Yearly Archives: 2012

SIdeways : Artistic laboratory along slow paths

This post comes to you from Cultura21

33 projects in open space, a journey of 334 kilometres, 16 walking days, 5 festival weekends, 2 symposia and 1 multimedia donkey! 17 August – 17 September 2012, Belgium

Sideways is an itinerant festival for contemporary arts and cultural research. In times of acceleration and hypermobility, this nomadic initiative follows a web of slow paths. Artists and public explore different sidetracks in the Belgian landscape: footpaths, alleys, backroads and shortcuts. Behind the ribbon development and in the margins of the ubiquitous car infrastructure, a terra incognita appears; a fluid interstitial space of passages, tracks and stories. From this sideline, the Sideways exploration unfolds, focusing on being on the go, slowness and creation, arts and ecology, im/mobility and activism, spatial un/planning and landscape.

Both in form and content, Sideways engages into an experiment: a 4 week walking journey through Belgium, from west to east, undertaken by the audience as well as an international group of artists. An expedition without a predetermined destination, with room for detours and encounters, mapped and documented via the DonkeyXote multimedia donkey. Different lines of movements are entwined into knots of activity during 5 consecutive festival weekends in Menen (19/8), Herzele (25-26/8), Brussels (1-2/9), Turnhout (8-9/9) and Zutendaal (15-16/9).

For those who are interested, you can read the Catalogue and this Article. And you can visit the Sideways Website.

This post is also available in: Spanish

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Call for papers on Art and Freedom of Expression for Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics

www.seismopolite.com

The next issue of Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics will discuss how art can promote freedom of expression.

Contributors from different disciplinary backgrounds are invited to submit articles, reviews or interviews that address this theme through a high variety of possible angles.

Topics may include (but are not restricted to):

  • Forms, causes and consequences of censorship of art in countries and contexts worldwide.
  • Art’s potential to create new prospects in political contexts where the freedom of expression/ Human Rights are violated.
  • Artistic decolonization strategies; art’s potential to challenge and rewrite geopolitical, economic, cultural or historical master narratives, as well as to promote understanding of, and cooperation between peoples whose lives, voices and histories are suppressed/ alienated by such narratives.
  • Minority perspectives in art.
  • Art’s democratic role under global capitalism and neoliberal political geography.
  • Advantages and obstacles pertaining to the globalized scene of contemporary art (and its center-periphery-relationships) in terms of freedom of expression.
  • Art/ architecture/ literature/ film/ music/ theatre or other cultural events which address these topics.

We accept submissions continuously, but to make sure you are considered for the upcoming issue, please send your proposal/ draft, CV and samples of earlier work to submissions@seismopolite.com within July 24, 2012. Completed work will be due August 7, 2012. Commissioned works will be translated into Norwegian and published in a bilingual version.

Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics is a bilingual English and Norwegian quarterly, which investigates the possibilities of artists and art scenes worldwide to reflect and influence their local political situation. Read more about Seismopolite here

Current issue: www.seismopolite.com

Previous issues: www.seismopolite.com/artandpolitics

Contact: submissions@seismopolite.com

Michelangelo Pistoletto – The Third Paradise

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Rebirth-Day: the first worldwide day of rebirth

A great celebration throughout the world—a vital, living, breathing symbol of a new beginning.

December 21st, the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere and the summer solstice in the Southern, is a day celebrated by mankind since time immemorial. A fateful “end of the world” connotation, as widespread as it is unfounded, has been attributed to this day in 2012, proposing a theme that is recurrent in mythologies and religions as well as in the literature of fantasy and science fiction.

All imaginative factors aside, this date can take on a symbolic meaning, as it effectively corresponds to a climactic phase of human history. We are progressing steadily toward an inevitable collapse—the science is there to prove it.

The whole of human society is now in the reckoning and so must face a historic transition, a complete change.

Humanity has gone through two paradises. The first, in which it integrated fully with nature; the second, in which it expanded into an artificial world of its own, which grew until it came into conflict with the natural world. It is time to begin the third stage, in which humanity will reconcile and unite nature and artifice, creating a new balance at every level and in every area of society: “an evolutionary step in which the human intelligence finds ways to live in harmony with the intelligence of nature” (Michelangelo Pistoletto).

