Yearly Archives: 2015

Running a Green Event: the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award Ceremony

Creative Carbon Scotland, Fringe

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Running an event can be stressful enough, so why bother adding to this by creating another aim or condition for your event? Being greener, however, doesn’t have to be difficult or more expensive – just look at this case study and you’ll already be making a green start.

Why would you want to run a green event?

The obvious reason is because it is the right thing to do. The climate is changing and it is our responsibility to address our actions and work towards a more sustainable world. Additionally, there are many other great reasons why you should aim to go green:

  • Reduced costs
  • Guests like green
  • You will be ahead of new carbon regulations
  • Going green shows you are inventive

How would you run a green event?

Case Study: Fringe Sustainable Practice Award Ceremony

Friday 28 August, 4 – 5pm at Fringe Central 1, see here for more details

 

1. Define your event goals and objectives

Why are you organising this event? What do you have to achieve? Who is it for? Is it as sustainable as reasonably possible?

The Fringe Sustainable Practice Award Ceremony celebrates Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows making significant efforts to become the most sustainable of the Fringe.

 

2. Identify your team

Identify your team and share with them the sustainable objectives of your event. Everyone will then be working towards a common green goal.

 

3. Organising outside suppliers

Venue: Find a venue that is part of a green accreditation scheme. In Scotland, search for a Green Arts Initiative (GAI) venue; click here to find one near you. The GAI supports Scottish arts organisations to be at the forefront of growing an environmentally sustainable Scotland.We-are-Green-Arts-2015-Green

The FSPA Ceremony will be held in Fringe Central 1, an accredited and proud GAI member.

Technical Requirements: Consider where your venues power comes from. Try reducing your electricity use to only vital requirements, and document such power use. If you are carbon footprinting look into offsetting the environmental cost of the electricity used.

Catering: Source local and seasonal, and think in terms of minimal waste!

Refreshments and catering sourced from two local companies will be provided at the FSPA ceremony. Cornelius Wine & Beer is providing local Scottish beer and cider (note, all glass bottles will be recycled). The Larder is providing us with seasonal canapés. Vegware is supporting our event, and donating eco-friendly plates, cups and napkins.

Travel: Get to know the local public travel facilities, and advertise walking routes to nearby attendees. For long distance travel look into trains or car-pools.

The FSPA Ceremony will be held in Edinburgh, an ideal city for sustainable transport because of its compact city centre and ample bus and cycle routes.

Our award guest speaker, the comedian Jessica Fostekew, unfortunately has a show finishing 5 minutes before the ceremony. After looking into various travel options, even considering a rickshaw, we found the most practical yet sustainable option to be City Cabs – City Cabs support Trees4Scotland in order to account for their carbon emissions, see their carbon neutral policy here.

 

4. Plan for Reuse

Even if your event is a one off, some of the materials you have used will more than likely come in useful again.

Creative Carbon Scotland (CCS) and Edinburgh Festival Fringe facilitate the reuse of production materials at a three-day Swap Shop, see here. If you won’t reuse an item from your event look online to see if someone nearby would (Gumtree is always a good place to start).

 

5. Publicity and marketing

Event attendees want to know how you are greening your practice, so show off your commitment to being green by publicising via print, digital or word-of-mouth channels.

Go digital! Come up with innovative ways of publicising your event that allow for smaller, cheaper print runs. Think about using ink stamps, or apps, or clever social media tactics.

If needed, use recycled or FSC-certified paper when printing. PR Print and Design and EAE print distribution are two companies based in Scotland who ensure sustainable printing and distribution. Make sure you monitor the quantity of print actually used, and reduce print runs when possible. Also, encourage attendees to recycle any flyers you give them.

The FSPA Ceremony has been publicised online using both the CCS and the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts webpages, and through our media partner The List. We have built up hype around the ceremony as the award itself has progressed, inviting all award applicants and including the event in our blog updates. Follow us on twitter to see our social media activity.

 

6. Evaluation tools

Do a carbon footprint: Carbon footprinting is a way to describe your environmental impact in terms of carbon emissions and is a great way to better understand how you can be greener, see here. Once you understand carbon footprinting you can begin to set yourself targets for future events.

Record how individuals are getting to your event, and how they found out about your event. How individuals found out about the event can be a great indicator on what forms of publicity worked and show which areas to reduce investment in (such as paper advertising).

For the FSPA Ceremony we are using tools on eventbrite to document both of the above.

 

Hopefully this case study has inspired you to think more carefully on how you can run your event in a more sustainable manner. Not only will your green event have a lower carbon footprint, but it will also allow you to think more creatively and innovatively about the event you are organising!

