Every year, the Climate Culture Communications Lab carries out the International Summer University in Germany, Chile and Brazil, with an online-based further education program and several days of workshops and studios in the area of audiovisual communications and trans-media storytelling. Participants come from Latin America and Europe.

Six former participants of the International Summer University are talking about their motives and inducements, what is important for them about this topic and why it is definitely worth participating!

Sustainable development requires a future-oriented understanding of the relationship between society and nature, which can motivate people in their everyday lives to make practical decisions and effective activities, here and now.

Communications of sustainable development must help design new aesthetics which both act against the “atheism of knowledge in the future” (Sloterdijk), and lay the foundations for the “Great Narratives” of sustainable development. These narratives come from the future, and describe what we have to start today for that purpose, what we will gain from it, and what transformations we will have to manage.

For the relationship between society and nature, trans-media storytelling drafts the scenario for the Great Transformation. Which the actors themselves helped design. Participation, collaboration and transparency characterised the concepts, decisions and activities toward sustainable development.

During the International Summer University in 2013, collaborative scenarios of these narratives were drafted, audio-visually designed and recounted via the various media – radio, podcasts and social media, as the Trans-media Story.

The results of our Summer University can be seen here, and have won numerous awards.

As an international network of experts from academia, government, culture and the arts, the Climate Culture Communications Lab moderates the discussions between both the disciplines and between the global South and North.

Sponsored by an international consortium of universities and civil society actors, the Climate Culture Communications Lab generates globally relevant knowledge, and opens societal dialogue for a comprehensible, transparent and participatory communication.

For information on the International Summer University, please click here.