A new perspective opens up that involves everyone, without exception, in the daily effort to implement the process of rebirth—each according to his or her abilities and possibilities.

Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto invites everyone to join the celebration on 21 December 2012, all you have to do is meet in streets and squares all over the world, and on the Web, to take part in the great inaugural celebration of the Third Paradise.

If you are interested in joining the celebration, you can find more information  at http://www.rebirth-day.org/eng/index.htm

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Sense of Planet: The Arts and Ecology at Earth Magnitude

This post comes to you from Cultura21

NIEA Symposium

Saturday, 25 August 2012, 9:30–6:30pm

The acceleration of climate change, species extinction, and other ecological crises enjoins us to find ways of grasping historical and evolving circumstances at earth magnitude. The Sense of Planet symposium concentrates together an international array of artists, eco-theorists, and scholars to address the issues and activities of representing the earth in its entirety, and of representing and self-representing regions or localities amid the complex global systems in which they are enmeshed. The symposium follows the lead taken by Ursula Heise in her book Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental Imagination of the Global to investigate the possibilities and difficulties of sensing the planet, in all senses of sense.

Invited speakers

Ursula Heise, Professor of English and Director of the Program in Modern Thought & Literature,

Stanford University

The Database and the Ecological Imagination of the Planet

Marko Peljhan, Professor in Art and Media Arts & Technology, University of California at Santa Barbara, Co-director of Arctic Perspective Initiative

One Degree At A Time – Creating Systems of Systems for Interpolar Constructiv(ist)e Engagement

Jennifer Gabrys, Convener of the MA Design and Environment at Goldsmiths, University of London

Environmental Sensor Technologies and the Arts

Nicholas Mirzoeff, Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York University

Anthropocene Aesthetics

Timothy Morton, Professor and Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English, Rice University

Of Planet-Sense

Panel discussion

Terry Smith (Professor at Pittsburgh and NIEA, UNSW), Douglas Kahn (Professor of Media & Innovation, NIEA, UNSW), Jill Bennett (Professor and Director, NIEA, UNSW), and others. Convened by Douglas Kahn and Jill Bennett.

Click here to go to the Registration page.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

UK Theatres At Risk 2012

Forty-nine theatre buildings across the UK are at real risk of being lost unless owners recognise they are responsible for community assets and work with trusts and local communities to secure their future, says The Theatres Trust.

Publishing its 2012 Theatre Buildings At Risk Register (TBAR) today, changes since 2011 highlight how a lack of care and investment leaves theatres particularly vulnerable to neglect whilst opportunities to harness the social and cultural value of theatres are being lost. It also shows how local champions, with the support of councils, grant making trusts and Lottery distributors are providing a new lease of life for theatres at risk.

The passing of the Localism Act in November 2011 and its emphasis on social well-being means local authorities now have to prepare lists of assets of community value, which include cultural interests such as theatres. The Trust’s hope is that this will encourage more owners of theatres at risk to realise that their theatres are assets – for the community and the country.

Mhora Samuel, Director of The Theatres Trust said, “There’s good news that overall the number of buildings on our Theatre Buildings At Risk Register has come down from 56 last year to 49 this year. And we’re pleased some have found the funds and support they so desperately needed, such as Wilton’s and the Gaiety in Ayr. However we’ve also lost some important venues and I’m very concerned about the future of the 17 theatres we’ve added to the Register including the Theatre Royal in Margate, Darlington Arts Centre and Croydon Warehouse.”

Twenty-four theatres have been removed from the 2011 Register including the Grade II* Wilton’s Music Hall in London and State Cinema in Grays, the Category B Ayr Gaiety in Scotland and the unlisted Conwy Civic Hall in Wales. Wilton’s has received funds from SITA Trust and the Heritage Lottery Fund which mean the capital works needed to secure the building’s future can now proceed. The State, Grays, received planning permission for a mixed use leisure and retail development in January this year. Ciwb Conwy Cube, the Community Interest Company  formed to take on the Conwy Civic Hall has been able to take over the running of the venue with some funding from its local council and it has reopened. And the Ayr Gaiety has secured vital funding from the Scottish Government and South Ayrshire Council to enable it to appoint a development officer, undertake an initial programme of capital works, and reopen later this year.