For the Edinburgh Fringe guide on running a sustainable show, click here.

 

Image Aviva Stadium, by Sylvain.

The post Running a Green Event: the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award Ceremony appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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#GreenFest: FSPA Shortlist Diary No.2

Creative Carbon Scotland, Fringe

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

It has been another busy week for our reviewing team who have managed to fit in 8 shows from the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award shortlist. From a secret theater location accessed by bike, to a Dutch photography exhibition we have covered it all.

For more information on the 21 shortlisted Fringe shows, click here.

 

cinema in s gFriday 14th 1pm: A Cinema in South Georgia

In the heart of the Fringe with all the shows from the four corners of the world it’s good to see a show that comes out of and has connections with Edinburgh (or rather Leith). The performance brings together first-hand accounts, some hilarious and some regretful, of some of the remaining men who embarked on whale hunting expeditions. These stories are performed in both word and song.

A Cinema in South Georgia is about the – ultimately unsustainable – whaling industry and the human consequences of it, not to mention the effect on the whales!

 

 PhotosynthesisSaturday 15th 10am: Photosynthesis

The artist collective, the ‘Tropists’, captured the natural world (mainly plants) with a variety of photographic techniques, forcing the viewer to reconsider their previous conceptions of what ‘nature’ is.

Using a variety of techniques, from x-ray shots to pinhole techniques, the exhibition is not an obvious case of ‘this is what mankind is doing to nature’ but rather shows the beauty of nature from different angles not usually experienced through the human eye. In addition to the various camera techniques the exhibition uses film to bridge the gap between science and public perceptions of what is a plant.

 

The Wild Man of OrfordSunday 16th 12.45pm: The Wild Man of Orford

The Wild Man of Orford was able to transform a small room into the seaside. This production explores the concept of civilization and how it can feel to be the “other”. The Wild Man of Orford is a charming fairy tale with live music that both children and adults can enjoy.

Their sustainable efforts should be praised for their use of recycled material for their costumes and set pieces as well as environmentally friendly marketing that reduces paper use by promoting their show online with links written on branches, stones, and shells that audience members can keep.

 

Fringe 62pm: Scarfed for Life

A green and blue take on a heightened severity of meaning in this fast-paced and familial drama. Two warring households – both alike in their football passion – provide the environment for a sensitively-executed examination of sectarianism, domestic violence and polite society.

Scarfed for Life is lively and loud, and speckled with Scots and slang. The performance was communicated very well, with humour and sensitivity. The Citizens Theatre bring a snapshot of their Glasgow to the capital with sustainable design elements that enable, rather than detract from, their story.

 

Ventoux 1Monday 17th 1.55pm: Ventoux

Never before have I watched two men hop on and off bikes for an hour in the name of theatre. Ventoux tells the story of two famous cyclists; as these men climb further up the Ventoux you learn more about the history of doping, and the pressure put on cyclists at a time when ‘everyone was doing it’, finally seeing the full consequences of it all as they approached the summit.

The use of props was mesmerizing at points, as the men cycled in tandem, dunked their heads in a cool box of water and ‘shaved’ their legs and heads. Similarly, the Ventoux footage, filmed by the performers themselves, brought the audience right into the action as we were propelled through their lives listening to real-time soundtracks of vital racing events.

 

HandleBards 1Tuesday 18th 5pm: The HandleBards: Secret Shakespeare

The Handlebards return to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with an expanded offering from their 2014 run, and a challenge to engage their audiences in their bike-behaviour. Secret Shakespeare is an unusual approach to an Edinburgh Festival Fringe production that actively promotes and engages with sustainability.

Having travelled around the country by bike, the players paired up with Sustrans and Spokes Edinburgh to take their audience on a 5-mile tour of Edinburgh’s cycle paths, en-route to their secret performance location. A high-energy performance that leaves one asking: “How are they going to manage that?!”.

 

Fringe 8Wednesday 19th 11am: Fraxi Queen of the Forest

This charming piece of children’s theatre brought the threat of chalara, otherwise known as ash dieback disease, to life in a very accessible and moving way. The story follows Fraxi, an ash tree, and Woody, a man who has known and loved Fraxi since childhood. When Fraxi becomes infected with chalara, Woody must decide how best to help her and the rest of the trees in the forest. Incredible costumes, a fun caterpillar sidekick and snippets of information about forest ecosystems and their environmental and social significance make this show a great way of encouraging children to care about nature.

