Is this our last chance?

Coinciding with the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, SALT launches a program on climate change, encouraging all of us to consider our individual and global impact on the environment.

What is the responsibility of museums and cultural institutions in the face of catastrophic climate change? As conservers of heritage and producers of knowledge for coming generations these organizations have no choice but to participate in a discussion on the future of the planet. And, given their authoritative potential to influence social change and to encourage practices of inspirational thinking, they can act as one of the core public harbingers of what can and should be done.

COP21, 2015 Paris Climate Conference will host representatives from the governments of more than 190 nations in order to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change. The aim of this major meeting is to agree on ways to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions before current commitments on emissions expire in 2020. The Conference is considered by many to be the “last chance” to avert irreversible climate change. For SALT it is a catalyst from which to launch a research program on ecological policies within museum and artistic practice that will permeate to the very heart of the institution. While it is not simply enough to present work on this topic, a significant contribution can be initiated by making current research on climate change visible and comprehensible. By extension, the institution can act as a platform for debate, to help produce new knowledge, which in turn can inform ways to reshape institutional policy and patterns of individual behavior.

The initial program at SALT Beyoğlu between November 27 and December 4 opens with a series of documentary screenings, which explore a range of actions and enquiries into environmental issues that directly link to climate change. This inaugural event provides momentum for an ongoing rhythm of think-tank conversations at SALT, that we hope will inspire a more conscious ecological awareness. These discussions will be followed by action; action that affects SALT’s approach to exhibition making and its structural practices; action that influences working attitudes beyond the walls of the institution; action that feeds into ideas around conservation in general.

Additionally, it is an aim of the L’Internationale museum confederation, of which SALT is a partner, to establish a mutually agreed response on the topic of climate change. This initially involves commissioning a series of texts on these issues for the online platform of the confederation and in time formulating a climate change charter that acts as a reference for the confederation and its partner institutions.

In September 2015, SALT announced that it will not accept any support from oil, coal, or gas corporate entities.

An event of ArtCOP21, a global festival of cultural activity on climate change.

PROGRAM

November 27, 19.00
Screening: Avi Lewis, This Changes Everything, 2015
SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema

November 28, 12.00-20.00
NGO Fair
SALT Beyoğlu, Forum

November 28, 15.30 and 17.30
Screening: Jerry Rothwell, How to Change the World, 2015
SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema

November 28, 19.30
Screening: Wim Wenders & Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, The Salt of the Earth, 2014
SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema

November 29, 16.00
Screening: Orlando von Einsiedel, Virunga, 2014
SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema

November 29, 18.00
Screening: Jeff Orlowski, Chasing Ice, 2012
SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema

December 1, 19.00
Screening: Rachel Boynton, Big Men, 2013
SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema

December 2, 19.00
Screening: Robert Kenner, Merchants of Doubt, 2015
SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema

December 4, 19.00
Screening: Kip Anderson & Keegan Kuhn, Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret, 2014
SALT Beyoğlu, Walk-in Cinema