward and funding. So I'd like to think that in that sense, they are listening to people who are actually the ones who are requesting the funding.

However, of course, I think the other downside of this is that, so through my work, I'm quite fortunate in being able to interact with a lot of cultural practitioners around the world, because we work internationally. And a lot of the cultural practitioners, artists that I have a chance to speak to, are really passionate about engaging more in climate change work, engaging in more sustainable practices, want to see how they and the cultural sectors can work together with people working in climate change. But they're not really sure where to start. They don't really know how to engage on that topic at a deeper level rather than just, "Oh, I run a theatre and we would like to install solar panels." I mean, of course, this is important, but sometimes you want to do more, you want to be able to collaborate on a more long-term level. And I think these are the kind of things that perhaps cultural policy can support, in that we should try working more outside of our own silos. If cultural policy already is starting to move in that direction of incorporating green elements, sustainability, why not take it a step further and facilitate collaboration with other sectors, for example? I mean, why not try to have a cultural centre work more outside of just the cultural sector and work more with, off the top of my head, maybe environmental scientists, people working in sustainable food systems? I don't know. I think this is something we can take it a step further.

{Emmanuella}
18:50

And I wonder, because we've talked about how the value systems themselves can evolve,
even just from yourself, Solveig, climate and environmental action can often be seen as outside the remit of cultural policy. Yet, when you think about culture, the world we live in, it seems like a very obvious point to ignore when you don't think about the very place that we live in, we exist within.
And I wonder, how are you seeing this change maybe? And what would be your vision for a cultural policy with climate at its heart?

{Solveig}
19:33

Well, from my point of view, I think we need to think broader than just the greening of the cultural sector itself. It's important, it's practical, it's technical, it's very kind of, we know what we need to do, and we are partly doing it, and we could do more, of course, but that's only one part of the picture. Because I do think that there are other parts of cultural policy that has a potentially big role to play in this, that are kind of ignored, or not so much talked about when we talk about cultural policy, and how it's linked to the environment and climate issues. And in addition to the greening of the sector aspect that we already touched upon, I would like to highlight the kind of cultural policies role to protect and promote cultural heritage, cultural practices and rights. And this includes work to preserve and further develop and protect the cultural heritage and all the associated competences linked to it, and especially related to Indigenous people and minorities.

And like in Norway and across the Nordic countries, we have this Indigenous group called Sámis. We also have other Indigenous groups and minority groups whose lives and kind of, you know, their holistic way of working and being is closely connected to the nature and to the cycles of nature and understanding nature, and kind of really thinking and working and living and being in very sustainable ways. So I do think that we have so much to learn from them. And we also have, you know, this obligation to protect their rights and to enable that they can continue to live that way and continue to do their cultural practices the way we do. And also another thing, like which is linked to that, which is not necessarily only linked to the Indigenous groups, but more broadly is that we how this cultural policy can play a big role in kind of protecting cultural expressions and practices that are threatened by climate change. We had this storm in Norway last summer, and which affected some areas, which are also areas of cultural practices and even buildings that we need to protect. So all these things are part of this bigger picture of promoting and protecting the cultural heritage and the cultural landscapes.

{Emmanuella}
22:05

And I think we were actually seeing that on a policy level being recognized more in value. I mean, there's still a very long way to go. But even recently for COP that recognising of the loss and damage fund as a real acknowledgement of actually these adverse effects that often many of the most vulnerable and marginalised kind of regions of the world in terms of the Global South are being so adversely impacted. And so for me, it's like you've touched that really importantly on the head is actually that value of what's being lost. Also that kind of how can we protect that moving forward? How can we recognize the loss historically, and also prevent further losses from occurring?

{Solveig}
22:45

Can I also add just a small thing to this, small note, because like that's not only a question of cultural policy, it’s also a question of legal rights, because we have these international conventions, like, for example, this Convention on the Protection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage from 2003, which many countries among them Norway has signed, and also the Faro Convention from 2005. There's also this UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity from 2005 also. And very recently in 2022, we got this MONDIACULT Declaration from Mexico. So all these are UNESCO conventions and EU framework conventions that we have an obligation to respect and to implement regardless of the political leadership that we have in our country and regardless of the policies as such that we are making right now. This is a broader issue and this is something that we have agreed on as a platform to build actions on.

{Rie}
23:47

I fully agree that, you know, giving voices to marginalised communities, Indigenous communities, this is so incredibly important in almost every region, every country. It's really a global topic to be discussed. One of the problems I find with cultural policy is that it can be quite inaccessible for people who are not familiar with it. So these UNESCO conventions, they are incredibly important, of course, in setting sort of global frameworks, but a lot of people don't really understand how to approach the language, what do these conventions even mean? It becomes very, like, highfalutin, very difficult to follow. If you're not in it, you don't get it. As someone who's currently working in the cultural policy space, I can see how if you work in, I'm sure this is the same with any policy actually, if you work in a group of people that are constantly used to certain jargons, you're used to the frameworks, you sometimes maybe forget how that communicates to people not working in the policy field. And I think this is something that we always need to try to remember when you're in the field of policy making to make it accessible to just the general public, so to speak.

