Beyond green and into the museum

So what can we gain-or lose-by bringing these hybrid practices together within the particularly powerful framing space of the museum?

For museums to remain relevant, they must make space for projects that productively explore the tensions between the world "out there" and the protected precinct of the museum through works that provide rich experiences for visitors. In all its hybridity and occasional messiness, such work extends the boundaries of contemporary art in important ways. Museum exhibitions provide a means of introducing this work to wider audiences and, with luck, of securing a place for it within official records of art history. On a more practical level, through the commissioning of new projects and other kinds of support to artists, museum exhibitions can provide material resources and recognition that may be useful to the artists as they pursue their own independent projects.

Museums can themselves be strengthened by stretching to accomodate such art. Practices that perforate the boundary between the museum and the rest of the social sphere can make even the famously difficult white cube more responsive to current art and enticing to visitors of all kinds. When practitioners from different backgrounds come together to participate in exhibitions and accompanying programs, the museum becomes a platform from which to sustain existing networks and to create new ones. [Figure 1] Museums can also learn from art they present; in this case that means taking up the challenge to make museums more sustainable spaces.

There are potential losses as well. The art presented in Beyond Green was for the most part planned with a dual commitment to its discursive and speculative function within the museum and its application in other arenas. Still, some of the projects sit a bit more comfortably within the white cube than others, and there is always a risk that the museum setting could overdetermine the ways that visitors respond to these works. Indeed, other works that might fall under the heading "sustainable art" would not (could not) be appropriately housed in museums. Still, it is worth presenting works like these in spite of what is lost; the benefits-not the least being the potential for institutional change-outweigh the risks

Who knows what will come next, and whether sustainable design will have a lasting impact on art making, museum practice, and the social sphere. Still, I find it heartening that space seems to be opening up both within the wider culture and inside the art world for practices that feel hopeful. Ironic detachment has its benefits (and indeed, appears within some of the works in this exhibition), but earnest engagement has a place and is finding expression within complex, experimental forms of contemporary production. The trick, of course, is not only finding ways to enact change in large and small ways but also finding the creativity, courage, and resources needed to sustain it over time.

FIG. 1 At a community design workshop held during Beyond Green's opening weekend in Chicago, teams of exhibiting artists, community members, students, professors, designers, architects, planners, and others created this model, which shows playful and practical ways that sustainable design might be used to improve the built environment in an area adjacent to the University of Chicago's campus.