OASIS-2027 – Bringing together scientists and artists to tackle climate emergency

OASIS-2027 is a platform designed by onEarth Foundation to raise awareness about environmental protection and seek sustainable solutions to systemic challenges related to climate change. The platform received a grant from our Culture of Solidarity fund to support regional transformation. The foundation, which was established in 2019 in Poland, provides alternative ecological education by bridging art, technology, and science. Its mission is to share environmental awareness and embrace equity of living beings by creating spaces for entanglement, co-creation, deep adaptation and well-being. We interviewed grantee Jo who explained to us how their platform was conceived, how it’s coping with the current global challenges and what are the desired outcomes of their project in the future.

OnEarth Foundation emerged from a need for a legal entity for a project in the Bledowska desert to organise residencies to gather scientists and artists. Its research-based residency programme OASIS 2027 (OA27) aims at the creation of an interdisciplinary festival that will explore strategies for climate emergency through the prism of sciences and arts, shedding light on the severity of the climate crisis.

The impact of global challenges on OASIS-2027.

The current challenges of the COVID pandemic as well as Putin’s invasion on Ukraine are affecting the project on multiple levels. Not only because of its proximity to Ukraine and Russia, which brings concerns to people wanting to reach or participate in OASIS 2027, but also on the level of discourse and solidarity. OnEarth Foundation is confronted with a new trigger regarding its statement towards the war, hence it has been putting stronger focus on collaborations, especially when it comes to solidarity, climate, and resources. “I think the war as much as the pandemic are showing us that on this European level we need to collaborate more and this kind of decisions about resources or migration need to be tackled together.”

Jo has explained how this quote served as a seed of display with cultural desertification making a comparison between human connection to earth and how our societies are becoming more and more individualistic, losing connection with one another. The baseline of this cultural desertification is not about the lack of culture but rather the quality of life, which tends to fade away due to the multiple crises we live in and things become more stale in contrast with the communities that can thrive when the soil is fertile. OASIS 2027 investigates ways humans relate to places, materials and ‘more-than-human’ earth. Through this initiative, the team aims to raise consciousness about interbeing, ecology and climate change.

Creating European shared sentiments.

Talking about shared sentiments and values, onEarth Foundation strives to foster climate justice, shared responsibility for common past and present. In addition, they aim at shaping shared decision-making to act collectively and have common vision regarding resources, economy, and migration. OASIS 2027 is organising a festival in Magdeburg in October aiming at telling a captivating and exciting story on climate emergency. This derives from the diverse cross-functional synergies of scientists, researchers, architects and artists, who work together through a plethora of mediums to examine the topics around desertification of human relation to the soil and societal regenerative practices.

The long-term goal of this project is to foster a shift of culture, mind-set, and consciousness closer to nature, environment and deeper responsibility on grassroots and European policy levels. Climate change is a hyper object concept and not-easy to grasp. Change is possible through an inner level of human consciousness, in tandem with being more agile as a society and easier with adaptation. Such a combination of ingredients will lead to a more pleasurable society and more understanding of, for example, how to share resources, respect, and love.

Granted:  58248 euros