Lexicon of Sustainabilty

We found this website, the Lexicon of Sustainabilty which is seeking to use cultural production to share ideas for structuring the world in a more environmentally friendly way. So, is it working?

The project seems to be funded in a large part by Google. Not sure how to feel about that but the website itself is attractive. Additionally, there are other funders like the Post Carbon Institute who are doing great work. The site features lots of beautiful photographs and videos with farmers, bee keepers, urban gardeners, artisanal cheese makers, etc. The information and images are usually formatted like the image below.

This is an example of a farmer employing permacultural style growing methods that increase biodiversity in an area v. typical monocrop agriculture. The images look great, but the hand written over-text makes it hard to glean too much info about the subject. If you are not already aware of these issues, you are getting a superficial read.

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The collection of image collages are organized like a glossary, or lexicon (!), of different terms that have come into regular use when talking about a movement towards environmental sustainability, especially in the U.S.

An part of the project worth noting is the promotion of  the idea of having art exhibitions. Anyone can apply to be a curator for the project. As a curator, you are expected to work in your community to set up two exhibits in public locations of the image collages. Then you are expected to network with educational or government organizations, or those organizations in your area doing work to promote ecology. You are expected to promote discussion about the larger ideas of the project. Such as: What is ‘food security’ in an urban area?; What is organic farming?; How can we have healthy, local food in our schools?; What is a ‘locavore’?; What is a farmer’s market and is there one in our town? and so on. All of this discussion is centered on the signature large scale prints covered in white, handwritten over-text.

As always, we are interested in the ability of arts and culture to change people’s opinions about the world we live in especially around issues of the environment. Is this a successful example of using art as activism? Or is it just seductive imagery jumping on the ‘green’ bandwagon? Can traveling photography exhibitions change peoples opinions about eating local food and shopping at the farmer’s market? What do you think?