Art and Sustainability, Part 1: The Performer

By Maribeth Diggle

Editor's note: This is a five-part series of Arts and Sustainability blog posts authored by Executive Master of Natural Resources student Maribeth Diggle. Upcoming posts feature artists who have created works about climate, technicians who face sustainable materials challenges, and how one leader in a large scale arts organization makes steps towards true green messaging they can stand behind. A longer version of this blog post and additional context is available via Maribeth’s website at www.notesonbreath.com.

The word “sustainability” touches all sectors in the age of the Anthropocene. But what if you are an opera singer, an actress, a composer, or an animation film maker? The answer to this question would slowly reveal itself to me upon my acceptance in the Executive Master of Natural Resources (XMNR) program at Virginia Tech.

Before we dive in, I must make clear that being accepted into the XMNR program was one of the biggest shocks of my life. Although I knew what I would be gaining, what could I possibly have to offer as a performing artist at such a prestigious polytechnic institution without a scientific background? But from the very first contact with the faculty of the program, I didn’t feel the point of entry was a typical one, which kept me walking forward. The XMNR staff and faculty immediately appeared to be a group of people who welcomed me to Zoom, phone, email, and meet them in person to make sure we all had something to exchange with one another. This boutique program encourages all its students to “lead from where we are”, and I would come to find out that starting from not knowing “where you are” is exactly the right point from which to enter the program.

My acceptance into the XMNR program was partly due to my experience as a professional classical vocalist and director, as well as my PhD research position at the RITCS School of Arts in Brussels. My research is titled The Breath Art Project, which examines how the breath can be a force for social change through the embodied experience of air, which exposes our lived vulnerabilities. The backdrop of my research is the classical music sector which struggles to make the necessary changes to thrive in a net-zero world, including changes to the values and business models that underpin our sector. Old ways of thinking, such as the continued construction of unsustainable theaters to present products that reflect the power structures of historical eras, and, to that end, the lack of narrative innovation that miss chances to touch upon the most important issues of our time, such as the climate crisis, need to be examined and replaced with projects that make the art sector part of the solution. 

Though serious work remains to be done, the power of the arts should not be forgotten. Over the years, I have been told by philosophers, professors, and engineers that they long for the opportunity to be able to reach people’s hearts and minds in the way that the arts can. Through its rich repertoire, and the amazing skill of its makers and performers, classical music - like all art - can tell stories with much more power, beauty, and urgency than reports and statistics. I believe that creative responses to the climate crisis can occupy a unique space in the updated model of individual, systemic, and societal change that needs to occur in the next ten years. 

As performance art holds huge justice seeking potential and can generate engagement by building more fully diverse communities, the climate crisis and sustainable measures should be part of our mission in more obvious ways. In turn, our artistic creations and working systems can be informed and inspired by science. But what does this look like? I believe one such example looks like the sustainability leadership of Patty Raun. The following interview is part of the very first in depth discussion I had with Patty as an artist wondering how I might fit into the field of sustainability leadership myself.

“I remember standing in the back of one of the Stony Brook University conference rooms when the aquatic biologist, Carl Safina, had just testified before Congress. There had been a big oil spill off the coast of Florida, and the whole issue was called Deepwater Horizon. Carl was in the conference room, and he said that he could feel that Congress changed their connection with him only when he was willing to share his anger. That was really the moment that I realized how I'm supposed to be using my awareness of theater tools to help people who are actually doing the science on the topics that keep me awake at night, concerning climate change and stem cell research and the things that are existential issues in our world. Arts practices have instrumental value to the communication and connection needs of people in highly technical fields.

The XMNR program was willing to invite me to teach one section of improvisation as part of the tool kit, but I'm an actor. Nonetheless, the students were so enthusiastic about it that they invited me to teach again and again, until I became a regular faculty member in the XMNR. Around the same time, I started a class here on the Blacksburg campus for graduate students called Communicating Science, and shortly after that, I started the Center for Communicating Science, which does this work almost exclusively.

Honestly, I have challenging conversations with my colleagues here in the arts. They have some suspicions like, why are you doing this? Why am I not just teaching acting to actors? So I think there is some loneliness in this kind of transdisciplinary work, but I think there is probably loneliness in the beginning of any venture. What is clear is that we can't solve the world’s problems without everybody being in the room together. I feel useful and I feel like my work is meaningful in a way that I never did before.

I think my job is to help any person become a fully expressive human being. And today, I can't fulfill all the requests for my time right now. There could be three or four of me and there would still be plenty to do. I think large pieces of the world are starting to wake up and say, oh, we have invested so heavily in technology and in the kind of non-human tools that help us do our work, but we have ignored the basic humanity of the people who use those tools and who are generating the questions that need to be answered.”
- Patty Raun (Actor and Founder of the Center for Communicating Science)

The climate crisis touches us all, so we need to lead from where we are to give sustainability a face, a name, a location, and a story, and artistic practice can help us all translate larger terms into relatable action. Art, and especially performances, are about communication - a message, a medium, an exchange. Artworks and performances can translate as they transmit by humanizing, incentivising and collectivizing difficult and complex topics, translating these into feeling, into embodied understanding, and into change. But the world of art is not an innocent place. The carrying out of art and theater is a carrying out of systems and the continuation of the way we sustain and practice art is a reflection that implies how we view the world.