Can a Festival Be a Strategy? Practicing Art with Degrowth – or Degrowth with Art?
This session explored how artistic practice and degrowth theory can be interwoven to create new ways of understanding, imagining, and acting. Hosted by The Syndicate of Creatures (Michelle Appelros and Signe Vad), the event reflected their ongoing work merging academic degrowth perspectives with artistic, sensory, and participatory methods.
Drawing from their backgrounds in human ecology, visual art, activism, performance, and participatory research, the Syndicate presented insights from their long-term project: the Degrowth Festival. The festival serves as a political, artistic, and academic platform where performances, installations, communal dinners, workshops, and theoretical discussions intertwine. The session highlighted how embodied and aesthetic experiences—soundscapes, food events, performances, visual works—function as forms of embodied theory, challenging dominant ideas about knowledge production, activism, and art.
During the session, the Syndicate showcased artworks developed through degrowth principles and described how the festival format fosters collaboration across academia, activism, NGOs, and civil society. Their approach illustrated how sensory practices can counteract forms of social and ecological alienation and open space for feminist, queer, and intersectional degrowth imaginaries.
The presentation was followed by contributions from invited guests Diego Galafassi (artist and action researcher, Stockholm University) and Rebecka L. Rutt (feminist degrowth scholar, University of Copenhagen), who expanded the discussion with theoretical reflections on knowledge, imagination, and artistic strategies beyond academia. The session concluded with an open discussion with participants.
Video and sound were used to present excerpts from performances and artworks.