Capitalism, cityscapes and the climate crisis take centre stage at Luma Arles – The Art Newspaper

Report on Luma Arles Exhibitions and their Alignment with Sustainable Development Goals

A series of exhibitions at Luma Arles explores the intersection of art, capitalism, and environmentalism, with each presentation offering a unique perspective on challenges and solutions relevant to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This report analyses three key exhibitions by artists Peter Fischli, Bas Smets, and Wael Shawky.

Peter Fischli: People Planet Profit – A Critique of Modern Capitalism and its Environmental Impact

Exhibition Overview and Conceptual Framework

Peter Fischli’s work, “People Planet Profit,” originated from an observation of business advice books promising financial success. The installation compiles the covers of these volumes, using their often paradoxical titles to question the compatibility of social wellbeing, environmental sustainability, and financial profit within the current capitalist system. The exhibition critiques the transition from material production to an economy based on the immaterial flow of data, reflecting on the nature of labour and value in the contemporary era.

Alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

The exhibition critically examines systems and ideologies that conflict with several core SDGs:

1. SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth: The artwork questions the quality and direction of economic growth when it is narrowly focused on profit accumulation. It scrutinises the societal obsession with wealth, as seen in titles like From the Trash Man to the Cash Man, implicitly challenging models that do not prioritise decent work and inclusive growth.
2. SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production: By highlighting the machinery of profit-driven literature, Fischli’s work serves as a powerful critique of unsustainable production and consumption patterns. It forces a reflection on whether the “profit” motive can coexist with the “people” and “planet” pillars of sustainability.
3. SDG 13: Climate Action: The inclusion of titles such as How to Profit From Climate Change directly confronts the cynical commodification of the climate crisis. The exhibition underscores the urgent need to re-evaluate economic priorities that hinder meaningful climate action.

Bas Smets: Climates of Landscape – Practical Solutions for Urban Sustainability

Project Analysis and Methodologies

In contrast to Fischli’s critique, landscape architect Bas Smets presents practical, solutions-oriented approaches to environmental challenges. His exhibition, “Climates of Landscape,” showcases methodologies for designing urban ecologies that actively mitigate the effects of climate change. Key projects demonstrate a commitment to creating sustainable urban environments.

• Luma’s Parc des Ateliers: Transformation of a 10-acre industrial wasteland into a self-sustaining, green park, demonstrating a model for urban ecological restoration.
• Notre-Dame Cathedral Redevelopment: A plan to enhance outdoor comfort and reduce perceived temperature through strategic planting of over 500 trees and the integration of a ground-level water cooling system.
• Microclimate Creation: The exhibition space itself is transformed into a cool microclimate, making visitors aware of the potential for the built environment to be managed sustainably.

Alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Smets’ work provides tangible models for achieving key sustainability targets:

1. SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities: The core of Smets’ practice is dedicated to making cities more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable. His projects offer blueprints for climate-adaptive urban planning and the revitalisation of public spaces.
2. SDG 13: Climate Action: The designs for Luma Arles and Notre-Dame are direct climate adaptation strategies. They employ nature-based solutions to mitigate the urban heat island effect and improve environmental conditions, demonstrating proactive climate action at a local level.
3. SDG 15: Life on Land: The conversion of a barren, desert-like industrial site into a lush, self-sustaining ecology is a direct contribution to halting and reversing land degradation and promoting biodiversity within an urban context.

Wael Shawky: I Am Hymns of the New Temples – Myth, History, and Ecological Justice

Thematic Exploration and Narrative

Egyptian artist Wael Shawky’s exhibition uses the ancient Roman city of Pompeii as a backdrop to explore enduring themes of justice, morality, and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. The central film retells Greek and Egyptian myths, including a narrative of a great flood sent to cleanse a sinful humanity. This historical and mythological lens provides a powerful allegory for contemporary societal and environmental crises.

Alignment with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Shawky’s work connects with the SDGs on a philosophical and allegorical level:

1. SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions: The film’s narrative, which follows a search for justice, explores how moral and ethical frameworks are developed and contested across cultures. It reflects on the universal human quest for justice, a cornerstone of SDG 16.
2. SDG 13: Climate Action: The myth of a world-destroying flood serves as a potent metaphor for the catastrophic potential of the current climate crisis. The film’s final lines, describing total annihilation by water, offer a stark warning about the consequences of failing to address environmental degradation, resonating deeply with the urgency of climate action.
3. SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities: By invoking Pompeii—a city simultaneously preserved and destroyed by a natural disaster—the work prompts reflection on the vulnerability of human settlements. It connects the fate of ancient civilisations to the challenges facing modern cities in an era of ecological turmoil.

