Interview in Artists & Climate Change with Malin Östman

What struck me most while conducting this research was how willing those teaching and running these programs were to see just how much their individual discipline couldn’t – or wouldn’t – see. They were scientists who wanted to reach across to the arts and artists who wanted to reach across to the sciences, or who simply refused the assumption that they are separate. Working with whatever resources were available in their home institutions, they weren’t scared to explore the between-spaces, or to make mistakes.

Indeed, some initiatives, such as the student-initiated Centre for Environment and Development Studies at Uppsala University and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Sweden, came from this premise, as explained by Malin Östman, educational coordinator of CEMUS at large: “We started from the idea that climate change is too complex to tackle from only one angle; we need to work together to find solutions.” Although homed in the Earth Sciences – “you’ve got to put it somewhere!” – the Centre adopts an interdisciplinary approach across all its courses, drawing students from a wide range of academic backgrounds.