Dare to be alive!

In our efforts to achieve a more sustainable way of life, many of us - whether organizations, politicians or citizens – fail to realise how much our perception is dominated by a technically-mediated, lifeless image of reality, long framed by the conventional academic disciplines. Our capacity to make the world and ourselves more alive, and in so doing, more sustainable and beautiful, is often disregarded - preventing us from moving forward.  

Yet, we can rediscover and reclaim our individual aliveness and that of the wider world – through actively practising conscious existence and creative imagination.

From 2015 onward, und.Institute for Art, Culture and Sustainability invites you to explore "cultures of enlivenment".

In a series of enlivenment workshops spanning various spheres of society - including economy, education, agriculture, banking, science and politics – we explore the paradigm "enlivenment" as a new basis for an ecologically sustainable civilization.

This concept is supported by the following defining principles:
•    The notion of sustainability can be conceived of as a transition into a new epoch: from the advent of modernity, known as the Enlightenment, to a changed cultural understanding based on a new paradigm of Enlivenment.
•    The Anthropocene discourse needs to be deepened by an enlivenment discourse.
•    Cultures of enlivenment demand a corresponding politics of life.
•    In order to successfully address the global challenges confronting society today, inter- and transdisciplinary approaches need to be complemented by a predisciplinary approach. Working predisciplinarily offers the potential to connect an expanded understanding of art with an expanded understanding of science.

Let that which is living become more alive!
This is the maxim of sustainability, which we should aim to pursue on both the individual and political levels. Hans-Peter Dürr (quantum physicist, recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, 1987)