Sustainable experience Art Park

Practice-based research in the Visual Arts has not been especially engaged in the development of sustainability so far. It has mainly been the question of individual art projects, that, however beneficial and interesting, not have taken serious part in the increasing need to change the world in terms of environmental issues.

This project will add sustainability to the field of practice-based research in art and design in a true example functioning in contemporary society, thereby being an innovative frontline research project internationally as well as nationally.

The interdisciplinary approach of the project is part of an emerging form of research that combines different methodologies and practices forming innovative fields and areas. Art and design are here connected to interaction, information and societal change, more than being disciplines for producing items on a market, in the traditional sense, thereby transforming and contributing to the development of the art and design research field as a whole.

The Sustainable Experience Art Park concept designed for a stressful space in the megacity of Shanghai, will be developed as a space possible to construct in other environments, with adjustments to other climates, needs and tastes. This is a truly ground braking idea, not just making art and design as objects functioning in a limited area or space, but as a process intended to be adjustable to different spaces and times.

Being a practice-based art research project focused on sustainability, Sustainable Experience Art Park is situated in the research frontline internationally, since it shows how art can be used as a way of making people conscious of their potential to change and of the importance of conscious action.

The project aims at achieving following goals; (to):

• Produce concrete examples of how art and design may contribute to a sustainable society and to the development of future environmental-friendly technology

• Develop the research field practice-based art and design in the direction of ecological art, experience design and sustainability

• Generate research methodologies suitable for interdisciplinary art research projects in collaboration with educational and industrial partners in terms of sustainability

• Develop the concept Sustainable Experience Art Park to function in different contexts

• Design how a polluted and stressful environment/space can be transformed to and used as a turning-point, where people through a relaxed experience can become aware of the importance of environmental consciousness