However, some of those lost from the 2011 Register have been demolished including the Waltham Forest Theatre in Lloyd Park (demolished August 2011); lost through change of use, including the Grade II Bedford Civic; or have been granted Listed Building Consent for demolition such as the Brighton Astoria.

England

The top theatres at risk in the 2012 Register in England include the Brighton Hippodrome (Grade II*), Margate Theatre Royal (Grade II*) (new 2012), Morecambe Winter Gardens (Grade II*), Plymouth Palace (Grade II*), Alexandra Palace (Grade II), Burnley Empire (Grade II), Derby Hippodrome (Grade II), Doncaster Grand (Grade II), Hulme Hippodrome (Grade II), Hulme Playhouse (Grade II), Hyde Theatre Royal (Grade II), Tameside Hippodrome (Grade II), The Regent, Great Yarmouth (Grade II) (new 2012), Victoria, Salford (Grade II) (new 2012), Farnham Redgrave (not listed) and Scarborough Futurist (not listed).

Though not listed, Darlington Arts Centre, the Precinct Theatre, Islington, and Croydon Warehouse have been added to the 2012 Register, as redevelopment plans are affecting the provision of their replacement. Darlington Borough Council closed the Arts Centre in 2012 and plans to develop a new arts centre are yet to be finalised. The Precinct Theatre in Islington is yet to find a new home as a result of the redevelopment of the Packington Estate, and it is unclear what impact the loss of the Croydon Warehouse, which went into receivership earlier this year, will have for its planned replacement.

Scotland

In Scotland, the five theatres on the 2012 Register include the Britannia Panopticon in Glasgow (Category A), Leith Theatre in Edinburgh (Category B) (new 2012), the Odeon in Edinburgh (Category A), the Old Athenaeum, Glasgow (Category A) (new 2012), and the Tivoli in Aberdeen (Category A). Theatres removed from the 2011 Register are the Ramshorn in Glasgow (Category A), now under the care of the University of Strathclyde; the Gaiety in Ayr (Category B) which has secured funding and investment; the Stockbridge Theatre in Edinburgh (Category B) which is likely to receive planning permission for change of use to residential and restaurant use; and the Gateway in Edinburgh (Category C(s)) which has permission for demolition.

Wales

In Wales, the six theatres on the 2012 Register are the Merthyr Tydfill Theatre Royal (Grade II) (new 2012), Pontypridd Town Hall (Grade II), Swansea Palace (Grade II), Theatre Elli (Grade II), (new 2012) the De Valance Pavilion in Tenby (not listed) and Corwen Pavilion (not listed). Theatres removed from the 2011 Register include the Conwy Civic Hall (not listed) which is  now being operated by a local CIC; Treorchy Parc Hall, currently mothballed; Theatr Harlech (not listed) which has remained open; and the Theatre Royal, Barry (not listed), which has received planning permission for demolition and residential redevelopment.

Whilst the Trust welcomes the new Y Ffwrnes (The Furnace) in Llaneli, Theatr Elli is due to close in July and its future is uncertain.  The new Merthyr Tydfil Town Hall redevelopment in association with Chapter Arts in Cardiff is also welcome, however it highlights the plight of the existing Theatre Royal, another asset for Merthyr.

The 2012 Theatre Buildings at Risk Register can be searched online.  More information on each theatre is provided through a link to the Trust’s online Theatres Database, which includes around 2,000 existing theatre buildings.  Each of the top entries has a downloadable information sheet.

NOW – Permaculture in Europe

This post comes to you from Cultura21

11th European Permaculture Convergence, 1-5.8.2012

Gastwerke Kassel, Germany

Now! This year the EuPC will focuss on Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share in August. For five days 300 activists and designers gather together to start a dialogue on permacultures. Interdisciplinary workshops, lectures and art will be part of the program and will promote European networking and grand celebration.

EuPC stands for ideas themselves, not only for  financeable ideas. Communication is more important than reactions of others.

Speakers from all over the world will dedicate their focus on methods and the design of transition processes. Workshops on many different topics such as Deep Ecology, Wandelnde Gärten and Social Sculpture will be held in Englisch and German.

Adjacent to the Convergence, the traditional international Permaculture Design Course takes place in Kassel: Its challenge is to bring in ‘Permaculture, Art & Society’ as an innovative focus and approach.

