In our submission to the South Tipperary Arts Centre's Open Call: 'Art, Climate, Community', Nocht aimed to explore and challenge the relationship between creation and destruction, questioning the environmental implications of art-making, commissioning, and consumption.
Our proposal, titled 'Reduce, Reuse, Replay', called for a revitalization and transformation of our existing work, 'Play'—a large-scale, interactive word search recursion previously installed by STAC as part of the Inside|Out Faoin Spéir Festival and still in situ at the proposed location for the Open Call. We proposed to repurpose and augment 'Play' by carving into the existing boards the poignant Pablo Picasso quote: “Every act of creation begins with an act of destruction.”
This intervention would involve the removal of material, revealing the stone wall behind the boards and imparting new meaning and perspective not only on the existing work but also on the Picasso quote itself.
Recontextualising the Picasso quote carries significant implications in our current era of climate crisis, where human creation—particularly in industry and development—often comes at the cost of environmental destruction. By embedding this quote in a transformed artwork that uses existing materials and minimizes additional environmental impact, we sought to underline the urgent need to revaluate our processes of creation across all disciplines.
In line with the philosophy of “reduce, reuse, recycle,” our intention was to create new art that requires no new materials and has minimal associated emissions, demonstrating the possibility of sustainable practices in public art. The work draws inspiration from sustainable practices and circular economy principles in other fields, such as construction, where adapting existing structures rather than demolition and rebuild is promoted as best practice and is becoming enshrined in legislation.
This work challenges the norm of constantly producing “new work” and raises critical questions about the motivation, justification, and necessity of our collective creative output. In an era where every industry is under scrutiny for its environmental impact and role in the climate crisis, we turn the lens inward—on art itself—and on the responsibility of artists and commissioning bodies to consider the emissions and life cycle analysis of the works that fill our cultural institutions and venues.
By using existing in-situ materials to consciously reduce the environmental footprint of our proposal, we aimed to pose these critical questions: In a society still dependent on fossil fuels, is it possible for the art world to evolve into a truly sustainable human endeavour? What should the shape and form of art be if it is to truly respond to and act on the issues of climate change—not only in its message but also in its execution? Should human creativity and the arts sector be shielded from environmental concerns, or can we afford to ignore our collective impact on society and the environment?
At Nocht Studio, we continue to seek opportunities to foster new dialogues on sustainability and circular economy principles within the art community and the wider public. We encourage everyone to rethink and reimagine our collective creative practices in the face of climate change.