 

Fringe 23.35pm: Lungs

Lungs openly addresses sustainability, looking at it from the perspective of two adults having a “conversation” over whether or not to bring a child into this world. They consider both the carbon impact of a child, comparing the weight in carbon to the weight of the Eiffel Tower, and the question of whether they should want to bring a child into the world when it is such a mess. The story brings you face to face with the reality of many unspoken truths.

The two actors were fully exposed to the audience in the center of the Roundabout theatre, which, for such an intimate and emotionally intense performance, worked perfectly. The story is heartwarming, saddening, funny and very current, and if performed by two very talented actors.

 

For details on the Fringe Sustainable Practice Awards Ceremony on 28 August, check out are event page here.

 

If you are interested in sustainability in the Fringe, the Fringe Swap Shop (formerly known as the Reuse & Recycle Days) occurs each year at the end of August and is a great opportunity for companies, individuals, and those that have participated in the Fringe to dispose of any unwanted props, sets and costumes. We’d also like to encourage anyone, fringe participant or not, to come along to pickup and re-use the dropped off materials – it’s a swap shop after all!

 

Image, Brown Linen Lace Coptic Journal, courticy of Samandra Vieira

 

The post #GreenFest: FSPA Shortlist Diary No.2 appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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#GreenFests: Harry Potter and the Greening of the Publishing Industry

Creative Carbon Scotland

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

The Edinburgh International Book Festival launched into action on Saturday with a hugely varied and exciting programme of events, discussing everything from mental health to terrorism, drugs to the BBC. We’ll be covering many of these – especially those that engage with environmental and social sustainability – on our #GreenFests blog (so watch this space), but I thought I’d pre-empt discussions about sustainable literary content by looking behind the scenes and exploring the practical sustainability challenges facing the industry today.

According to the Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts: Findings for the U.S. Book Industry report, a carbon footprint assessment found that the entire book industry, through all steps of production, retail, and publishing activities, emits around 4kg of CO2e per book. That’s 12.3 million tons of CO2e a year in the U.S. book industry alone. Most of this comes from a loss of carbon storage capacity through deforestation (as wood fibre is required to make paper), the energy required in the manufacturing process, and emissions resulting from transportation and book decomposition in landfill.

The book industry is turning over a new leaf however (if you’ll excuse the pun), as actions are taken to reduce these impacts. A significant proportion of companies involved in book publishing and retailing now have comprehensive environmental policies that take sustainability into account every step of the way. One particularly promising trend is the increased uptake of post-consumer recycled fibre (recycled paper) for books. In 2004, only 2.5% of paper used was recycled. This had risen to 13.3% in 2007, with every sign that the trajectory would continue.

Indeed, Edinburgh can take some pride in this as it is due, in part, to the work of Edinburgh-based author J.K. Rowling, creator oUntitledf the Harry Potter series. Rowling helped to ensure that the last book in the series (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) was the most environmentally friendly in publishing history. 16 countries printed the book on eco-friendly paper, up from a single publisher in 2003, saving 197,685 trees and 7.9 million kg of greenhouse gases. This also led to many printers stocking eco-friendly papers for the first time, an initiative that has continued.

The uptake of recycled paper will also have a positive effect on the reduction of other environmental impacts as well. Making paper from recycled materials is generally a cleaner and more efficient process than making paper from virgin fibre, as much of the work of extracting and bleaching the fibres has already been done. This results in less air and water pollution, as well as a reduction in energy usage of 20-30%.

The adoption of environmentally-friendly practices makes economic, as well as environmental, sense. Whilst it is marginally more expensive to print books using non-recycled paper, the savings are minimal – especially when consumer preference is taken into consideration. Research in the Environmental Trends and Climate Impacts report mentioned earlier suggests that 79% of consumers are willing to pay more for books on recycled paper. Couple this with the more secure resource-base that recycled paper provides (several regions where book paper fibre is procured are being considered for protection and so will no longer be available to exploit) and a strong economic argument can be made.

Of course, another way to minimise the environmental impacts of the publishing industry would be to produce fewer books. The rise of e-readers and e-books is here argued by many to be a step in the right direction. However, it has also been argued that they are just as bad, if not worse, for the environment because of the emissions generated in the running of servers and the manufacturing process. The jury is still out as to which is the better approach, though see here to learn more about the discussion and the arguments on both sides.

Then there is always the old-fashioned approach of libraries. Is it really necessary for us all to own our own copies of every book? As we struggle to store our ever-increasing collections, more and more books end up being thrown away creating problems further down the line. This could be solved if only we were willing to borrow rather than buy. Unfortunately, this is getting harder to do as government austerity measures have resulted in over 324 libraries being closed since 2011, with another 500 under threat.

