In 2018, LRG and Valuing Nature co-funded a workshop that marked the formation of the AALERT network – arts and artists in landscape and environmental research today. AALERT is a transdisciplinary network that facilitates dialogue and debate between artists, scientists, philosophers, policy practitioners, decision makers and the public to articulate and advocate the role of arts research in communicating knowledge, opening-up different perspectives and creating new understandings of values within wider cross-disciplinary environmental research and decision making collaborations.
In 2020, the network was awarded further funding from Landscape Decisions, a research programme with a consortium of funders including UKRI, NERC and AHRC, to look specifically at the role and contribution arts research can make in informing decision-making related to landscapes, land-use, and land assets. AALERT for Decision Making (AALERT 4DM) does so by bringing artists into dialogue with stakeholders and academics interested in landscape management through a programme of case study-based workshops, aligned with wider networking activities and the production and exchange of written and visual documentations of these experiences.
Due to Covid-19, the activities of AALERT 4DM have been postponed for six months and the first workshop is now planned for December 2020. In the meantime, AALERT 4DM and the Landscape Decisions Programme Coordination Team have co-ordinated an informal meeting to discuss a number of projects with arts-based components funded under the LD program, to reflect on ‘Creative approaches for understanding and influencing landscape decision making’. The event is scheduled for 18 September 2020 and is open to wider audience; for more info and how to join click here.
Follow the network on Twitter: @aalert12 and get involved at: https://research.reading.ac.uk/aalert/project/