The nebulous notion of sustainability begs for visual representation.
I collect favorites, and a few years ago I worked with designer Andrew Fuller to create a series of posters, “representations of sustainability,” for a show at Portland’s Sea Change gallery.
Yesterday’s post on Valerie Brown and the book Tackling Wicked Problems reminded me of this poster featuring her diagram: the whole-of-community action web.
From Brown’s book Leonardo’s Vision: A Guide to Collective Thinking and Action:
The potential for whole-of-community learning rests on a paradox. Any lasting change in any one community depends on matching transformation in the surrounding society. Any lasting change in the larger society depends upon transformational change in its constituent communities. …
The whole-of-community action web suggests six forms of connection are needed to hold communities together as they learn and change.
In the diagram, these six are: whole-of-community commitment, internal community integrity, inter-community partnerships, external community alliances, integrated forward planning, and future-directed action.
