• It’s really important to have some sort of horizon to grasp onto and work towards and for me that is thinking about what possible worlds might exist and how can I spend my time contributing to making those worlds possible. Of course that is a huge question and it changes a lot day to day. I have been thinking a lot lately about how art and scholarship around the environment can teach and inform one another in terms of practice and action.

I know Emma Bugg from two art and environment research activities in Canada : Sustainability and the Arts (SATA), a SSHRC funded project led by Dr. Tarah Wright, professor at the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, at Dalhousie University that identifies Canadian and global scholars, artists and practitioners working in sustainability, including myself as one of their advisors. 

The other project is the Living Climate-Impact Framework for the Arts project, a qualitative arts framework, designed as part of the Research in Residence: Arts Civic Impact Initiative by Mass Culture, led by Robin Sokoloski, produced in collaboration with CreativePEI, that provides indicators to measure arts impact in environmental sustainability and fosters transformation towards climate action and adaptation by using forward-thinking to create a useful arts impact assessment framework.

Some interesting research here on how the arts can make a difference and the role of the arts in the ecological crisis.  

In other words, Emma Bugg, who is currently an interdisciplinary PhD student at the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia is an arts and climate hero. Hard working and with an endless curiosity.  Before her studies at Dalhousie, worked at the Ottawa based non-profit Evidence for Democracy as the Communications and Campaigns Manager.

Our conversation explored the dilemma of the environmental crisis as a cultural crisis, and how if we want a sustainable future - and we do need that - we need to culturally transform our entire society.

Scholars like Emma are doing their part and increasingly contributing to the emerging field of sustainability and the arts; however, this growing body of scholarship and knowledge has not yet effectively tackled the specific role of arts organizations and their potentialities for impact and this is one of Emma’s passions. 

I got caught up myself in Emma’s enthusiasm for data, research and impact measurement during our conversation, when committed, quite impulsively, to apply the Living Climate-Impact Framework for the Arts on this podcast as a test case which I will share when I’m done on my ‘a calm presence’ Substack. Kudos to Emma and Robin and their colleagues for this tool. I invite others to try the framework. It’s a lot of fun to go through the Who, How, What format.

Emma recommends the following reading materials:

• Emergent Strategy, Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown
• Lillian’s Place by Alexis Bulman (cedar shed in Stratford PEI)

Note: also of interest to this episode is this paper by Emma Bugg, Tarah Wright and Melanie Zurba: 

Creativity in climate adaptation: Conceptualizing the role of arts organizations and https://cgscholar.com/bookstore/works/understanding-impact-in-sustainability-and-the-arts

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END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). 

It’s my way to give back.

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish free ‘a calm presence' Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.

Your feedback is always welcome at [email protected] and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on July 8, 2025