This doesn’t mean that eco-friendly book consumption is impossible if you don’t have access to a library. In recent years, many book swap shop facilities (Read It Swap It for example) have become available that allow you to swap one of your books for someone else’s. This is effectively the same as a library except you are also contributing to the collection and is a great way of discovering books that you might never have otherwise encountered.

If you want to learn more about sustainability and the publishing industry click here.

Also, if you have any thoughts or ideas about sustainability in the book industry or the pros and cons of e-readers and library services we’d love to hear them. Post them on our Facebook page or tweet us @CCScotland using #GreenFests.

Top image courtesy of Paul Mood

 

 

The post #GreenFests: Harry Potter and the Greening of the Publishing Industry appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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John Newling: The Map Room of the Last Islands

ecoartscotland

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Originally posted on On The Edge Research:

Woodend Barn, Banchory, Aberdeenshire
22 August – 23 September 2015

This major exhibition of previously unseen work is a powerful, and visually beautiful, illustration of the ways in which artist John Newling explores the relationships between the natural world and systems of value within society.

Since 2009, Newling has been creating art works that are constructed, primarily, through the growing, observing and preserving of Moringa Oleifera trees.  Often referred to as the Miracle Tree or Famine Tree, gram for gram, the Moringa leaves contain: seven times the vitamin C in oranges, four times the calcium in milk, four times the vitamin A in carrots, two times the protein in milk and three times the potassium in bananas. It is for this and other extraordinary properties of this tree that it has been referred to as the world’s most generous tree.

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ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.

Go to EcoArtScotland

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COP21 – The most important meeting this century?

Creative Carbon Scotland

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Creative Carbon Scotland Director Ben Twist reflects on the background to ArtCOP Scotland

What is COP21?

COP21 is the 21st annual Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the UNFCCC), a treaty about addressing climate change. Technically it’s the annual meeting of the 196 signatory countries to the UNFCCC to discuss progress towards its aims, but in fact it is also a meeting about progress on related agreements. Most years the COP is attended by civil servants and junior ministers, but in important years like this you can expect major world leaders like Obama, Xi and Putin to attend the ‘high level section’ at the end of the COP. Non-governmental organisations such as charities, pressure groups and business organisations also attend and the big ones (like Copenhagen’s COP15 in 2009) see demonstrations and protests. COP21 in Paris from 30th November to 11th December 2015 will attract up to 40,000 people.

A bit of history

In 1992 the Rio Earth Summit adopted the UNFCCC, setting out a legal framework for stabilising atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” (Margaret Thatcher strongly supported the Rio Summit and possibly action on climate change.) The UNFCCC was deliberately a ‘broad but shallow’ agreement which almost any country could agree to, as there was nothing in it that required action. It came into force once enough countries had signed it in 1994. A sub-agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, was signed by many countries in 1997, but only after significant weakening concessions had been made did Russia ratify it, enabling it to come into force in 2005. This ‘narrow but deep’ agreement committed industrialised countries and countries ‘in transition to a market economy’ to reduce carbon emissions by an average of 5% by 2012. Damagingly the Kyoto Protocol wasn’t ratified by the US or Australia, two very large carbon emitters. It also didn’t require China, India, Saudi Arabia or other developing countries with increasing carbon emissions to take any action, on the grounds that it was the industrialised countries which had caused the historic carbon emissions.

COP15 in 2009 was meant to decide upon a much wider and stronger agreement to follow on from the Kyoto Protocol, which would commit many more countries (including the US, Australia, China etc) to meaningful cuts in carbon emissions from 2013 onwards. It is widely considered to have failed, possibly because it didn’t connect development from poverty (which the developing countries argued they needed) with the need to address climate change: the poor always suffer more from climate change and don’t have the means to address the problem.

The COPs since 2009 have therefore been working to agree a post-Kyoto structure that will resolve these problems, bringing in more countries and linking development and climate action. Adaptation to the already visible impacts of climate change, which is particularly relevant to the developing countries, and finance to enable poorer countries to develop sustainably, are important parts of the new structure. Significant commitments by China and the US to carbon reductions have helped build confidence that a real and deep agreement might be reached. At the same time the Fifth Assessment Report in 2014 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UNFCCC’s expert panel reporting on the science of climate change, has both strengthened the case for and heightened awareness of the urgency of the problem. COP21 is therefore a BIG COP, and much is hanging on the outcome.

How it works

In between COPs there are regular meetings of the countries’ negotiators in various groups and pathways, working on individual bits of the overall agreement. They work in small groups, trying to refine their bit of the text to a manageable size that the COP can finally debate and get agreement on: the COP consists of 190-odd countries working in different languages, all wanting to have their say, so you don’t want to have too much to argue about. The aim is to arrive at Paris with a text that is mostly agreed, with the minimum amount of [text in square brackets], which are bits of text that have not already been agreed. The text for discussion will include many versions of any disputed text, each in separate [square brackets]. The job of the negotiators and junior ministers at the COP itself is to agree the final version with no [square brackets].

