Using Art to Make Change Happen

Salzburg Global Seminar, with support from the Bush Foundation and the McKnight Foundation, is proud to host at Schloss Leopoldskron artist residencies from selected Fellows from the Cultural Innovators Forum, a program that since 2013 has brought together cultural innovators and creative practitioners from around the world.

Artist and Fellow Amanda Lovelee spent eight days at Schloss Leopoldskron in November, collaborating with Emily Stover on a project involving Schloss Leopoldskron's trees

When I recently checked my office mailbox, I found a sweet gift from a coworker. It was a patch that said, "The Official Artist-in-Residence" and a little note saying, "This should be your title."

As an artist who works in government, it feels nice when colleagues see the impact of an artist on systems change. You see, my career as an artist over the past decade has been in places where artists are not usually found and are traditionally "no" spaces.

I have worked in city hall as the artist in residence, teaching within a science department with my master's in fine arts, and now as the park's ambassador within a regional planning organization.

I deeply believe that the change the world needs will not and cannot happen in one sector, and who better to lead change than artists? When asked about my medium, I say, "Government."

Like many artists, I wear a lot of hats, bringing my strengths of creativity, ideation, and change to all of my work and collaborations. I am always the one at the table asking, "But why do we do it that way?"
 
When given the opportunity to return to Salzburg Global Seminar for a residency, I was beyond excited to create a project that could demonstrate the power of art to work within all sectors of the programs. I decided to bring along one of my collaborators, Emily Stover.

Together, Emily and I make up Plus/And, a civic design studio built on the belief that stronger relationships make better cities. Using public art and experience design, we create tools and spaces that help people connect with each other and their environment in order to adapt to our evolving world. Our projects are joyful art-based experiments with measurable outcomes for our community collaborators.

Our project TreeTime is a short, poetic conversation with a nearby tree. It asks you to take a few moments to think about your relationship with the nature and the people around you. The goal of TreeTime is to use play and curiosity to get people thinking about our shared futures with all living things, build empathy with nature and move people towards collective action, if even in small steps.

We hope people walk away from talking with a tree feeling a deeper connection and collaboration with the environment and a realization we are in this together, that we have a reciprocal relationship with nature, and we care for each other.
 
TreeTime is part of a larger multiple-year and multi-place-based project called Future of Futures, a set of public art installations that uses a palette of interactive tools and methods for gathering people to imagine different futures for their city and the environment. This initiative asks people to dream about our shared futures through curiosity, play, and planning.
 
As the world continues to struggle with sticky issues facing us in the fields Salzburg Global Seminar convenes cohorts around - health, culture, peace, justice, governance, finance, and education - it is exciting to see how having artist residencies and art projects can add that cross-sector layer of imagination.

I feel so honored to have gotten to be a part of the cohort gathering for Global Lessons on Greening School Grounds and Outdoor Learning. Getting to spend deep time learning and growing outside my field is where I find joy. I believe adding the layer of artists and an art project only deepened participants' experience. I can see the value of artists in residences across all the work done at Salzburg Global Seminar and am glad to know TreeTime will be doing this work all through 2023.

If you are at Schloss Leopoldskron, make sure to slow down and talk with our trees that are eager for conversation. This year-long exchange will be shared back with all of us.  
 
Remember in all your work to never stop holding the door open and saving space at the table for an artist because art has a place in promoting change in all sectors.

As "The Official Artist-in-Residence," I will continue to lead with play, creativity, and empathy to solve sticky problems and translate complex ideas. I am using art to make change happen in accessible, strategic, and fun ways across all sectors for our shared future.

As the trees report back, those who have already visited the trees recently also dream of a future filled with belonging, love, and connection for all. Let's come together across fields and creatively build this together.

I mean, isn't it time to start listening to nature and having artists take the lead to shape a better world? I think this would be a future Max Reinhardt would believe in.   
 
Until next time, always your "Official Artist in Residence."