CreaTures Co-Laboratory Catalogue

Abstract

The CreaTures Co-Laboratory Catalogue offers an overview of experiences, insights and outcomes that emerged from 20 experimental artistic productions developed within the CreaTures (Creative Practices for Transformational Futures) research project. CreaTures was a three-year (2020 - 2022) EU-funded project that investigated the role of creative practices in promoting shifts towards socially and environmentally sustainable futures. The project started from the basis that transformations towards more sustainable and regenerative ways of life are urgently needed in order to curb the worst impacts of the ongoing climate breakdown. Sustainability transformations require changes in both social and ecological systems – there is no ecological without social because the impact of human activity affects all other life and possibility for life on the planet. Similarly, there is no social without the ecological given our material dependence upon healthy, living ecologies. To signal the interlinked concern for ecological and social relations, CreaTures uses the term ‘eco-social change’. Recognising that a major role in fostering positive eco-social change is played by the cultural sector, CreaTures brought together creative practitioners from art, design and related cultural fields to collaborate with a team of researchers. Together they examined how different creative practices contribute to sustainability transformations. Central to this collaboration were 20 experimental productions (ExPs) developed within the CreaTures Laboratory. These were experienced, observed and evaluated for their transformational impacts jointly by CreaTures artists and researchers. Drawing on insights emerging from the ExPs, the CreaTures project investigated how to make the richness and vital importance of transformational creative practices more visible to policy makers, funders and other powerful decision makers.