Energy Literacy for Just Transitions

NICA Summer School and Residency organised with Jeff Diamanti, Selçuk Balamir, and E-WERK Luckenwalde

How can we understand the different ways energy manifests in landscapes, social relations, infrastructures and heritage spaces? What happens to energy production sites after they are decomissioned? How might we reimagine and rework the cultural, economic, and toxic legacies of petromodernity? How can we ensure the just transition is guided by and advances local concerns and grassroots initiatives? What role can citizens, creatives, and researchers play in laying the groundwork for regenerative practices?

This summer school brings together 12 students (Masters, Research Masters, PhD) to explore these questions and contribute firsthand to the transformation of E-WERK Luckenwalde, a former brown coal power station turned contemporary art space just outside of Berlin. E-WERK now operates as both a biomass power plant and a gallery, providing energy and vitality to the Brandenburg region and offering an exemplary role for cultural institutions in the just transition.

The program includes a series of remote seminars exploring the intersection of the energy humanities, critical heritage and the just transition, featuring guest lectures and workshops led by experts in these fields. Participants will form self-study groups in preparation for the week-long field trip to Luckenwalde. During this convivial residency, the groups will document, narrativize and visualize the past, present and future of E-WERK in its eco-social context. In collaboration with the E-WERK team, we will develop the groundwork for a theoretically informed “field guide” on infrastructural transitions and energy cultures.

The research outcomes of the summer school will be included in a publication aimed at cultural practitioners working on system change and energy transitions in arts, culture and heritage. This guide will feature and stimulate living prototypes of cultural production and eco-social reproduction, and will be launched as part of a public programme at E-WERK later in 2025/26.

The summer school forms part of the project Petroculture’s Intersections with The Cultural Heritage Sector in the Context of Green Transitions (PITCH), funded by the EU as part of the Horizon Europe programme. Further details available on the project website.