How Little is Enough? A Quest for Existential Sustainability

Abstract

Existential Sustainabilityis a term that has recently caught the attention of scholars across the academic field e.g. sociology, health, religion, arts, and design.The term concerns systematic care and innovative means to meet fundamental human needs. In the article the term is explored through the artistic research project, How Little is Enough? Sustainable Methods of Performance for Transformative Encounters, where existential sustainabilty transcends all layers of the project; on personal level, in the artistic method, and in both content and format of the artistic work. The article discusses how artistic experiences can be understood as human need and how the four performances of the project address existential sustainability. The film deals with the driving force of change and gives a personal account of what it means to be an artist striving to be existentially sustainable.  

Keywords

• Existential sustainability
• Sustainability
• participatory performance
• immersive performance
• artistic research
• relation specific performance