What we should expect

At the COP there will be a main hall where the plenary session takes place and a number of smaller rooms where different groups will debate the different sections. They will hope to get all the work done in the first 10 days or so before the High Level Section when the world leaders will [jet in] [arrive] to [argue about and change] [sign] the final document. [That won’t happen: the juniors won’t be able to agree, the top dogs will fly in and the negotiations will go on long past the deadline until a deal is put together by the key players: the US, China, the EU, Japan [, India, Brazil, Russia.]]

There will be lots of others there: charities, pressure groups, lobbyists etc. At the Copenhagen COP there was effectively a trade show in the large hall before you got to the debating area: hundreds of companies and charities displaying their technologies, making their arguments to the delegates, even in one case demonstrating what looked to me like a perpetual motion machine! There are lots of ‘side events’: debates, talks, discussions, presentations. It is like a medium sized town: there are banks of free computers to use, cafes and restaurants, ATMs and VIP areas. [Probably bedrooms for tired diplomats.]

Is it worth it?

Strangely, I’d say that it is. Although the process burns a massive amount of carbon, seems almost hopeless and very far removed from what individuals and organisations and governments are actually doing, and could be argued to have failed thus far, the COPs do provide a context for individual countries’ efforts, and the efforts of those within them. Multilateral and bilateral agreements can aim towards the overall targets set; the Cancun Agreements from the 2010 COP set for the first time the target of a maximum 2⁰C increase in global temperatures, which is now the basis for lots of countries’ efforts.

My view is that although a binding international treaty is never going to really work, it sets the context for decisions and provides ammunition for political, society and business leaders who want to propose action. I don’t expect the 2015 COP to solve all the problems, but I do think it may help us on our way.

Image: COP15 delegate sleeping. Image courtesy of UN Climate Change and 最後のはオマケの本会議よりも元気がありそうな人達。

 

The post COP21 – The most important meeting this century? appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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#GreenFests: Tragedy strikes the clowns as wigs no match for wind

Creative Carbon Scotland, Fringe

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is in full swing. The city is alive with the sounds of buskers and acapella groups, the sights of technicolour costumes, bizarre make-up, incredible acrobatics and somehow every building has become a venue (which makes sense since there are over 3000 events to accommodate!). A new venue of note is the Underbelly’s Circus Hub, the first major venue dedicated to circus at the Edinburgh Fringe, and now in pride of place on the Meadows.

The Underbelly Circus Hub comprises  two venues: Lafayette, named after the great magician and illusionist who sadly perished in a fire at an Edinburgh theatre in 1911, and Beauty, named after Lafayette’s beloved dog given to him by Harry Houdini himself. These venues have been specially adapted to allow for an unprecedented level of circus work at the Fringe: work that’s both technically ambitious and spectacular to behold.

Alas, the misfortune of Lafayette seems to have been transferred to the venue that bears his name. Whilst the rest of the Fringe launched into action on Friday 7th August, all shows at Lafayette were postponed until the following Monday as gusting winds prevented the tent from being erected. Fortunately, this has now been remedied and Lafayette is up and running in all its glory.

However, this is not the first time that extreme weather has resulted in the delay, or even cancellation, of an Edinburgh festival. In 2003/2004, the Hogmanay celebrations had to be cancelled at the last minute due to high winds and rain. This happened again for Hogmanay 2006/2007, despite investments in more robust staging, equipment and weatherproof fireworks, when wind speeds reached upwards of 70mph. Furthermore, in 2013 the Edinburgh MELA had to close early, also on account of high winds.

It is not only Edinburgh festivals that are being adversely affected by unusual weather events. The Veld Music Festival – held annually in Toronto, Canada – had to be cancelled this year due to high winds, hail and torrential rain. The Lollapalooza, another North American music festival, also had a premature finish as a quickly moving severe thunderstorm swept through the area. Across the globe, extreme weather is increasingly frustrating and foiling the plans of festivalgoers.

An increased frequency of extreme weather events is one of the predicted effects of climate change. Of course, no single meteorological event can be directly ascribed to climate change. It is irrefutable, however, that the climate is changing:

  • Global temperatures are rising, with all 10 of the warmest years on record occurring in the past 12 years.
  • Between 1961 and 2004, Scotland’s annual precipitation increased by 21%. In northern Scotland, winter precipitation increased by almost 70%
  • Heavy rainfall events have also become more common over the last 45 years
  • Severe windstorms have increased in frequency
  • The number of climate-related disasters has increased from approximately 200 per year in the 1990s to 350 per year in the 2000s.

