San José Climate Art Program

The objective of the Climate Art program is to build energy and community support around the City’s 2030 goal of carbon neutrality by enlisting the support of and reducing the carbon impact of the San José arts and culture sector.

ABOUT

The Climate Art program enlist San José’s artists, creative producers, and cultural institutions as active and effective agents in meeting the city’s ambitious climate goals. The arts and culture sector plays a central role in shaping public opinion, and through this plan the arts and culture sector will use that power to raise public awareness of and engagement with climate action. The City will also work with the arts and culture sector of San José to lower the carbon footprint of its culture-making initiatives to help meet city, state, and federal climate goals. This action plan outlines the steps needed to create baselines, benchmarks, and action guidelines that address a broad range of cultural producers. In order to contribute to the City’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2030, our cultural sector will require capital and operational improvements to facilities. It will also need platforms for resource exchange, guidance on best practices for events and theater productions, and shared vendor and purchasing power to enable the selection of sustainable goods and services when producing artworks, exhibitions, performances, and educational programming. As the City works with arts spaces, individual artists, arts educators, and creative enthusiasts to devise, distribute, and implement these resources, the San José’s arts and culture sector will become a model of sustainability and a catalyst of broader climate consciousness.

What San José Stands to GaiN

Art helps get the message out. Access to climate-focused ideas and solutions from artists, cultural provocateurs, and creative thinkers will help activate a broader cultural shift in the public, increasing climate awareness and support for the City’s climate initiatives.
San José will lead. No other Bay Area city currently has a climate program or action plan aimed specifically at the cultural sector.
Increase market demand. By creating incentives for pursuing climate-friendly goods and services, this program will enable the organizers of exhibitions, performances, and other cultural events to direct their collective purchasing power toward otherwise expensive and difficult-to-source low and no-carbon solutions.
Modeling what’s possible. As public-facing organizations, arts and cultural spaces can serve as powerful models of the changes all San José residents can make to reduce emissions and waste.

WHAT WE ARE DOING IN 2024

Resilient Artist Program

The San José Climate Art Program is enlisting San José’s artists, creative producers, and culture-makers as active and effective agents in meeting the City’s ambitious climate goals. The City’s climate action plan includes targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions becoming carbon neutral by 2030. It’s also a community-wide initiative to reduce air pollution, save water, and improve quality of life.

To help build momentum and community support around the City’s 2030 goal of carbon neutrality, we are inviting fifteen San José artists to join an Environmental Resilient Artist Cohort and participate in a pilot program aimed to measure, assess and adapt artistic practices to be more resilient to climate effects and lower in GHG emissions. Artists will participate intensive workshop learning from experts from around the globe alongside locals in San José encompassing an art-centered approach to environmental resilience.

Carbon Neutral Creative Network

In the vibrant tapestry of San José's arts and culture scene, a transformative initiative is taking center stage – the San José Climate Art Program. This visionary program seeks to weave together the threads of creativity and sustainability, inviting San José's arts organizations and environmental networks to embark on a collaborative journey towards a more resilient future.

At the heart of this program lies a shared aspiration: to harness the transformative power of art to advance San José's ambitious climate goals. The city, driven by a deep commitment to addressing climate change and environmental stewardship, has set forth bold targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.

The Climate Art Program recognizes art and culture as a potent force for change, capable of inspiring, educating, and mobilizing communities around climate action. To tap into this transformative potential, we are inviting San José arts organizations to join a Creative Economy Network and help build community resilience to the impacts of climate change and increase access for all to a clean, affordable, and healthy environment.

Join us for our in-person network events.

Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum: Monday, March 18, 2024
San José Museum of Art: Friday, April 12, 2024
Institute of Contemporary Art San José: Wednesday, June 3, 2024
Children's Discovery Museum: Tuesday, July 9, 2024
Climate Art Symposium - October 11 and 12, 2024 Register Here

Resource Hub

Work with visual artists and organizations to use a shared site/app exchange materials and resources.

The City of San José Climate Art Program and Environmental Resilient Artist Cohort is launching with the support of the Bay Area Creative Corps Program (BACC) of the San Francisco Foundation and the California Creative Corps (CCC) of the California Arts Council. The collective goal of these programs is to use creativity to advance equity and well-being in key sectors and drive support for priority communities that are facing some of the highest barriers to environmental safety.

For more information on how to participate email Cultural Strategist in Climate Art devon.bella@sanjoseca.gov.

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Read the press release on the Climate Art Program.

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