The Art of Thinking Like a Mountain is a 24-month transnational cooperation project among the Cyprus University of Technology (CY) as lead partner, Espacio Rojo (SP), Nature, Art & Habitat Residency (IT), National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts “Kr. Sarafov ” (NATFA) (BG), Umetnostna Galerija Maribor (SL), Vorres Museum (GR), and Fondazione Lamberto Puggelli (IT), which is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
With this project, we adopt an innovative approach to advocating and acting upon environmental challenges by exploring the empathy-sustainability relationship through the arts.
The project focuses on the power of arts to rebuild trust in a sustainable future and a more inclusive society, stimulating creativity in citizens to find solutions and opportunities for the future. EMPACT acknowledges the New European Agenda for Culture strategic objectives, by focusing on the promotion of cultural participation, the mobility of artists, the promotion of skills for artists and creative professionals, and the potential of arts to foster sustainable development and social cohesion. Considering the challenging recovery from the pandemic that society faces, we support that a participational empathic model is required, which will set the basis for dynamic actions and creations with regards to sustainability.
EMPACT aims at supporting a diverse set of cultural players to take an active role promoting empathy and sustainability in their respective local, national and transnational/European communities, advancing a better understanding of the ways in which empathy-related arts contribute to individual sustainability orientations and broader environmental sustainability.
The project initiates a dialogue between artists, sustainability experts, philosophers and social scientists, in order to explore the importance of empathy as a key to aid people tackle and act upon climate change. In that scope, it lies on two interconnected pillars:
Maribor Art Gallery have partnered with the two preeminent secondary schools in Maribor, Prva gimnazija Maribor and II. gimnazija Maribor, in the framework of the European project EMPACT in order to introduce the themes of empathy and sustainability…
Ana Likar’s art project Marina Češarek Gallery is based on witch trials, the prosecutions of
people accused of witchcraft, and their association with natural disasters and medicinal plants, the absurd accusations and torture that accompanied them, and absence of any…
Man Face Down is an artist book by the artist Matjaž Wenzel produced in the framework
of EMPACT. The book is based on a series of photographs over a decade in the making. In
collaboration with psychiatrist Miran Pustoslemšek the photography project was expanded…