April 2025

Artistic languages contribute to reflecting on society and can help envision future horizons. At a time when we are facing various emergencies, such as the climate crisis, there are numerous creators, collectives, companies and other artistic stakeholders addressing the problems of the present and generating spaces to come up with alternatives.

The relationship between the art industry and environmental sustainability is also expressed at other levels. For example, increasingly more cultural initiatives are reviewing their practices to reduce their environmental footprint and make them more compatible with sustainability commitments. Along the same lines, they can also reflect on issues such as relationships with the immediate environment, the values transmitted by artistic languages or the educational role of cultural institutions.

The Culture for the Climate Plan C*, promoted by the Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises (ICEC) in 2022, addresses some of these issues and has implemented training and reflection actions on how to onboard sustainability into the practices of cultural entities, companies and institutions. The promotion plans in the field of theatre, dance and circus approved by the Department of Culture at the Generalitat of Catalonia also onboard measures to support cultural stakeholders in this transition towards sustainability. Moreover, the strategic lines of the Institut Ramon Llull foresee that sustainability is taken into account in all of the consortium's strategies and activities.

Within this framework, the Institut Ramon Llull and ICEC collaborate to organize this residency at Faberllull Olot. A group of artists and cultural professionals will share experiences and ideas around incorporating environmental sustainability into the performing arts. The meeting will take into account a process of training and analysis of the environmental impacts of the performing arts that began in 2024, and at the same time aims to look ahead in order to define proposals to continue making headway in onboarding sustainability into art organisations and projects. The residency will coincide with the celebration in Olot of the Sismògraf festival, closely linked to reflection on environmental, social and cultural sustainability, and will feature the participation of several people related to it.