[Data from: NASA, Visit Scotland, and the Climate Centre]

Overall, the key climate change trends that are predicted for Scotland include hotter, drier summers with more heat waves, extreme temperatures and droughts, and milder, wetter autumns and winters, with more frequent and extreme precipitation events. As we have seen, such extreme weather events have an adverse effect upon our festivals. They can result in lower visitor numbers, disruption of road and rail infrastructure, and disruption of ICT links, not to mention the high costs of damage repair and adaptation work.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Action is being taken to mitigate climate change and to develop technologies and infrastructure that will help us to adapt. The arts can play a significant role in both of these activities. Through creativity and ingenuity, they can help us envision worlds and ways of being and encourage us to transform ours for the better. Through the visual arts, music, film, literature etc. alternative approaches and ideas can be explored, debated and matured. Indeed, this is already happening and where better to see it than at the world’s biggest art festival – the Fringe here in Edinburgh. You just have to look at the shortlist for the 2015 Fringe Sustainable Practice Award to see many examples of creative engagement with sustainability issues.

While the winds that prevented Lafayette opening on time may or may not be a result of climate change, we know that climate change is causing extreme weather events and that such events do adversely affect festivals. But festivals are a melting pot for artistic ideas; ideas which can change the way that we see and interact with the world; ideas which can encourage us to take mitigative action and aid us in adapting to a changing world. If successful, then the very people that make up the festivals that we love may be the ones who save them in the future.

[Top image courtesy of Michael MacLeod via STV Edinburgh]

The post #GreenFests: Tragedy strikes the clowns as wigs no match for wind appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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#GreenFests: Green denim – would you rent a pair of jeans?

Creative Carbon Scotland

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Sustainability was a major theme at this year’s Edinburgh International Fashion Festival. Events included a Sustainability Symposium where a panel examined whether a sustainable fashion industry is achievable, a screening of new documentary The True Cost and a talk Future of Fashion – Love, Lease, Lend which involved a presentation by MUD Jeans CEO and founder Bert van Son, in partnership with Zero Waste Scotland.

MUD Jeans is a Dutch denim brand which works completely according to the principles of the circular economy, where waste is seen as a commodity rather than as a regrettable by-product. Instead of buying your jeans in the conventional way, you lease them; the jeans are yours but the denim from which they are made is not. When you no longer want the jeans you return them and MUD will either upcycle them into a unique vintage pair (named after their previous owner in a pleasant personal touch) or they will be completely recycled. The recycled cotton is blended with fresh organic cotton and the resulting thread (30% recycled cotton; 70% organic) used to make more jeans. There is no waste.

Cotton Lease, the name of this novel approach, was inspired by van Son’s experiences as a worker in China’s textile industry. Here he experienced first-hand the negative effects of fast fashion (i.e. the incredibly quick turnover of designs from catwalk to high street) on workers, as well as the massive environmental costs. He endeavoured to try and change this by changing the way that we consume. For example, the environmental damage is greatly reduced by using recycled cotton, as the production of denim from scratch requires a huge amount of water and pesticides.

They’re also working to improve social conditions. MUD Jeans work with the Better Cotton Initiative, which works to reduce the damaging effects of global cotton production on people and the environment, and with the Fair Wear Foundation to ensure decent working conditions. It also avoids the time pressure of fast fashion by developing a collection of varied styles, accommodating fleeting trends as well as classic designs. This means that workers are not required to have dangerous work patterns associated with rapid turnover.

So there are lots of positives to the Cotton Lease model. What about negatives? What if you want to keep the jeans? Does it work out more expensive to rent than to buy? Both of these concerns are easily accommodated. You can buy the jeans in the traditional manner if you so desire, for a price similar to renting for 12 months – though MUD Jeans do ask that you still send them back when you’re done. Alternatively,  you can extend the lease (and still have access to the free repair service). There are options to suit all.

Of course, it’s not all rosy. New cotton must still be produced, and energy and water are expended during the recycling and manufacturing processes. But compared to the rest of the world, MUD jeans are wearing a far greener shade than most.

For more information, check out their website at: http://www.mudjeans.eu/

Jeans cost €7.50/month to lease.

[Image: http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-images-jeans-circle-image23373639]

The post #GreenFests: Green denim – would you rent a pair of jeans? appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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The 1,000 Percent Solution

Broadway Green Alliance

This post comes to you from the Broadway Green Alliance

 

The 1,000 Percent Solution

When Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre learned that 95% of its carbon footprint was beyond its control, they changed the equation.

