Down to Earth
Entwürfe für eine Kultur der Nachhaltigkeit
Thomas Oberender

What is the connection between art and a new eco-politics? What changes lie ahead for our cultural institutions? How does Gaia make it onto the theatre stages? How can art come into being without resources being consumed? What can we learn from indigenous cultures? What does animism mean today? And is the Anthropocene coming to an end? Down to Earth brings together texts and conversaions focused on practices relating to an ecological turn in the realm of art and culture: away from a Western mode of thinking that isolates, extracts, and exploits the different elemnts of life towards structures that operate holistically and respectfully. We need a new "operating system” in our museums, galleries, and theatres that no longer rewards wastage and consumption but instead favours encounters and integration. For our world view is shifting away from an era in which humanity turned into a force of nature and towards a new awareness of our embeddedness in an ecosystem made up of other living beings existing alongside, within, and together with us.