What kind of role can art and its methods play in just sustainability transformations?

Punos is currently running the projects Whose Climate, Whose Futures? (2021–2024) and Seeds for Solidarity (2023–2024) commissioning collaborative artworks by artists and creatives committed to advancing global climate justice. We work in close cooperation with artists and our interest lies in the importance of imagination in building livable, loveable, and sustainable futures. The underlying idea of Punos is that the works facilitated in our projects will grow intertwined, forming a new type of arts ecosystem in the long term.

Orodansádji – A Place to Be, was created by Jenni Laiti, Merethe Kuhmunen and Sunna Nousuniemi in 2021–2022. It focuses on the Sámi people’s right to self-determination, climate justice, and queerness in the context of Sámi culture. A Place to Be delves into the themes of rest, renewal, and intergenerational togetherness through duodji (Sámi crafts), the Northern Sámi language, and sound works.

Acts of Love by Ama Josephine Budge, curator and artist, was initiated in early 2022. This work highlights questions of anti-racism, care and responsibility in the context of artistic work and art institutions. Budge makes tangible and deconstructs the systemic processes of power that must be identified and deconstructed in order to achieve sustainable and just worlds.

Indigenous Climate Futures Embassy (ICFE) consists of traditional indigenous crafts, textile art, performances, media art, artivism and land-based community art. The project has so far been exhibited in Land Body Ecologies Festival in London in June 2023, and at the exhibition 'Buot gatnjalat oktii golget / Alla tårar rinner ihop / All these tears' by Jenni Laiti and Lada Suomenrinne at Skövde Art Museum in Sweden from April to September 2024.

The collective S.U.R. focuses on decolonizing the higher education system from a Latin American perspective. They've created the event series Intento, which in 2023 consisted of an exhibition and dialogues, disseminating and instigating epistemologies of the South in Aalto-University, Finland. Intento 2.0 in 2024 continued with the topic of decolonization of design, focusing on extractive practices, fictions of sustainability, and the illusion of contemporaneity.

Independent curator Hung-Fei Wu created Citing Bar, a programme of public events, art commissions, creative collaborations and discussions in Taipei, Taiwan. Participating artists of Citing Bar exhibitions in 2023 were Ting Chaong-Wen & Wang Hsiang-Lin, Himali Sing Soingh, Ting-Ting Chen, and Hakaw Utux (Tree Tree Tree Person), Wang Yu-Chen, Chang Chih-Chung, and lám-nuā. Texts by artists and collaborators of the programme were compiled into a newspaper format publication, Citing Bar / Potable Paper, published in 2024.