Creative Climate is a cross-sectoral project launched in 2024 on the basis of the collaboration between the Foundation’s Environment and Arts & Culture Areas, with the aim of promoting education in environmental sustainability at secondary schools through the use of artistic and creative vernaculars. The project leverages the role of the school as a social laboratory and as a community of participation, by stimulating students to take a leading role in the development of cultural projects that can raise awareness of environmental issues in local areas.
Through the call for proposals of the same name, 51 projects have been supported, involving 102 cultural and environmental institutions, 51 schools and about 1,800 students. The projects, lasting two school years, provide for the creation of educational pathways that intertwine environmental sustainability with creativity, through co-design workshops, training, artistic practices and creative output (shows, videos, podcasts, exhibitions, etc.) with an environmental theme. To support the institutions and schools that benefited from the first edition of the call, a community of practice facilitated by the Department of Human Sciences at Bicocca University, Milan has been activated: a space for discussion and learning aimed at encouraging dialogue between different professions, trialling shared ways of working, exchanging experiences and skills and developing interdisciplinary educational networks.
The environmental issues covered by the projects funded range from climate change and its effects on local areas (drought, extreme weather events), to circular economy and sustainable consumption (fast fashion and plastic pollution), but also agro-ecology, protection of biodiversity and dealing with the issue of sustainability in relation to economic, energy and gender disparities and climate migration. The artistic workshops planned are based on different languages including theatre and acting, including behind-the-scenes work (dramaturgy, direction, sound and light design, tailoring, screenwriting and set design), singing and music production, photography, painting, writing, citizen journalism and even forms of expression such as podcasts, videomaking, social communication, graphics and web design.
At the end of the educational courses, two final events will be held to display the schools’ final products, whereas the work of the community of practice will be used to draft guidelines for the dissemination of the methodology developed during the project.