For centuries, creatives have pushed boundaries, curated meaningful culture, and cultivated rich community experiences. Recently, however, creatives have been pushed out of physical areas that were once vibrant and colorful cultural representations of the community. This has occurred widely in New York and LA, and more recently this move has been felt deeply in San Francisco and Seattle.
The representation of a culture physically in space, metaphorically through art, and in the vibe of an area can be felt by those who are deeply connected to the community and by those who pass through. Creatives, by argument, are one of the most important aspects of our society today: without creatives, culture lays flat.
So how does this conversation relate to sustainability? Just as a community needs to be supported through physical and cultural representations of itself, the surrounding environment the community rests in also needs support. The environment is the sole connecting fabric that binds us together.
As creatives, we have the opportunity (and arguably the responsibility) to bring the impact on our environment into conversations through art and creative processes. We can no longer be passive observers – many of us are already embodying sustainable practices, but I urge you, as creatives, to do more.
Why all this pressure on creatives? As I see it, creatives are quite possibly the only group that has the ability to succinctly articulate our everyday environmental impacts to society more generally (sometimes with color). Through art, creatives have the ability to start conversations about the environment and everyday practices to lessen our impact individually and collectively. I’m not here to give you advice on how to run your creative business (we’ve got a blog post for that), but I do want to draw your attention to one of the most important topics of this century.
So I ask – what are you, as a creative, doing to contribute to conversations about the environment?