values and principles
What is SCALE?
SCALE is a network of artists, cultural practitioners, and arts organisations committed to addressing the climate emergency and environmental injustice. We coordinate and facilitate the mobilisation of art and culture in Turtle Island to create a just and regenerative world.
Why SCALE now?
The future is collective.
Extractive systems like colonialism and capitalism are incompatible with the future of life. SCALE builds the collective power and capacity of the arts to drive cultural transformation. We develop tactics, align actions, and build post-capitalist, anti-colonial communities of care.
Values
CREATIVITY — Our contribution is rooted in our capacity for creative engagement.
COLLABORATION — We advance the collaborative capacity of artists and cultural practitioners as agents of transformation.
URGENCY — We act at the scale and speed necessary in the climate crisis.
HUMILITY — We move with care, generosity, and joy. We work for collective power.
JUSTICE — We ground our work in anti-oppression and a commitment to redressing environmental racism and promoting climate justice.
RECIPROCITY — We build relationships grounded in radical care, generosity and humility; mindful of the intricate connections that bind all human and non-human kin.
Principles
We see just and sustainable futures—and ways to get there. We unite in a shared vision of a livable planet for all forms of life: now and in the future.
We have an expansive vision of arts and climate engagement. The arts can impact climate action through many paths. We embrace multiple worldviews and ways of knowing.
We are guided by principles of Truth and Reconciliation. SCALE is a settler-led organism working to mobilise a settler-dominated arts and culture sector. We honour Indigenous knowledge without placing the burden of labour on Indigenous peoples.
We ground our work in climate justice. We know that those who have contributed the least to the climate emergency suffer the most from its impacts, including our non-human kin.
All the crises are connected. We know that colonialism, capitalism, and anthropocentrism are inextricably linked systems of oppression. This emergency is over 500 years old. The problems are deeply rooted. So are the solutions.
The arts are implicated. We work inside an oppressive system which upholds white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, ableism, income inequality, and other forms of injustice. The arts are not magic. The arts have work to do.
We don’t see one theory of change; we see many. Profound change requires multiple tactics working in concert at different levels: from infinite small changes coalescing through a process of emergence, to advocacy and leverage at key pressure points where power and capital are held.
We empower through knowledge-sharing and relationship-building. We avoid duplication by promoting, aggregating and amplifying existing resources whenever possible.
We work to catalyse a revolution in social values. We collaborate with others to propel a shift from consumerism and extractivism to stewardship and regeneration.
We promote cultures of belonging. We cultivate safe, accessible, and compassionate spaces for the exchange of ideas, learning and collaboration. We move at the speed of empathy.
SCALE models system change by example. We are engaging in the ongoing experiment in creating an organisational model and governance framework that replaces hierarchical structures with fluid and dynamic ways of thinking and working.
We measure our success in terms of empowerment. We embrace models that let communities work together and make collaborative decisions. We work for collective power.
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