By Stan Friedman

The Harbourfront Centre, on Toronto’s waterfront, is a complex complex. On a sprawling 10 acre site, leased from the city, this non-profit charitable organization presents 4,000 free or low-cost arts and cultural events annually, drawing 12 million visitors each year. Their August event calendar is a study in multicultural entertainment with performances that include the Moko Jumbie stilt dancers, the Spice Island performers and Flambeaux Drummers, and a Canadian Women in Reggae showcase. They also operate as a small city within a city, overseeing two marinas and three parking facilities (which adds to its revenue stream), while partnering with more than 450 community and cultural groups, all the while drawing in government grants and contributions that cover a third of their operating budget.

In 2007, the HFC decided to take a hard look at their environmental impact. As Randy Sa’d, developer and overseer of the Centre’s sustainability effort says, “Being a charity is not an excuse for not taking action.” But what they found was problematic: Ninety-five percent of its carbon footprint was due to the trains, planes and automobiles that all those millions of visitors employ to come to the Centre. Rather than attempting to tackle the costly and highly complex task of addressing that issue, Randy, an expert at strategically focused project management, and his team, turned their attention, and their analytics, inward. Blessed with substantial grants from, among others, the Ontario Trillium Foundation and ADEME, they arrived at a to-do list of over 120 sustainability initiatives, and as of today have completed more than 45 of them; 2.5 million dollars’ worth of effort, completed on a net-zero budget! A couple examples:

The Harbourfront Centre Theatre. What was constructed in 1926 as a storage facility for large blocks of ice, is today a lovely 422 seat theatre, enwrapped by a three-story high glass encasement that serves as an outer lobby. By 2011, that encasement was leaking energy and in dire need of repair. Lobby temperatures on some days were soaring to 104°F. Their outside-the-box solution was to create the first solar art glass project in Toronto. Canadian artist Sarah Hall was commissioned to create this permanent structure, and the result is a piece called Waterglass. It contains 119 hand-painted glass panels as well as a series of glass panels imbedded with over 360 photographic images documenting the history of Lake Ontario. Ten glass panels are embedded with photovoltaic cells that collect solar energy to power the lobby lights and the entire work is treated with Heat Mirror technology which provides the highest insulation values possible for glass.

Back Office Paper. Through partnerships with Xerox and Staples, HFC reduced their paper use by 25%, and the amount of carbon associated with their paper use by 65%, primarily by switching to a more expensive 100% recycled paper. They employed office practices that ranged from the obvious (double sided printing), to Aha! moments (consistent configurations across all the printers) to the high tech (a meter system on the office printers requires workers to swipe their i.d. cards before anything is printed, thus eliminating nearly all erroneous print jobs). In the long run, this multi-department initiative realized a 10% cost savings on all office and cleaning product supplies, even with the more expensive paper.

As important as these projects themselves are, the approach and logistics that have gone into them have given birth to a blueprint of sustainability that could have significant impact far beyond the Centre’s campus. Randy has packaged this acquired knowledge into a teachable program called REFOCUS. The program utilizes a “social enterprise model.” By partnering with a broad range of organizations to disseminate the information, they are able to reach a large and diverse audience with minimal promotional costs.

As outlined on their website, the program presents a path to sustainability consisting of six key elements:

Leadership Capacity: An understanding of how lackluster leadership can hold a sustainability program back, as well as the kinds of skills and abilities that effective sustainability leaders possess.

Change Management Capacity: What is involved in assembling a change management team as well as techniques for effectively engaging stakeholders.

Measurement Capacity: How to build the level of capacity a successful program needs, and the consequences of failing to do so.

Understanding Your Impact: The importance of collecting data, employing a variety of data collection techniques.

Selecting the Best Projects: How to uncover, assess, and prioritize project opportunities.

Report on the Results: The many benefits of reporting annually, why credibility can be just as important as the actual results generated, and practical techniques for developing a strong report.

So far, in addition to working alongside a variety of non-governmental organizations, REFOCUS has partnered with six leading Canadian universities, with several more in the works, to bring their program to students, as well as to administrators responsible for addressing campus sustainability.  It all begins with a day-long certification workshop that includes problem solving exercises, self-assessments, case studies and more. Once certified, practitioners are given access to an interactive guidebook that provides the roadmap for developing a sustainability program, and there is access, as well, to an e-Library full of learning materials. The beauty of the program is its scalability. Its lessons are applicable not only to large, cultural non-profits, but to students interested in learning about sustainability, individuals tasked with managing their organization’s sustainability, as well as government and non-government organizations committed to providing sustainability education and training.