Tickets and more Information can be found on the website of  EUPC or in the leaflet.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Speedier spring

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

‘Progress of Spring’ final report

Kellie Gutman writes:

The  fourth and fifth grade class at the Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia, has completed their year-long project documenting the progress of spring, as defined by the first blooming daffodil reported along the length of Route 1, from Florida to Maine.  Their results confirm the general impression that this was a very warm spring on the eastern seaboard.  At the northernmost point, Fort Kent, Maine, daffodils were spotted on April 4, 2012 – nearly a month earlier than last year, and the earliest in the twenty-two years that the class has been keeping records.  The rate that spring advanced, 1570 miles in 93 days, was approximately 17 miles a day, or .7 miles per hour, which is about average.

See also: our report on daffodil spotting

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

Out Now CSPA Q8: International Issue – The Sea is Rising

CSPA Quarterly #8 is now available for purchase through MagCloud. Members, your print and digital editions will find their ways to you shortly!.

Our third international issue focuses on projects that call attention to topics that extend well beyond national borders. With a focus on interdependence, and an abundance of contributions about water, ice, and sea rise, this issue addresses the space between national borders- our oceans. Featuring work from Moe Beitiks, Chantal Bilodeau, Eve Mosher, Michael Pinksy, Christopher Robbins, and Liz Ward.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

UPCOMING ISSUES

Q9 Intersection: Science and Culture

We’ve been noticing a flurry of work that exists at the intersection between art and science. This includes installation and performance pieces that challenge scientific claims, and work that utilizes science to prove a point, or to reach a new audience. It’s about fact-imbedded art, or emotions and reasoning co-existing.

CSPA Quarterly 1.0

Our tenth issue anniversary! For this issue, we will breathe new life into our pilot issue, and will check in with those participating artists.

JULIE’S BICYCLE IS HIRING!

Julie’s Bicycle is recruiting three new staff members to join our team of arts and environment experts at an exciting time of expansion for the organisation:

Communications and Marketing Manager
Music Coordinator
Administrator

Download the full job descriptions and application packs by clicking the links below, and please share with your networks.

The JB Team

Communications and Marketing Manager

Full time
Starting salary:
£30,000 – £35,000
(depending on experience)

A key member of the Management Team, this position will be responsible for development and implementation of an annual marketing and communications strategy.
Main Content Inline Small
Application deadline: 5pm, Friday 24th August 2012

Music Coordinator

Part time, 3 days a week
Starting salary:
£24,000 pro rata

The Music Coordinator will be responsible for supporting the design and coordination of an annual music programme focusing on the UK music industry, working closely with the Operations Director and the Chief Executive.
Main Content Inline Small
Application deadline: 10am, Monday 30th July 2012

Administrator

Full time
Starting salary: £21,000
The Administrator will provide administrative support to the staff team and Chief Executive. This position will develop, implement and maintain accurate and efficient processes for all administrative activity.
Main Content Inline Small
Application deadline: 10am, Monday 23rd July 2012

Enquiries

If you have any questions regarding our recruitment process please contact:

info@juliesbicycle.com
+44 (0) 20 7078 4885

Ai Weiwei – Never Sorry

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Hitting screens: film portrait of an artist and critic

Right in time Ai Weiwei´s house arrest is being lifted: The documentation Ai Weiwei: Never sorry hits screens these days. For three years the producer Alison Klayman shadowed his life, resuming in an film portrait of one of the most compelling public figures in China. Now everybody gets the chance to gaze at the life of the known conceptual artist.

The film isn’t a media unknown to the artist: Ai Weiwei uses social media and finds a great platform for political activism in the Internet. Artist and regime critic, Ai Weiwei unites these positions. Trough art he communicates and expresses himself, creatively and radically he deals with his China. In his political-artistic driven activism the dissident tries to make grievance obvious and fight injustice. He aims at a world, free of human rights abuse.

Ai Weiwei works with pictures and let’s them talk. The outcome is volitional, but due to his behavor the artist and his family are affected by reprisals on a regular basis. Last year he was detained for a few months and has spendt his days since in house arrest in Peking.

Last year a panel discussion on Ai Weiwei’s role in art and activism was held at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany (co-organized by Cultura21 and the FIDH).

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21