Austria's Commitment to the 2030 Agenda

Bettina Leidl
Director of the MuseumsQuartier Vienna
© Stefan Oláh
Our society is facing great challenges at the
moment: the energy crisis, climate change,
human rights violations and much more.
Art and culture have a key role in tackling
these challenges. One of the central tasks
of cultural work is to create awareness for
ecologically and socially fair coexistence,
critically question the issues and developments
related to society, and provide
orientation and active stimuli.
17 SDGs are the agenda for sustainable
transformation of our society on the
social, ecological and economic level and
an appeal to everyone, on individual and
institutional level to make a contribution
to the implementation. Therefore, the
International Council of Museums ICOM
Austria has invited the Austrian museums in
the context of the “17 museums x 17 SDGs”
to actively, specifically and visibly confront
the SDGs. The initiative aims at building
awareness and allows the museums to
develop projects which promote a fair,
just and tolerant society.
In addition to the strong role-model effect
of cultural institutions, art also has an
ability to process complex content in an
easy-to-understand format and make it
available to the wider public as well as
create reflection spaces for societal and
political discourse. For this purpose, we
need spaces for exchange, discussion and
communication, such as the Museum
District where free, accessible opportunities
for dialogue and joint creation can
be offered.
We need to use the power of culture to
allow all people to have a wonderful life
full of opportunities. Cultural facilities
have the potential to be the transformation
enablers and disseminators to bring the
vision of a good future for all members
of the society.
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