BACKGROUND

Sustainability has its roots in the Latin verb ‘sustinere’ which means to maintain or to hold up. To sustain something clearly alludes to its projection beyond a particular point in time into the future, that is, to guarantee that the conditions for something to exist and prosper will remain there in the years and decades to come. Thus turning the argument from an ontological one into an ethical one! Sustainability is then a concept that has to be negotiated between the present and the future, it is dynamic and malleable, but precisely because of its highly unstable nature, it calls for a new paradigm . As De Maria claims, sustainability seems to point at the need of a new knowledge, that may go beyond time and space, combining the most severe calculus with the most intense sensitivity. The sustainability residency for artists wants to act as a lab and a platform that facilitates this new type of knowledge to be created, expanded and applied.

VISION

Ultimately, the sustainability residency hopes to bring social responsibility back to popular imagination.

HOW TO CREATE A FRAME OF MIND THAT WILL BRING ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY?

The key, the foundation of respect for others and all life, for nature seems to be the recognition that, in fact, all is connected. – that I am, that we are a part of the whole of existence.

Once I experience myself as part of the other, the other as part of me; once my perception opens to the fact that I am part of nature, that all is connected, I will live with a different respect. This respect will come naturally. This difference of my behavior will be born out of an intrinsic motivation. And that motivation will give rise to a frame of mind bringing about sustainability, a paradigm of coexistence, a way of life creating balance.