{Emmanuella}
25:06
For yourself, Solveig, what potential do you see for almost all organisations and even businesses to kind of drive positive cultural change, considering that a lot of times they can also uphold these existing systems that can be quite limited?

{Solveig}
25:19

Well, I do think that there's a lot of great initiatives going on out there already. There are a lot of organisations who are very engaged in this, a lot of individual artists who have like, they have great crowds and they reach a lot of people to create like awareness and do sensitisation, and do mobilisation across society. So I do think that the role of artists and the role of organisations is like really, really crucial. And then a challenge for us as policy makers is really how do we, you know, capture that in our policymaking and make, well, like, find good policy tools to enable the artists and organisations who want to do that kind of work to be able to do it and do it more. And how can we create support programmes that can be directed specifically to support artistic projects relating to the themes of sustainability? In Norway, as per now, we don't have that. There is no, you know, no scheme where artists can apply for grants if they want to do something, community work or some sensitisation or even if there are, you know, people who want to collaborate across the field of art, education, academia and, you know. We were earlier talking about this need to work across sectors and across different activities in society. And as per now, there is nowhere to go, at least in Norway, to apply for funding. I know that you are more advanced in the EU, for example, and there are some countries have that, but we don't have it. And as part of that, we should be able to fund artistic commissions that link to this, foster research that links to this and also kind of, yeah, just whatever initiatives that promote sharing of resources, ideas and knowledge and debate that link to this. It's something that we as policymakers should be able to support and find good solutions to capture and make it accessible and fair for everyone.

{Emmanuella}
27:15

In this kind of wider visioning or reimagining of how we see culture at play. And I wondered, you know, in a space of dreaming and reimagining what kind of experimental and especially I feel like, because, you know, some of the work that you do, I think there's so much opportunity in that kind of intercultural exchange of different kind of dynamics across the board, different kind of countries who are sharing resources, sharing information, collaborating in new ways. And I wonder what kind of experimental new intercultural exchange systems would you like to see more of?

{Rie}
27:49

This is a difficult question to answer. It requires a lot of imagination. I think for me, it would be nice if we could all slow down a bit and just spend some more time. This is going to sound incredibly basic, but maybe this is what we need. Just talking to people, I think we've lost that ability recently because everything is very geopolitically tense. Everyone is quite polarised. There's a lot of, you know, high emotions at stake. I mean, the climate crisis is obviously super urgent. People are anxious. I think it would be really nice in future. And I think this would really promote better policymaking, if we're able to talk to people from different cultures, to learn more about what people are doing, what people are thinking. And ultimately, the point of that is really to build trust. I think we need to build trust to like have good policymaking. I think that's just basic.

And I think this links back again to what seems to be the underlying theme of like interdisciplinary practices and approaches. We tend to stick to people we know, and people who think like us, and people who work in the same field as ourselves. And I think if we're able to sort of slowly break down those silos, and we actually talk to other people, it would really change the way we think a lot. So as part of my work, we run an annual learning programme called the Global Cultural Relations Programme. Traditionally, it's for cultural practitioners, but last year for the first time, we actually opened participation to non-cultural practitioners. So normally, we invite 40 participants working across the creative and cultural sectors. But last year, for the first time, half the participants worked in the field of climate change and environment. So we literally had people who worked in circular economy research, we had people working in agricultural and sustainable food systems. We had people who were sustainability consultants for corporates, and half the room were cultural practitioners, there were artists, they were people working cultural policy, people working at UNESCO. And I think more of this kind of work of just slowing down and talking to people would be a really, really good way to just sort of build trust, get to know people better. I think just by having a one day conversation with someone you never would have otherwise been in a room with really changes a lot of things. And maybe this is a bit of a sort of utopian kind of, I wish life was like this, but that would be really nice if cultural policy can facilitate sort of that more slow connections at a global level.

{Emmanuella}
30:53

I think that's incredibly powerful. And I think almost sometimes we feel like we need to be doing the solution, something that's really new, really innovative, that is something that's groundbreaking I've never heard of before. Actually, oftentimes, it's of the reconnection to the things that we've almost lost in many ways as a value.

{Rie}
31:08

Yeah. And just on that point quickly, just because that makes me think, for example, traditionally in Japan, you know, when we had more of the traditional times, you thought, and I'm sure this is the same in other cultures, but there was, the river had a god, the mountain had a god, they were actually living things, right? And I think that if you talk to different cultures where they view things in a very different way from the way we view things, like just that little spark kind of really changes a lot, I would like to think.

