Art-based Planning

European citizens are highly aware of the urgency of climate protection but transition to climate-neutral cities can be hindered by a lack of public engagement and resistance to change. Inclusive citizens’ participation and acceptance is essential for achieving sustainability goals in participatory deliberative democracy. Current consultation practice favours text-centric, technical communication and deliberation of scientific and policy information. This can create barriers to stakeholder understanding and motivation to engage and can result in the systematic exclusion of underrepresented communities in decision making processes around urban futures. Developing accessible forms of representation alongside inclusive engagement formats is therefore key to unlocking the meaningful and just involvement of diverse social groups in sustainability transformations.

The proposed research project explores the potential of art-based formats to address these challenges and bridge the gap between science and policy driven planning processes and their communication to the public. It will engage a diverse community of cultural practitioners to investigate the potential of visual, embodied and sensory language to make complex sustainability concepts more broadly accessible across different age groups, cognitive abilities, and cultural backgrounds and address epistemic injustices in dominant knowledge production.

Research has highlighted the need to address existing institutional barriers to the broader implementation of democratic innovations beyond isolated projects. To embed art-based methods as legitimate, effective, and inclusive tools for public engagement in planning procedures for climate-neutral cities we will investigate necessary systemic and procedural changes. This will include increasing public administration’s awareness of artistic methods and ensuring procedural flexibility to allow for the adaptation of insights emerging from art-based formats.

Niedersachsen KONSORT

54.963 Euro

May 2026–April 2027