What Moves Us

By Inessa Schoel

Supervisor: Dr. Gesa Lüdecke

Emotions, rooted in the word “motion”, can move us to do or not to do something. For example, strong anxiety regarding the future and climate change can have a paralysing effect. On the other hand, joy for self-efficacy or anger in politics can motivate action. The range of emotions we experience before, during and after our behaviour, and their adaptive or maladaptive effects, can vary depending on the situation and the individual. This raises several questions: What kinds of emotions can move people to their sustainable behaviour? How do these emotions fit into broader frameworks of how they conceptualise and express their understanding of the world?

During my interdisciplinary studies at the Rachel Carson Centre, I was struck by the diversity of such narratives and emotions related to sustainability that I encountered in conversations with fellow students and in various seminars. This inspired me to create an artwork that makes these emotions and narratives more visible. Visualising the diversity of emotions and narratives of sustainable behaviour was important to me because, in my opinion, the establishment of common sustainability narratives is essential to achieving sustainable development. Accordingly, we need to embrace a variety of sustainability narratives that are adaptable to different people's lives and experiences.

Therefore, for my Final Project I interviewed and photographed five people of different ages. I asked them to explain what kinds of emotions move them to their sustainable behaviour, in order to capture not only their emotions but also their sustainability narratives. Describing their emotions makes the interview texts more emotionally accessible to the audience and the black and white photographs of their postures, facial expressions, and hands support this visually.

As a result, I created a portfolio from the interview texts and photographs entitled (in English) "What Moves Us: Voices and Impressions of Sustainability", which you can find below (only in German). It shows that, even within this small sample, there is considerable variation in both emotions and narratives.
Furthermore, I would like to thank Christa, Joachim, Tobias, Charlotte, and Anna again for their openness in sharing their perspectives and for making this project possible!