Research Cluster | Sustainability in the Arts
The Research Cluster | Sustainability in the Arts is dedicated to examining the role of artistic activities within contemporary processes of transformation.
Given the fact of major ecological challenges, the cluster’s primary focus is rethinking phenomena such as consumption, materiality, logistics, and mobility. Furthermore, through experimental development approaches, the cluster helps shape future forms of art that align with these defined production parameters. Within this broader context, the cluster researches and develops sustainable production processes in the arts.
The Research Cluster | Sustainability in the Arts develops, supports, and accompanies grant proposals for competitive third-party funding, research projects, and practical artistic experiments, bringing together artists and researchers from the Academy for strategic consultation (“Round Table”). A synergistic approach is emphasized to align ongoing research agendas with artistic activities. This synergy arises through the interaction between the verifiability of research results in artistic experimentation and feedback from experimental outcomes on scientific methods.
For this purpose, networks are being formed to connect the Academy’s artists, theorists, and researchers with colleagues from other contexts. Collaborations are initiated with external partner institutions of various kinds (academic institutions, companies, NPOs, NGOs, foundations, philanthropists, patrons, and others).
The content of existing research activities as well as artistic practices taking place at the Academy is further developed and communicated.
The Research Cluster regularly organizes panels, lectures, workshops, courses, didactic experiments, and performative interventions.
April 2026
Current thematic and research areas for competitive third-party funding applications:
THE ART OF RE-USING
Reducing consumption is central to creating a sustainable living environment. Numerous examples from industry clearly demonstrate that increasing consumption is directly linked to rising climate-damaging emissions. THE ART OF RE-USING aims both to test material- and waste-reducing production methods in art and to reflect on sustainability conceptually.
Partners:
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland (Jacek Zydorowicz)
Haus der Kunst St. Josef, Solothurn, Switzerland (Reto Emch)
ARCHITECTURE FOR LIVING ROOMS OF SOCIETY
The influence of artistic practice on the political, ecological, and social actions of young people necessitates the creation of open spaces that function as architectural interventions in urban centers. Such spaces enable processes of experience and negotiation in which democratic principles, belonging and solidarity can be practically tested and lived. Against this background, we develop experimental architecture for multifunctional communal spaces that are created in a participatory and inclusive manner.
Partners:
University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria (cooperation inquired)
FUTURZWEI Foundation, Berlin, Germany (Harald Welzer, Tobias Becker)
Ypsomed, Solothurn, Switzerland
PLAYGROUND URBAN MOBILITY
Urban mobility can be reimagined as a “game” within the tension between solutions such as e-bikes and highly technological objects such as e-armored vehicles. At its core is artistic thinking and practice as a methodological approach to transforming urban mobility systems, opening up alternative perspectives and experimental approaches. The starting point is the assumption that individual mobility will remain a constitutive element of everyday life and must therefore be further developed in an integrative manner.
Course
https://www.akbild.ac.at/de/universitaet/mitarbeiterinnen/B1F70209CAD40F14
Events
Fri 24.4.2026
Exhibition:
LANGE NACHT DER FORSCHUNG
Information event and presentation at the mdw
17–23 h
Campus mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien
Anton-von-Webern-Platz 1, 1030 Vienna
Mon 27.4.2026
Book presentation
ZUKUNFTSMUTIG? SUPERINTELLIGENZ, KLIMAKRISE & DIE FREIHEIT DER KUNST
Book presentation and discussion
Panel: Veronika Dirnhofer, Nikolaj Schulz, Christoph Thun-Hohenstein & Rainer Prohaska
19 h
Schillerplatz 3 / Anatomy Hall
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Mon 11.5.–Wed, 13.5.2026
Platz nehmen #5: LET’S STICK WITH UNICORNS
Aesthetic Consequences of Care, Tidying and Re-use
A cooperation with the Klima Biennale Wien
With lecturers, students and alumni of the Academy
16–20:30 h
Schillerplatz and Schillerpark
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Wed 20.5.2026 / 21.–31.5.2026
Opening of the art exhibition:
WASTE IS A MYTH
A cooperation between the Cluster of Excellence Circular Bioengineering at BOKU Vienna and the Research Cluster | Sustainability in the Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Opening: 20.5.2026 | 18:30–22 h
Exhibition: 21.–31.5. 2026
Kunst- und Kulturzentrum Semmelweisklinik, Hockegasse 37, 1180 Vienna
Thu 1.10.–Sat 3.10.2026
Symposium:
KUNST, KLIMA, FORSCHUNG
Presentations, panel & exhibition
Daily, 9–18 h
Campus mdw – Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien
Anton-von-Webern-Platz 1, 1030 Vienna
Wed 4.11.–Thu 5.11.2026
Panel:
SALON°FUTUR 26
Lectures & discussions
Moderation: Rainer Prohaska
Panel: n.n.
