INFRARED on pressing environmental issues a project by Foundation Shtatëmbëdhjetë (17) INFRARED is an art training residency in which students and young cultural practitioners, artists, architects and designers will have the chance to engage and initiate artistic intervention. The aim is that the people involved will rethink responses to environmental change, while engaging their respective communities via mentored artists’ interventions, exhibitions, media campaigns and art talks on pressing environmental issues. Air pollution in Kosovo rivals big cities like Beijing, Mumbai and New Delhi. During the winter the air is so bad that it has spawned protests, apps and even its own hashtag. In Pristina pedestrians wear masks when they go outside. A mile outside the capital in the town of Obiliq two coal-fired power stations produce the rancid smell of burning coal year-round, with wood stoves adding smoke to the mix. Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008, has the world's fifth largest reserve of brown coal, considered the dirtiest fossil fuel. And the World Bank has called the country's aging coal-fired power plants the "worst single point source of pollution in Europe." Heightened pollution in rivers, as well as a lack of wastewater treatment and disposal, is having drastic adverse effects on the water quality in Kosovo. The armed conflict that took place during 1998 and 1999 has had lasting effects on the country’s economy and general welfare, leaving its citizens with the lowest per capita GDP in Europe. Only 44 percent of the country’s population has access to drinking water, and in rural areas, that number drops to 8.4 percent. Water quality in Kosovo is almost solely reliant on the country’s many rivers, but as pollution increases in the nation, the water quality plummets. Kosovans who regularly drink the tap water become sick as there is no wastewater treatment system. The largest threat to water quality in Kosovo, however, lies in the nation’s lack of a sewage system. In September 2016, the World Bank’s Executive Board of Directors agreed to allocate $24.5 million to restore Kosovo’s main water source, the Ibër Canal. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2022 and will restore water access to 500,000 people who live in proximity to the canal. ​

Outputs 

	One INFRARED Art Training Residency 

	At least 8 art works, performance, artistic interventions

	One exhibition on art for environmental change and sustainability 

	At least 8 articles  for social media, 

	At least 4 TV and radio shows 

	4 Infrared talks

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Outcomes

	Increased engagement of young women and men in public life to voice their needs, concerns and priorities in regards to pressing environmental issues and promote sustainability through tools of art and culture. 

	Increased awareness of the general public on environmental change and importance of promoting sustainability.

	Increased actions at local level to address pressing environmental issues. 

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Impact 

The project aims to provide advanced alternatives that are inclusive and sharpen our understanding of, and to address, the root social, ecological, political and economic causes of the climate change toward a total systemic transformation of our society that can provide real and just solutions to the climate crisis.

​ students and young cultural practitioners, artists, architects and designers and their respective communities