The Centre for Sustainable Curating
Launched in 2021, the Centre for Sustainable Curating (CSC) is a hub for teaching, learning, and sharing information focused on museums and environmental and social justice. Located in the Department of Visual Arts at Western University in Ontario, Canada, the CSC encourages research into waste, pollution, and climate crisis, and the development of low-waste, low-carbon exhibitions and artworks. Our focus is on outreach, sharing resources, and training the next generation of cultural workers. CSC research is available for cultural institutions of all sizes and can be found in the regularly updated Resource Guide, and in several toolkits in the Projects and Toolkits tab. The CSC is Directed by Dr. Kirsty Robertson, and welcomes contact from students, artists, curators, conservators, and anyone else with an interest in creating a greener culture sector.
Questions that guide our work include:
- How can we imagine and act through responsibility and accountability to the communities we are a part of and the communities that are in relation to us?
- How can we foreground the lands, air, and waters of the Great Lakes region in our work?
- Is it possible to build an institution that is based in reciprocity?
Access our main resource: Using the Resources at Hand: Sustainable Exhibition Design
The CSC is associated with other projects such as:
The Synthetic Collective, an interdisciplinary collaboration between visual artists, cultural workers, and scientists working together to sample, map, understand, and visualize the complex ways in which plastics and microplastics pollute the Great Lakes region.
A Museum for Future Fossils, a vernacular “museum without walls” focused on responding curatorially to the Anthropocene.
FOFA Gallery (Concordia University), fostering and facilitating pedagogical inquiries, curatorial experiments, cutting-edge artistic practices and training opportunities. The Exploring Sustainability Across the Arts: Signage Toolkit and Emerging Perspectives publication was generated in collaboration with FOFA.
The Institute for Public Art and Sustainability (IPAS) at Evergreen Brickworks, combining research and practice to support both environmental and artist sustainability. A Public (Art) Notice was made in collaboration with IPAS.
Institutional Partner/CERC in Decolonial and Transformational Indigenous Art Practices (Dr. Heather Igloliorte) and Taqsiqtuut Indigenous Research-Creation Lab, University of Victoria.
SSHRC Partnership Grant (Sean Holman PI), From Catastrophe to Community: A People’s History of Climate Change, University of Victoria.
LUMA Arles (Atelier LUMA), supporting artistic creation in the fields of visual arts, photography, publishing, documentary film, and multimedia. Objects as Temporal Entities was developed at LUMA Arles.
The CSC is now part of the Picturing Climate Network, an independent, international collective that brings together media artists, climate change scientists, curators, communities, and other interrelated stakeholders. We are a borderless, cross-institutional platform united by a shared interest: finding novel, creative ways to visualise and communicate climate change research.
Director:
Director of Communications/Technology Support Specialist:
Gallery Liaison:
Postdoctoral Fellows:
Camille-Mary Sharp (2024-2026)
Amanda White (2021-2024)
Zoë Heyn-Jones (2021-2023)
Learn more about CSC Postdoctoral Fellow research.
Active Participants:
Katie Lawson, Amanda White, Sarah E.K. Smith, Kelly Wood, Blessy Augustine, Imogen Clendinning, Emily Cadotte, Ashar Mobeen, Jasmine Sihra, Zoë Heyn-Jones, Christina Battle, Jessica Irene Joyce, Danielle Petti, Jessica Walthew, Ellie Armstrong, Ruth Skinner, Gwenyth Chao, and Dickson Bou.
Learn more about CSC Active Participants.
Past Contributors:
Christiana Abraham, Eugenia Kisin, Gabby Moser, Ryan Rice, Lan Tuazon, Tania Willard, Sheri Osden Nault, Clara Polanco Talavera, Javier Garcia Jurado Cors, Lois Klassen, Suzanne Carte, Sasha Opeiko, Jade Doskow, Cal Flyn, Maya Wilson Sanchez, Lillan O’Brien Davis, Juliane Foronda, David Heap, Lindsay French, Kim Solga, Michelle Wilson, Ellen Moffat, The Synthetic Collective, Charles Catchpole, Ron Benner, Laura Rojas, Camila Salcedo, Farms Music Band Association, Eliza Chandler, Ana Friz, Robert Hengeveld, Friederike Landau-Donnely, Jennifer Martin, Ashley Snook, Mikaila Stevens, Emily Allan + Dominique Dilibero, Alma Visscher, Lisa Binnie, Meech Boakye, Chelsea Boos, Jessica Brouder, Barbara Brown, Milanka Bunard, Danielle Burke, Martine Marie-Anne Chartrand, Joni Cheung, Oliviana Cinco, Clara Congdon, Sarah Cowling, Grace Denis, Ioana Dragomir.
Our Funders:
Social Science and Humanities Research Council
The Canada Council for the Arts
Western Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Department of Visual Arts, Western University
Strategic Priorities Fund, Western University