Analysis of Sustainable Development Goals in the Article

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

1. SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

   • The article explores the tension between economic growth and sustainability through Peter Fischli’s exhibition, “People Planet Profit.” It questions the modern capitalist drive for “financial gain” and making “vast amounts of money,” and asks whether it can “truly coexist” with social and environmental wellbeing. This connects to the SDG 8 goal of promoting sustainable economic growth.

2. SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

   • This goal is central to the article, particularly in the section on Bas Smets. It discusses challenges of “ever-expanding cities” and proposes solutions for urban environments. The article details projects aimed at improving urban life, such as the redevelopment of the area around Notre-Dame and the creation of a park at Luma Arles, focusing on making cities more resilient, inclusive, and sustainable. It also mentions protecting cultural heritage within these urban projects.

3. SDG 13: Climate Action

   • Climate action is a primary theme. Fischli’s work critiques profiting from the “climate crisis,” while Smets’s work offers practical solutions to “mitigate rising temperatures and tides.” The article explicitly mentions dealing with “scorching heat” and creating “microclimates” as adaptation strategies. The flood myth in Wael Shawky’s work is also interpreted as a modern allegory for climate-related disasters.

4. SDG 15: Life on Land

   • The article addresses this goal through the description of Bas Smets’s landscape architecture. His work involves transforming a “baron, desert-like space into a lush, green and self-sustaining ecology” and planting hundreds of new trees. This directly relates to restoring terrestrial ecosystems and combating land degradation, albeit within an urban context.

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

1. SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

   • Target 8.4: Improve progressively, through 2030, global resource efficiency in consumption and production and endeavour to decouple economic growth from environmental degradation. The article’s central question of whether “social wellbeing, environmental sustainability and financial gain can truly coexist” and its critique of a society where “the planet is often pitted against profit” directly relate to this target.

2. SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

   • Target 11.4: Strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage. Smets’s project at Notre-Dame, which seeks to create a “new alliance between ecology and heritage,” is a direct application of this target.
   • Target 11.7: By 2030, provide universal access to safe, inclusive and accessible, green and public spaces. The transformation of a “baron, desert-like space” into a “lush, green” 10-acre public park at Luma Arles exemplifies this target.
   • Target 11.b: By 2020, substantially increase the number of cities and human settlements adopting and implementing integrated policies and plans towards inclusion, resource efficiency, mitigation and adaptation to climate change, resilience to disasters. Smets’s work designing “urban ecologies… to mitigate rising temperatures and tides” is a clear example of implementing integrated plans for climate change adaptation and resilience.

3. SDG 13: Climate Action

   • Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries. The projects described, such as creating microclimates and using ground cooling systems to “lower temperatures by several degrees,” are direct measures to build resilience against the hazard of extreme heat.
   • Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning. The exhibitions by Fischli and Smets are described as making “people aware of the built environment” and the “problems posed by the climate crisis,” thus serving as tools for education and awareness-raising.

4. SDG 15: Life on Land

   • Target 15.3: By 2030, combat desertification, restore degraded land and soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world. The project at Luma, which transformed a “baron, desert-like space into a lush, green and self-sustaining ecology,” is a direct example of restoring degraded land.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

1. Indicators for SDG 11 & 13 (Sustainable Cities & Climate Action)

   • Temperature Reduction: The article mentions the goal of achieving a “reduction of the perceived temperature” and a system that will “lower temperatures by several degrees.” This provides a measurable indicator for the success of climate adaptation efforts (Target 13.1).
   • Area of Green Public Space: The creation of a “10-acre park” is a quantitative indicator. This relates to Indicator 11.7.1 (Average share of the built-up area of cities that is open space for public use for all).

2. Indicators for SDG 15 (Life on Land)

   • Number of Trees Planted: The plan to plant “over 500 new trees” around Notre-Dame is a specific, quantifiable indicator for progress on urban ecosystem restoration (related to Target 15.3).
   • Land Cover Change: The description of transforming a “desert-like space into a lush, green” area implies a measurable change in land cover, which can be used as an indicator for land restoration (related to Indicator 15.3.1: Proportion of land that is degraded over total land area).

4. Summary Table of SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

Source: theartnewspaper.com