Eat | Sustainable | Art – Workshop

Learning from and with artists is an intrin­sic part of the Inter­na­tional Doc­torate Pro­gram “Re­think­ing Envi­ron­ment” cur­ricu­lum. We be­lieve that for such a for­mat to be fruit­ful, mov­ing out of the famil­iar spa­tial setup of aca­demia helps. The site of this work­shop was care­fully cho­sen: the “Ta­gungsschloss Blu­men­thal” is not only a con­fer­ence center but a self-adminis­tered com­muni­ty that aims to oper­ate sus­taina­bly. In line with the work­shop’s more gen­eral, trans­disci­pli­nary ap­proach, the event in­clud­ed a pro­longed con­versa­tion with Tilo Horak from the Blu­men­thal col­lec­tive, and a walk along the “Cli­mate Trail” that starts right in front of the con­fer­ence cen­ter.

Dur­ing the work­shop with Mar­tin Hablesreiter from the artist duo honey & bunny (Vi­enna), we took a closer look at the cul­tural norms and values that ena­ble or limit trans­for­mation to­wards a sus­taina­ble food cul­ture. Tak­ing their work as start­ing point, we dis­cuss­ed topics relat­ing to sus­taina­bility and cul­tu­re(s) from an inter­disci­pli­nary view­point and con­tributed our own aca­demic exper­tise. Mar­tin intro­duced us to per­for­mances that he has de­veloped to­gether with Sonja Stummer­er. By re-ar­rang­ing food in unex­pec­ted envi­ron­ments and in new and unu­sual ways, honey & bun­ny’s artis­tic prac­tices turned out to be pro­voca­tive, in­spir­ing, and even fun­ny! The duo’s instal­la­tions of food and eating prac­ticed, and the par­tici­patory for­mats they often use, in­spired lively con­versa­tions and fruit­ful con­tro­versy.

Text: Kirs­ten Twelbeck, Felix Burzler, In­ter­nati­ona­l Docto­rate Program "Rethinking Environment“