Culture expert calls for eco-art funds: "The Greens are a bit Solomonic"

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Photography by the artist Swaantje Güntzel: And suddenly garbage causes outrage

Photo: Swaantje Güntzel / Photo: Henriette Pogoda / VG Bild-Kunst Bonn

SPIEGEL:

Ms. Goehler, you are calling for a fund for aesthetics and sustainability, or FÄN for short, to support projects in which interested parties from culture and science research together on the ecological transition.

Your idea made it into the Greens' election manifesto - but will it survive the coalition negotiations?

Adrienne Goehler:

Hopefully!

Unfortunately, that is not certain.

The proposal is supported by a really large extra-parliamentary initiative, theater people and writers are there as well as polar researchers.

Well over 100 have expressed themselves in statements and say: We need new approaches, and linking art and science would be one of them.

The scientists, too, are tired of always proceeding according to the scheme F.

SPIEGEL:

However, the Greens have a second fund for culture and ecology in their program.

Why this competition?

Goehler:

The Greens say, Solomonic, that both projects complement each other.

The other initiative is more about making the cultural institutions and large productions, for example in theaters or on concert stages, more climate-friendly, which is actually important.

The FÄN, on the other hand, should support new forms of research, we hope that the need will be recognized.

It would be good for the Greens to stand up for it.

SPIEGEL:

But there are already many funding instruments for culture and also for science.

Goehler:

But not one that intelligently combines both areas.

In general, subsidies are almost always geared towards fast output, hardly anyone is allowed to really take their time or take on an old topic anew, everything has to be newer, faster, always flashier and always cheaper.

Nothing can mature there, and that's not exactly sustainable either.

So sustainability has to take place on many levels.

SPIEGEL:

What can culture actually do?

Goehler:

An example: The artist Folke Köbberling has researched how the prices for sheep wool have developed downwards and that this is often thrown away because of the loss in value.

Due to the high proportion of lanolin, it is even considered hazardous waste and disposal is not even cheap.

This versatile natural product could play a role in medicine and as an insulating material.

So Köbberling exhibited a mountain made of sheep's wool.

As an artist, she can make any absurdity the subject and encourage science to explore other possible uses, to further develop old cultural techniques.

She could be part of such a project.

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SPIEGEL:

Do artists perceive opportunities differently?

Goehler:

Yes, and they know how to make people aware.

The artist Swaantje Güntzel collects garbage that she later drops out of a rickshaw in public performances, and suddenly people's outrage over the garbage is unbelievable.

I worked for the Hauptstadtkulturfonds for a long time, and so many artistic concepts came to my table.

It was exciting to know what was being thought, what smart approaches were already in place.

But because there was a lot that didn't fit into one drawer or the other, it was difficult to get funding.

SPIEGEL:

You are proposing that the fund be provided with ten million euros.

Can a lot be achieved with this rather small amount?

Goehler:

We are taking a modest approach to all of this.

I would like to see this approach in many areas of politics - to say, we begin to have an experience and then we derive the further course of action from it.