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Art / Switch

05 August 2021

Committed to building a more sustainable framing industry, Larson-Juhl is keen to collaborate with like-minded people and Art / Switch is an excellent example of an organisation that is trailblazing more environmentally-friendly strategies across the visual arts.

Art / Switch was launched as a not-for-profit entity in the autumn of 2019, to introduce a new generation of sustainable practices to the arts. Based between Amsterdam and New York, their current HQ is in an old rope factory in New York, right beside the East River with a view of Manhattan and the waterfront. 

The Art / Switch team brings together experience in gallery sales, exhibition production, curation, business ethics and academia. Under the stewardship of Johanna Rietveld and Anika Schroter, this collective of passionate environmentalists is connecting the art industry with the aim to enhance discussions, promote existing knowledge and pioneer sustainable solutions in the arts. Johanna Rietveld believes that: “The arts can use its inherent creativity to rethink its structure and play a leading role in the global movement against climate change. Following our successful virtual conference series, we are now moving on to practical projects with art institutions and developing Art / Switch into a R&D lab, combining hard data with practical experience in order to implement hands-on solutions.

“The arts sector has the characteristic of being very traditional and slow in some aspects but at the same time adaptable and forward thinking in others. We've seen how museums have been aware of and grappling with their carbon footprint for some years now, leading to many reports and guidelines but with slow implementation. On the other hand, we've experienced over the course of this past year that galleries have the flexibility to act on these changes on a much faster and larger scale.”

Redefining the methods of tomorrow, Art / Switch’s goal is to develop strategies and climate-conscious practices for a carbon zero, future-proof arts sector. Art / Switch function as an incubator for these ideas, a hub that brings together different players to hasten this movement of change. In future issues of 4walls we will be featuring Art / Switch’s progress, meanwhile find out more at artswitch.org and follow them on Instagram @artswitch_foundation