{Solveig}
31:39

We actually have a toolbox for increased sensory experiences. And by doing art and being part of artistic communities, we increase our ability to observe and to sense and connect with the world. And we get this alternative language of presence. And I do think that affects how we relate to nature, to each other, and also kind of what motivations we have to act for all these issues, right? When we not only, like when we know and feel the urgency, not only with our brains, but also with our hearts and in our hands and with everything, it's kind of easier to act. Well, I would rephrase that because in any case, it's not easy to act on these issues. It's a hard struggle every day to get up and think that we will, we have to make a shift, we have to change the world. It's a complicated thing. It's a hard thing. But when you have that motivation, when you feel that urgency in your body, you at least you have a motivation that comes from a different space. So I do think that that's important.

And then coming back to the policy level of that, I do think it's important that we as policymakers make grants, collaboration arenas, communication channels and events where these issues can kind of come into play, and programmes.

I would like to share one example from a school in Norway that we had this, well, like it was actually the University of Oslo, doing the sustainability programme, collaborating with some students and they were actually studying how salmon was migrating in the local river here in Oslo. And of course, they learned it at school, in the science class and everything, they learned all the details and the science behind it. But then they were kind of challenged and how, you know, making it a more artistic thing and a sensory thing. And then one group of students, they actually made their own salmon suits, wet suits, and they actually jumped into the river and they filmed it and they were kind of making this whole. And of course, they were having a lot of fun and they were laughing and it was just like socially great and interesting thing for them to do as well. But on the learning level and on the sustainability level, that's something that they will remember afterwards. And that's a sensory experience that they can connect to the science that they have learned. And then I do think that we should facilitate more and more of these collaborations and using the artistic toolbox in arenas where it hasn't up to now been fully used, like in the schools, like in, you know, just for big companies, workshops for big companies taking, or even in the parliament. You know, I heard that in the parliament in England, they're having this mindfulness classes. So why shouldn't why shouldn't we bring our tools into those processes as well? Well, there is this potential there that is not yet fully liberated.

{Emmanuella}
34:55

I'm very aware of timings and I kind of would love us to kind of be able to provide our listeners some sort of tangible call to action. Can you give me a shout out about a particular work or project that you're working on as well?

{Rie}
35:05

I have two. The first is if you're a cultural practitioner and you're working for an organisation, I'm going to say within the EU, just because that's the space I'm in now, speak up, have a chance to go to some of these dialogues with people representing commission departments. A lot of opportunities exist for people, policymakers to listen to cultural practitioners. Some mechanisms are out there. So if you happen to be a cultural practitioner within the EU, join a network, see if there's an opportunity for you to join a dialogue. The opportunities are out there. So I would suggest maybe you have a look.

And on a more accessible level, in case you're not based in the EU or you are not interested in discussing anything with policymakers, which is okay, break out of your silo a bit maybe. And I would say try finding a podcast or something about climate change that's not linked to culture at all. It might be a bit daunting. It's something I've started doing recently. And I think that is a nice way to slowly learn more outside your bubble.

{Solveig}
36:18

Well, for the policy nerds and for people who are kind of interested in figuring out ways of balancing this pragmatic need to measure things, but also considering kind of that intrinsic and particular relative culture, I would like to recommend a document by UNESCO called the Thematic Indicators Culture in the 2030 Agenda. It's a very, it's a framework for thematic indicators. Its purpose is to measure and monitor the progress of cultures' contribution to the goals. And it's very, it's done in a very good way, because it's not only about the numbers or the statistics, it's also about measuring trends and seeing kind of directions and telling the story about where we are, where and how we are moving in connection to the sustainability goals and the climate goals as well. So that's one nerdy thing.

And I would also like to recommend a song actually, which is not the climate song as such, but this was born from a common or from a joint climate initiative by one Norwegian artist called Marte Wulff and another artist from Bangladesh called Sharmin Sultana Sumi. And both of them are climate activists and artists in their countries. And they created this song called Let the Light In. And maybe if we have the chance, we can go out at the end of this podcast by playing it. I don't know if you have the chance, but it's a beautiful song.

{Emmanuella}
37:50
I want to thank you both so much for all of your contributions for today's episode.

Thanks for joining us! What have you taken away from this episode? Feel free to share your thoughts with us using #CCLPodcast

And you can find links to resources mentioned in the description of this episode by visiting the CCL website at creativeclimateleadership.com for more information.

This podcast is produced by Hum Studio Interactive in co-creation with Julie’s Bicycle. We thank our sponsors Nordisk KulturFond, Swedish Postcode Lottery, and Porticus.