An der Akademie der Künste in Berlin diskutierten wir mit Stipendiaten verschiedener Disziplinen, was das Konzept des “Beneficial Footprints” mit seiner positiven Agenda für gesellschaftliche Transformationsprozesse bedeutet.
Our vision is a positive, cultural change by combining quality and innovation with beauty and aesthetics as a new definition of sustainability with a global perspective. Fashion thereby is an ideal transmitter, because fashion touches us, moves us and creates identity. Fashion and design are driving forces for change far beyond our own industry. For us, Beneficial Design means using this social transformation force for a positive cultural change in our world - with positive effects for people, the environment and economic activity.
For the workshop, central question was how art or artistic intervention can be used to illustrate the concept of a beneficial footprint and promote intuitive access, initiate a movement or simply celebrate beauty and life. In the beautiful, creative spirit-charged rooms of the Akademie der Künste, we discussed what this design approach with a positive agenda means for social transformation processes. How it is expressed on a material, social, political, aesthetic and cultural level and how the thesis of a positive change can be fulfilled. It differs from the common sustainability concepts of reduction and renunciation, which have not sufficiently fulfilled their promise. Rationally, efficiency and sufficiency may appear to be the only correct approaches. However, despite all awareness, they have not yet been able to achieve any significant changes. Each year is a record-breaking year in terms of energy, water and land consumption. Sustainable consumption is still far below 10 percent, and above all, people are branded as a negative factor in these approaches. Therefore, what is needed, is a completely different, healthy approach focused on effectiveness and quality of life, an invitation to agree on positive goals, a thoroughly people-friendly and life-affirming concept: the vision of a positive cultural change by combining quality and innovation with beauty and aesthetics as a new definition of sustainability with a global perspective.
The international collaborative discourse between disciplines, such as the discourse developed at the JUNGEN AKADEMIE, offers a rich experimental space to confront these questions together, to discuss new approaches and ideas and to develop them in a research-oriented manner. In changing roles between initiator and recipient of advice, between listener, discussant and advisor, a resonance space is created in which questions are condensed, larger connections are made and ideas are questioned. For the scholarship holders, this workshop offered the opportunity to look at the potential of artistic work in terms of its healthy social relevance and transformative power through the counsellor's lens and to reflect on their own discipline and working approaches with an unbiased view. One thing is certain: the sensitive forces of artistic intervention are needed to achieve a social transformation towards a healthy, rich world worth living in.
