'Heritage and Sustainability:
Sustainable Islands of Culture
and Arts Education'

How do culture and the arts contribute to the sustainable development of societies?

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), also known as the Global Goals, were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 to promote actions to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure peace and prosperity, to be carried out by all UN countries by 2030. Noting the importance of education for sustainable development which “aims to help people to develop attitudes, skills, perspectives and knowledge to make informed decisions and act upon them for the benefit of themselves and others, now and in the future” with a view to helping “the citizens of the world to learn their way to a more sustainable future” as an important aspect of culture and cultural diversity, empowered by cultural and arts education, this Summit aims to call attention to education leaders, policy leaders and civil society to acknowledge that the arts, in their diversity, and arts educators play a critical role in fostering and transforming humanity.

Acknowledging that culture and arts industries can create an environment that fosters ideas and actions of awareness and individual responsibility in line with sustainable development goals, the World Summit of Arts Education ‘2023 – ‘Heritage and Sustainability: Sustainable Islands of Culture and Arts Education’ aims to join this SGD agenda and invite participants to present their ideas, reflections, theories and practices to discuss the challenges and opportunities that local cultures and arts educations can offer to sustainable futures.

Although the arts and culture seem to be absent from the global discourses of SGD agenda, it is clear that they play a fundamental role in achieving more sustainable societies, by creating jobs, raising awareness, transforming attitudes and values, stimulating creativity, fostering diversity and bringing a value added to education, in a time of environment and social crisis.

It is therefore of paramount importance to strengthen cultural information systems and exchanges between countries to know not only about their economic impact, but also to generate public policies that impact the entire value chain of cultural industries and educational systems.

As the concept of cultural and creative industries is vast, it encompasses a set of activities that have in common the use of creativity, cultural knowledge and intellectual property as resources to produce goods and services with social and cultural significance – such as in performing arts, visuals arts, multimedia, digital arts & performance, cultural heritage, handicrafts, cinema, photography, radio, television, music, literature, educational and entertainment software and other computer software and services, new media, architecture, design, fashion and advertising – the aim of the World Summit of Arts Education ‘2023 – ‘Heritage and Sustainability: Sustainable Islands of Culture and Arts Education’ is to encourage sharing of knowledge, reflections, theories and new practices in in-between locality, arts education and tradicional art forms in the diverse heritages of each country or region. In this way, it is intended to highlight the following areas for discussion during the summit:

1. How to integrate traditional music and musical instruments in contemporary arts education practices?
2. What is the role of traditional dances in contemporary arts education practices?
3. Heritage and contemporary challenges in drama education practices.
4. Heritage and contemporary challenges in visual arts education practices.
5. Story telling processes in education.
6. How regional tales and legends can enrich educational and SDG Agenda goals?
7. What kind of relationships exist between arts, design, new media, craftsmanship, education and cultures towards global agendas (SDG) or agendas for local futures?
8. Arts Education contribution in the  mitigation of societal challenges (e.g. conflict zones; exclusion; health problems; precarious contexts, etc.)