Creative Preservation: A Framework of Creativity in Support of Degrowth

Against the backdrop of the increasing depletion of the planet’s ecological ‘resources’ and endemic environmental problems, the view of creativity as servicing the ideal of infinite economic growth has become problematic. We need, instead, to explore how creativity can contribute to grounding our intentions and actions within an ongoing and mutually shaping engagement and cohabitation between people and things-in-the-world. To explore this issue, we introduce the creative preservation framework. It allows to study practices which have received little attention in the literature to date, despite ensuring continuity, preventing deterioration, and valuing what already exists. Our working definition of creative preservation refers to practices of creation that prevent the decay of existing materials and ideas by updating and adapting them, or re-expressing them in another way through the exploration of their affordances. We examine four practices that reflect non-exhaustive forms of creative preservation practices: upcycling, bricolage, low-tech, and craft. The article opens with an ethos of creative preservation in the context of degrowth. It marks a first step towards creative practices that, rather than viewing us as occupants of the world, make us inhabitants of it, thereby contributing to reimagining new modes of relationality.