Daily, 18–21 h
Schillerplatz / Anatomy Hall
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
List of entries
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Book presentation: FUTURE-BOLD? SUPERINTELLIGENCE, THE CLIMATE CRISIS, AND THE FREEDOM OF ART
To mark the publication of the book ZUKUNFTSMUTIG (Future-Bold) (Kremayr & Scheriau Publishers) by Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and its Research Cluster | Sustainability in the Arts, together with the cultural future platform ReGenerativa, invite you to a book presentation and panel discussion on the topic The Freedom of Art in the Context of the Climate Crisis and Artificial Superintelligence.
Book presentation and discussion
Schillerplatz/ Anatomy Hall
Academy
About the staff of the Research Cluster | Sustainability in the Arts
Tanja Kimmel (she/her) is a graduate conservator-restorer and a certified sustainability manager in the fields of culture, education and media. She studied the conservation and restoration of textiles and leather objects at the University of Applied Sciences Cologne (now CICS, TH Köln). From 2004 to 2015, she worked at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, most recently in the Kunst- und Schatzkammer (Collection of Sculpture and Decorative Arts). As a project lead conservator, she oversaw the relocation of the KHM Museum Association’s collections to the new central storage facility, for which she subsequently assumed cross-collection responsibility.
Since 2015, she has headed the textile workshop at the Institute of Conservation and Restoration at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Since 2025, she has served as Coordinator of the Research Cluster | Sustainability in the Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, where she initiates and coordinates transdisciplinary research and teaching formats focused on the ecological transformation of the arts.
In her PhD in Philosophy (2024), she developed CO₂ accounting as a conservation management tool for the ecological transformation of museums and storage facilities. In both research and teaching, her work focuses on the climate compatibility of art and culture, particularly at the intersection of material practice, institutional structures, and ecological responsibility. She also contributed to the further development of the Austrian GHG (greenhouse gas) calculator for museums (BOKU University, commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport).
She initiates transdisciplinary projects and teaching formats at the interface of art, science, and conservation. Her seminar Climate Action, Now! Museums in (Climate) Change part of the MA Expanded Museum Studies programme at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, was awarded the PROFFORMANCE+ International Higher Education Teacher Award 2024/25 and was included in both the Teaching Excellence Database and the “Atlas of Good Teaching”.
Her publications and lectures focus on sustainability, preventive conservation and operational ecology in the art and museum sector, as well as on “green skills” and the role of higher education institutions in transformation processes.
Since 1 September 2025, she has coordinated the Research Cluster | Sustainability in the Arts together with Rainer Prohaska, with primary responsibility for its academic and research agendas.
Rainer Prohaska (he/him) is an artist and entrepreneur working in the field of interdisciplinary artistic projects and art initiatives. Born in 1966, he lives and works in Vienna and Krems. He studied visual media art under Karel Dudesek and Peter Weibel at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, as well as experimental visual design at the University of Artistic and Industrial Design Linz under Herbert Lachmayer and Robert Pfaller.
A central focus of his artistic practice is the exploration of everyday phenomena and objects, which are integrated into the art context in humorous and adapted forms. In this process, ready-made techniques, sampling, contemporary sculptural forms, and a revival of “relational aesthetics” play a key role.
Since 1998, he has realised projects that artistically engage with questions about ecology and sustainability. In 2019, he founded “FUTURAMA°LAB”, an initiative dedicated to addressing processes of transformation in the arts. Alongside the thematic content of his works relating to ecological change, Prohaska researches and develops forward-looking production methods that rethink consumption, materiality, logistics, mobility, and fundamental human needs. Furthermore, he is engaged in the experimental exploration of contemporary manifestations of art that respond to these defined production parameters. In 2007, Prohaska built his first research vessel for the Danube, enabling over 40 artists to travel from Austria to the Black Sea. This “Artist & Scientist in Residence” program, titled MS-FUSION, has since been held annually in the Danube region and other inland waterways.
The artist has participated in international festivals such as the Luminato Festival in Toronto, SIAF in Sapporo, steirischer herbst in Graz, the Donaufestival in Krems, and Ars Electronica in Linz. In Vienna, works have been realised for institutions including the Albertina, Künstlerhaus, KUNST HAUS WIEN, MAK, MuseumsQuartier Wien, Klimabiennale Wien, and Kunsthalle Wien. A selection of international participations and solo presentations since 2001 includes the opening of the 59th Venice Biennale, the Austrian Cultural Forum Rome, the Graz Cultural Year 2020, the 798 Art District in Beijing, the Himalaya Art Museum in Shanghai, the Hong Kong Museum of Fine Arts, the 5th Moscow Biennale, MOCAK in Kraków, the MAK Center Los Angeles, the Austrian Cultural Forum New York, and the Transformer Station in Cleveland.
Rainer Prohaska developed the concept for a sustainability cluster in collaboration with international partners and, in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, designed, and launched the Research Cluster | Sustainability in Art in March 2025.
Exhibitions and participations
ART ENTREPRENEURSHIP activities: