Sostenibilart. Ambassadors of Sustainability // 2022

On 68-75, 113 page information about the project of Sergey Katran. Project Northern
Centre for Studies in Russian Art (CSAR) Directors Silvia Burini, Giuseppe Barbieri. Deputy Director Matteo Bertelé. Head of Educational Projects Angela Bianco. Scientific Secretariat-Coordinator Maria Redaelli, Members Giovanni, Argan Maria Gatti, Racah Giulia Gelmi, Anastasia Kozachenko-Stravinsky, Alexandra Timonina In collaboration with World Food Programme Italia Promoters CYLAND MediaArtLab and the Centre for Studies in Russian Art (CSAR) Сurators Silvia Burini, Giuseppe Barbieri, Anna Frants, Elena Gubanova, Natalia Kolodzei. Editors Editors Lydia Griaznova (CYLAND MediaArtLab) Maria Redaelli (CSAR) Texts and images collection Elizaveta Goleva
University Ca Foscari
The project Sostenibilart aims to raise awareness on a crucial issue, such as the sustainability of all our activities on the planet, and together to ‘educate’ concretely, through art, sustainability in a broad sense, inspiring and promoting actions. The idea is powerful and understandable: to encourage, in the current international scene, artists of significant standing to become ‘Ambassadors of Sustainability’, contributing with their works to promote a greater and more active awareness of environmental respect, the non-dissipative use of the planetary resources, multiethnic and multigenerational sharing.
The Northern Corpus is an interdisciplinary project that combines linguistics, ecology, anthropology, sociology and art. The author examines seven Nenets neologisms proposed by native speakers and linguists to designate the concept of ‘art’. This word does not exist in the Nenets language, and a borrowing from Russian is used. The Nenets language, like other languages of the indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, is directly dependent on the preservation of the traditional way of life, which for the Nenets revolves around reindeer breeding, hunting and fishing. Ecological problems and the warming of the Arctic mean that the Nenets are gradually losing the connection with the tundra and moving to towns, gradually losing their language, verbal folk traditions, handicrafts and culture. Sergey Katran’s project is an example of ‘social sculpture’ (the term of Joseph Beuys): in this concept, art changes reality and rearranges social priorities. The search for a neologism within the ethnic community itself becomes a collaborative effort of the people, responding to the artist’s initiative. Katrin hopes that this process will be a catalyst for the further development of the Nenets language, and the creation of a new conceptual apparatus, inspiring the Nenets to create new words and study their own culture in more depth.