In the organizer's words:

Art Up event series Culture and Sustainability:
A lecture by Manuel Rivera

"Remaining Restless": Manuel Rivera takes the title of Donna Haraway's book, which is particularly popular with artists, as the starting point for his keynote lecture in the ART UP series "Art, Culture and Sustainability". He asks what "Unsettled positions of the arts in the ecological crisis" are and can be. In a brief historical review, the following questions first arise: To what extent have various artistic disciplines contributed in the past to reflecting global-planetary developments and their socio-ecological consequences? And to what extent, on the contrary, has art helped and continues to help to hide the consequences of the ecological crisis? Looking back serves to look forward: what can the arts do to counter the crisis? Rivera sheds light on the current potential of the arts to open up to cooperation with other cultural forces in order to jointly deepen society's understanding of sustainability and/or actively pursue paths of change. His analysis of the contributions that artistic methods, approaches and institutions can make to sustainability transformation leaves open for the time being whether the risks that the arts take when leaving well-worn cultural paths will translate into transformative gains - in other words, whether unrest will help to break out of unsustainable structures. It is clear, however, that such departures will not happen if the public funding and evaluation of art continues to focus primarily on technical excellence and aesthetic innovation on the one hand, and the quantitative audience success of established cultural spaces on the other.

Dr. Manuel Rivera

Dr. Manuel Rivera studied sociology, philosophy and Latin American studies at the FU Berlin and the National University of Buenos Aires. After graduating (with a thesis on environmental awareness), he worked in Berlin as a consultant for the office of the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE) and for a time in Brussels for the European Network of Environmental and Sustainability Councils (EEAC). He then worked as an actor at various German municipal theaters. He received his doctorate in economics and social sciences from the University of Stuttgart with a sociological study on "Theater as a political public sphere". He has been working at RIFS* since 2011 and has dealt with topics ranging from global urban development, Latin American development alternatives and the parliamentary discourse on growth to the concept of nature in the Anthropocene. From 2017 to 2021, he led the project "Narratives and Images of Sustainability" with a focus on scientific and political language and rhetoric. Since 2021, he has been increasingly interested in artistic communication and cooperation formats as part of the "Art and Culture for Sustainable Development" project.

The Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) conducts research with the aim of understanding, promoting and shaping social change processes towards sustainability. The RIFS research approach is transformative, transdisciplinary and co-creative.

Art UP event series: "Art, Culture & Sustainability"

With the "Art, Culture & Sustainability" series, the Mannheim Cultural Office invites people to discuss artistic and aesthetic strategies for sustainable development. The series has already hosted Adrienne Goehler (2021), Nicole Bramkamp (2022), Carlsson Richard Kemena & Martina Dietrich (2023). Reflecting on the topic of sustainability in the context of the arts is a particular concern, especially for the local independent scene.