Myths and Rituals: Art-Science, Sustainable Tech, and Degrowth
ModulesMyths and Rituals: Art-Science, Sustainable Tech, and Degrowth
After engaging with this resource and completing the activities, learners will be able to:
1. Explain how sustainability and ecological issues extend beyond technological solutions and require social, cultural and epistemic change.
2. Recognize degrowth as a plural, evolving critique of endless economic growth.
3. Reflect on how art–science collaborations can foster new narratives, empathy, uncertainty, and ethical awareness in research practice.
4. Identify ways in which reflexivity, care, storytelling and plurality of knowledge can reshape research design and engagement with the environment.What is this about?
This activity builds on the content of the third episode of Earth to Research, titled Myths and Rituals: Art-Science, Sustainable Tech, and Degrowth. This episode explores how research and innovation can be re-imagined in the context of ecological crisis. Guest Sofia Greaves describes her nonlinear journey from classics studies to art-science collaborations and degrowth studies, showing how interdisciplinary knowledge can reshape how we understand sustainability.
Degrowth is presented not as a singular doctrine but as a plural, evolving critique of economic growth that highlights the impossibility of infinite expansion on a finite planet. Sofia explains that degrowth involves questioning dominant assumptions, valuing multiple knowledge systems, and experimenting with alternative ways of organising society, science, and technology.
A major theme is the importance of collaboration between artists and scientists. Art-science projects can help researchers slow down, reflect, and develop more caring and embodied ways of relating to the environment. Examples include ritual-based research on forever chemicals and artistic inquiries into lithium extraction that reveal unseen ecological relationships. These collaborations foreground uncertainty, challenge technological “fix” narratives, and generate new stories and perspectives. The conversation concludes that sustainability is a social, ethical and epistemic challenge (not just a technological one) and that creative, reflexive, cross-disciplinary approaches are vital in research.Listen to the podcast
podcast
Check your understanding and confront common misconceptions
After you have listened to the podcast, engage in the following activity to check your understanding and confront common misconceptions while receiving instant feedback that deepens learning.
Create your own ritual
Inspired by the examples shared in the podcast, this task invites you to slow down and imagine a small ritual that embodies care for something within your research environment (e.g., water, soil, lab equipment, participants, data, community). Reflect and respond to the prompts below:
