Grazer Kunstverein moves to a climate emergency Markus Jeschaunig and Breathe Earth Collective 30.6.2021 Discussion at Climate-Culture-Pavillion, Freiheitsplatz
(Innere Stadt)
For the years 2019 and 2020 Grazer Kunstverein is undertaking an energy audit, working closely with Sautter ZT (Advanced Energy Consulting), to understand how much energy we produce and consume as a small to mid-scale arts institution. From the number of flights our program necessitates annually, to the amount of heat and light we consume for our 500m exhibition space, we hope that gaining insight into our carbon footprint will enable us to take institutional responsibility and plan more efficiently for all our future programming endeavors.
Markus Jeschaunig and the Breathe Earth Collective will host a panel discussion at the Climate-Culture Pavillion, where we will present our findings from the Energy Audit and discuss some possible steps and solutions that cultural institutions can consider to reduce waste, be more ecologically aware, and learn to adopt and adapt modes of working sustainably.
Markus Jeschaunig is an artist based in Graz. His work examines the interrelation between humans and the environment. He is interested in fields like ecology, landscape and urbanism. His work has been shown at the Kunsthalle Graz, MAK Wien, RMIT Gallery Melbourne. He was part of the design team of the Austrian Pavilion at EXPO 2015 in Milan. Jeschaunig is co-founder of the transdisciplinary think-thank ‘Breathe Earth Collective’.
Breathe Earth Collective works with architecture, design and technology to explore sustainability in the relationships between the natural and the built environment. From the forest, whose fresh air production is replicated through technical means, to urban air machines, prototypical new approaches are developed and realised. In the ongoing conflict between urban development and climate change, such prototypes highlight challenges such as air pollution and overheating in cities. The transdisciplinary team works on the boundary of architecture, art and urbanism in non-hierarchical networks, enabling complex challenges to be met with new solutions. Air and climate as a resource, as well as experimentation and designing ecosystems, plants, and integrated architecture is the focus of the work by Breathe Earth Collective. In June 2019, the Collective became an association for the promotion of climate culture.
