Artistic Approaches to Energy Efficiency: CCI4Change Launches Five Pilot Projects

How can art, culture, and creative actors engage citizens in finding new solutions to reduce energy consumption? Let us introduce the pilots of the CCI4Change project!

In spring 2024, the CCI4Change project called for pilot proposals from arts, culture, and creative actors to work in local communities with the goal of energy reduction. The project partners from the city of Kotka (FI), Region Skåne (SE), and NDPC (LV) received several strong proposals and ultimately chose five pilots to be implemented.

The CCI4Change project (funded by Baltic Sea Region-Interreg) aims to facilitate energy reduction through new forms of collaboration, finding synergies between local authorities—such as municipalities, cities, and regions—and practitioners in the culture and creative sectors. Learn more about the project here.

Stay tuned to learn more about the experiences with the pilot activities!

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Ifö Center: Zero Sum Residency

The closed factory property, managed by the Ifö Center association, covers 43,000 m² and is being repurposed as a site for art manufacturing and more. Ifö Center, located in the small municipality of Bromölla in the Skåne Region of Sweden, aims to transform the property into a so-called ‘zero-sum’ building and initiate an energy cooperative with the building as its hub. In preparation for this, the pilot project investigates how to proceed and explores the property’s potential, such as housing battery packs to stabilize the grid and installing solar panels to produce energy.

Ifö Center will also host a residency focused on the Agenda 2030 goals, featuring artists, dancers, and an industrial designer. Participants will attend lectures, exchange experiences, and showcase their work in an exhibition, with a focus on interactive art and activism to enhance public motivation and knowledge. One artist plans to create new materials byreusing remnants from the closed factory, continuing their practice of transforming industrial waste into art.

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Duncan Geere: Energy waste and sonification art

Duncan Geere is a sonification artist and generative musician who plans to create a musical composition derived from data collected from different communities about the overnight energy consumption of various objects in their homes. Smart plugs that monitor energy use will be distributed among the participants, who will collect and share data that will be transformed into music. The aim is to raise awareness of and stimulate discussion about energy use among the volunteers in Malmö who participate and among a broader audience. The simple process of observing and quantifying their appliances’ energy footprint is likely to prompt self-reflection on their own consumption. Additionally, the project is expected to generate interest and curiosity among wider audiences on the topic of energy consumption.

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Tatu Heinämäki & Camilla Pentti: Community Energy Game: “Energy Waster”

In the city of Kotka, a video game will be developed that specifically addresses the issue of energy consumption and encourages its reduction. High school students in the city are developing the game around this theme, with the goal of having it ready by 2025. At that time, the game will be open to all citizens of Kotka, as well as others who are interested. Tatu Heinämäki is a visual artist, game designer, and media arts teacher, while Camilla Pentti is a visual communications professional and game designer.

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Banja Media Ltd: Video Pilot: “No, that’s not how you save the world”

Banja Media‘s pilot project aims to produce short, humorous yet informative videos on energy saving, the circular economy, and sustainable development. The goal is to inform and inspire viewers to think about what we can do to promote sustainable development and save energy. The videos are created in collaboration with youth groups of various ages in the city of Kotka. Juha Metso is the director, Mika Roikka is the main illustrator and editor, and Petri Pietiläinen is the screenwriter.

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INITIUM: “Neighbourhood House”

The INITIUM Foundation is a professional arts and culture production platform that implements sustainable projects to support social, educational, and cultural initiatives in Latvia. In Kauguri, Jurmala, the creative team is working on the Neighbourhood House, an environmental installation by artists Rute Marta Jansone, Patrīcija Māra Vilsone, and Kristians Aglonietis in collaboration with local residents. This small, gazebo-sized temporary building uses windows as its main element. Inside the installation, like in a home, the different stories of the neighbors will be revealed—anonymously but very personally—telling the stories and fates of one or more people in the house. The internal content will directly depend on the outcome of co-creation workshops, inviting Kauguri residents to take part in the process. The installation symbolically acts as both the eyes of the building and a connector between the inner and outer worlds. The window is also often a point of heat loss in a building, symbolizing the difficulty of tackling issues that concern the whole community one by one.

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The pilots will take place from autumn until spring, and all pilot stories, outcomes, and lessons will be shared. The CCI4Change will conclude in an open event and online resource, where these pilots will be analysed as case examples of how the local authorities can collaborate in synergy with their culture and creative sector actors to reduce energy consumption together with the citizens.

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