social sculpture + connective practice for a living future

ABOUT ME
life-work / world-work

I am an artist, moral imagination enabler, thought-worker, connective process designer, mentor, author, speaker, cultural activist, inspirer, offering interdisciplinary creative strategies for paradigm shift in practice.

The arenas, actions, processes, frameworks, reflective assembly formats and instruments I create enable new eyes for the world and moral imagination that develop connective intelligence and link the individual and social fields.

Some works are ‘participatory arenas’ for use in museums, institutions, NGO and peoples networks, and other public contexts. They offer guiding images and co-creative processes for new forms of coming to insights, thinking-together and exploring moral imagination. Other works are mobile instruments and temporary labs, listening places, lecture-performances, scores, mind-shift processes, transformative dialogues, curated enquiries, and global platforms.

PRACTICE
creative strategies for
moral imagination + transformation

Despite their different users, themes, and contexts, they all offer trans-disciplinary aesthetic strategies for working with questions, developing imaginal thinking and activating eco-social dialogue.

Their focus on ‘making social honey’ and strengthening ‘the social mycelium’ illuminates the deep connection between inner work and outer action and how this inner dimension of sustainability nourishes new forms of thinking-together and connective intelligence.

All Areas of Practice and Current Initiatives

ENGAGE
become artists of the future

III Stamp for Social Sculpture Lab, hosted by documenta Archive, 2021. © Shelley Sacks.

In these times of immense change, uncertain transitions, increasing divisions, and debilitating confusions about life, the human being and the machine, we need new ways of listening to the phenomena, of ‘coming to our senses’, and of thinking-together.

We need creative strategies to see beyond the shadows: to perceive potential in the crises, explore how lenses and behaviours can shift, and develop our capacities as agents of connective, moral imagination for personal, social and system change.

Work with me as individuals, organisations, communities and groups to develop capacities for a living future: explore moral imagination, new organs of perception, and ways to connect head, heart and will. Understanding the inner dimension of sustainability and the connection between inner work and outer action, allow ways forward to be uncovered, and connective intelligence to emerge. Moral imagination and imaginal thinking-together are central to the formats and practices I share for experiencing the connection between inner and outer work, new forms of thinking-together and making ‘social honey’, and enabling responsible processes, ‘living plans’, and connective initiatives to emerge.

REFLECTIONS
publications, talks, exchanges

Explore my questions, reflections and propositions in the field of social sculpture and connective practice. See published writing, listen to talks, read exchanges with others, and find other documents related to my practice, its evolution, and streams of influence.

Find out more about connective and moral imagination, my development of Beuys’ social sculpture proposals, and other special concerns including: the terrain beyond the dead zones, decolonising the mind and social aesthetic strategies for making social honey and enabling a change of heart.

View All

  • ATLAS of the Poetic Continent: Pathways to Ecological Citizenship

    Writings: The ATLAS is a philosophical work-book with images & pages for reader’s use.

    Read More

  • Sustainability without the I-Sense is Nonsense

    Chapter on inner dimension of sustainability, focusing on the Earth Forum and Connective Practice methodology.

    Read More

  • "But you're an artist, Shelley! You must not stop making things"

    Chapter: exchanges with Hinrichson about Sacks’ work with Beuys. Includes images & Beuys letter.

    Read full text

  • Letter to Joseph Beuys from Shelley Sacks

    Installation text & booklet for Social Sculpture Lab’s Survival Room, Joseph Beuys Centenary, hosted by documenta Archiv & Neue Galerie, Kassel

    Read full text

  • Die rote Blume: Aesthetische

    In depth exchange between Sacks and Kurt exploring Sacks’ evolving connective practice approach & its relationship to Beuys’ social sculpture proposals.

    Read more

  • Exchange Values on the Table

    Notes on work and field of social sculpture, with poster to accompany EXCHANGE VALUES in exhibition at Frans Hals Museum 2017-2018.

    Read full text

  • Coming Together as a Global Social Sculpture

    Radio Interview: Thomas Steiner speaks to Shelley Sacks, June 2022

    Listen

  • New List Item

    Description goes here
    Click Here

  • New List Item

    Description goes here
    Click Here

  • "The ecological crisis is an opportunity for consciousness"

    Shelley Sacks, University of the Trees guiding principles, 2006.

  • "We need to re-school the senses to 'come to our senses'"

    Shelley Sacks, University of the Trees launch event, Exeter, UK, 2006

  • "Moral imagination is a capacity we need to develop! Only such connective imagination can support life"

    Shelley Sacks, Lecture-Action, Das Antropozan: Der Mensch Als Lösung: Kassel, 31 May 2017

  • "We are developing a global social forest to make 'social honey' and create a 'social mycelium' of generosity, connective vision and care."

    Shelley Sacks, Introductory talk, 7000(+) HUMANS, March 2022.

  • "Real responsibility is an ability-to-respond"

    Shelley Sacks, UNESCO, World Summit for Culture and Development, Stockholm, 1998

  • "The world is 'a landing place for souls' to transform challenges into ‘social honey’"

    Shelley Sacks, 7000(+) HUMANS: The Global Social Forest, 2021.

  • "Human beings are the most difficult of all earth's creatures. A tree knows how to be a tree. Humans are only at the beginning of our development!"

    Shelley Sacks, University of the Trees, Launch lecture, Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World, 2006

  • "Responsibility and freedom need to be understood as inseparable! Social sculpture helps us do this!"

    Shelley Sacks, Re-Vision Conference, Berlin, 2018.

  • "We are 'freedom-beings' who need to learn how to be free without destroying each other and all life forms!"

    Shelley Sacks, Non-Formal Education program, Cape Town, South Africa, 1978.

NEWS + current initiatives

  • Pilgrimage into the Everyday: an 'instrument of consciousness'

    New FRAMETALKS work in universities, schools & organisations is being planned in Germany from 2025-2028. Other countries can be discussed.

    Read more

  • Inner Dimension of Sustainabilty Seminars

    Interdisciplinary seminars exploring how Connective Practice Approach & how Inner Dimension of Sustainability contributes to shaping a living future for all.

    Read more

  • 3 POTS for the Future: A Connective Practice for 'Making Social Honey'

    A unique ‘social honey’ making process, with drawing & thought. For individuals & groups. Planning: late 2025-26 onwards.

    View

  • New Writing: Social Aesthetic Strategies for a Change of Heart

    A redemptive approach: exploring moral imagination & instruments of consciousness for enabling connective intelligence.

    Links to publication

  • 7000(+) HUMANS Global Social Forest, 2024 ongoing

    Become part of the 7000(+) HUMANS Global Social Forest - an evolution from Joseph Beuys’ 7000 OAKS. Participate as individuals and groups.

    View

  • For a Living Future- Cape Town, lunchtime lecture

    Lecture at Michaelis School of Art, 18 September: "Social Sculpture and Connective Practice for a Living Future: Working with Questions.

    Read more

  • A Tree Knows How To Be A Tree: Educating Humans in an Intelligent World

    Keynote Lecture: Human Intelligence Conference, Vienna, May 2025

    Register

GET IN TOUCH

enter a zone
of transformation

engage beyond the habit level
strengthen connective imagination
develop ecological consciousness
lay the basis for responsible innovation