European Capitals of Culture and cultures of sustainability - The case of Guimaraes 2012

•In recent years, European Capitals of Culture have taken in more focus on social and environmental sustainability.•In Guimaraes2012, this topic is taken up mainly in the area of Couros, where DIY-inspired and participatory art events seek engagement with the local public.•Though chronotopic analysis and research on discourse and practices in the city, the article looks at some events linking Guimaraes2012 to cultures of sustainability.•The article observes that lack of coherence and integration of cultures of sustainability leads to a weaker impact in local communities and low visibility for visitors.

This article describes, explains and assesses the application, complexity, and significance of (cultural) sustainability in a capital of culture from a theoretically informed position, and tests some hypotheses, through field data from Guimaraes 2012.The article proposes a complexity-based understanding of cultures of sustainability, followed by a report of field work done in Guimaraes 2012. Work is focused on the practical events taking place in the city, and general discourse. The point is to investigate how a particular combination of events and project present in Guimaraes can be assumed to have a positive effect on the emergence of cultures of sustainability. Field work is on specific artistic and participatory cultural work and their relation to sustainability, their local context, and the overall strategic level of discourse. These take place in the neighbourhood of Couros, undergoing a process of post-industrial revitalization.The conclusion is twofold: the situational organization of the sustainability-oriented events is quite diverse and offers accessible invitations to reflecting and acting around cultural sustainability in the city. However, the emphasis of the planning foundation of Guimaraes 2012 on these events seems relatively weak, no general overview or insight is offered to the field of events, and the events seem to disappear more or less in the flow of art and culture that has no connection to sustainability. It is also clear that more research needs to be done in how to organize the relation between cultures of sustainability and the European Capitals of Culture.