Culture

Culture-led approaches are increasingly being recognised as being crucial to meaningful progress in sustainable development, at both local and global scales. At COP30 in 2025, arts, culture, and heritage were formally integrated into the Global Climate Action Agenda for the first time, recognising that ‘protecting culture must be central to enduring environmental shocks and maintaining wellbeing’. Similarly, the Scottish Government’s Culture Strategy Action Plan, published in 2023, highlighted the ‘transformational power of culture to deliver on climate change policies’. However, these ambitions are nascent, and significant potential for implementation remains. StACCS seeks to advance this agenda by strengthening the cultural sector’s potential to both critically engage with social and environmental problems and inspire the imagination and emergence of more just and sustainable ways of living.

Forthcoming activities in 2026/27 include:

• ‘Elemental Ecologies: Art Histories of Situatedness and Drift from the Great Acceleration,’ Bibliotheca Herziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, Rome, 28–30 October 2026. Seminar co-organised by Dr Edward Christie (StACCS), Dr Alistair Rider (University of St Andrews), and Dr Elisabetta Rattalino (Bibliotheca Herziana).

The ‘Culture’ cluster is led by Dr Edward Christie, StACCS’s Research and Engagement Fellow.