By making this program affordable and available to all, that original focus on the 5 percent of their own problems now has the exponential power to bring about change on an international level. If you would like to get involved or learn more, REFOCUS is interested in hearing from organizations that deliver sustainability-focused education that would be interested in bringing REFOCUS to their audience/membership, or from organizations looking to set up or take an existing sustainability program to the next level by adopting the REFOCUS methodology.

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The Broadway Green Alliance was founded in 2008 in collaboration with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Broadway Green Alliance (BGA) is an ad hoc committee of The Broadway League and a fiscal program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. Along with Julie’s Bicycle in the UK, the BGA is a founding member of the International Green Theatre Alliance. The BGA has reached tens of thousands of fans through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other media.

At the BGA, we recognize that it is impossible to be 100% “green” while continuing activity and – as there is no litmus test for green activity – we ask instead that our members commit to being greener and doing better each day. As climate change does not result from one large negative action, but rather from the cumulative effect of billions of small actions, progress comes from millions of us doing a bit better each day. To become a member of the Broadway Green Alliance we ask only that you commit to becoming greener, that you name a point person to be our liaison, and that you will tell us about your green-er journey.

The BGA is co-chaired by Susan Sampliner, Company Manager of the Broadway company of WICKED, and Charlie Deull, Executive Vice President at Clark Transfer<. Rebekah Sale is the BGA’s full-time Coordinator.

Go to the Broadway Green Alliance

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More tickets released for ‘Achieving Social Change, Festival by Festival’ with Stella Hall

Creative Carbon Scotland, Fringe

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Due to popular demand, we have moved our upcoming discussion event ‘Achieving Social Change, Festival by Festival‘ to a larger venue, now taking place on Thursday 20th August at 4pm at Fringe Central 2. This event will be led with a discussion by Stella Hall, founder of Newcastle’s Juice, EAT and Enchanted Parks festivals and current director of Darlington’s award-winning Festival of Thrift. Drawing on her considerable festival involvement, Stella will discuss the potential of festivals to affect social change, including the opportunities and challenges of distributing leadership under a cohesive festival programme.

The discussion event marks the fifth year of event programming by CCS to bring internationally-renowned speakers to Edinburgh during the buzzing August festivals, with the aims of widening conversations of how festivals can affect positive social and environmental change. Last year, in partnership with Festivals Edinburgh, we hosted ‘Can Festivals Change the World?’ with Di Robson. Attended to maximum capacity, this event brought together an international audience of festival organisers, arts administrators and creatives to respond to Di Robson’s provocations, based on her extensive experiences in organising festivals across the world. The wealth of thoughts and ideas shared at this event proved the demand for this discussion, utilising Edinburgh’s August Festivals as a key time and place for this knowledge gathering and exchange.

‘Achieving Social Change, Festival by Festival‘ will gather leaders in the creative sector from the UK and abroad, offering the chance for new international connections and collaborations to be established. While a new venue has been secured to allow for a larger number of attendees, tickets are still required for this event. Secure your space today to take part in this opportunity by registering for tickets through the Fringe Box Office.

More details about ‘Achieving Social Change, Festival by Festival‘ can be found on our event page.

The post More tickets released for ‘Achieving Social Change, Festival by Festival’ with Stella Hall appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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Can You Dig It? – Call to Artists!

Green Public Art, Open Calls

This post comes to you from Green Public Art

City of West Hollywood
ART ON THE OUTSIDE PROGRAM
Request for Qualifications (RFQ)

Can You Dig It?
Temporary Land Art Exhibition
RFQ released: July 15, 2015
Deadline to apply: August 26, 2015

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The City of West Hollywood’s Art on the Outside program is seeking qualifications from artists and/or artist teams to establish a pool of qualified artists to create temporary, site-specific, land art installations in Plummer Park and along Santa Monica Boulevard in an exhibition titled Can You Dig It?, a response to the current California drought and how the City may reimagine its landscape as a result. Art on the Outside is the City’s temporary art program that installs rotating temporary artworks on the City’s medians and parks. These works include sculpture, murals and other outdoor works, most of which remain on display for between 6 months-3 years.

The temporary, site-specific, land art projects commissioned for this exhibition will fall within one of the following categories:

  • Three-dimensional: Artwork created in nature that uses natural materials and/or introduces manmade materials to highlight nature
  • Performance-based: Artworks focused on process, site and temporality, created by individuals acting in a one-on-one relationship with the land

Land Art, Earthworks or Earth Art is an art movement which emerged in the United States in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, in which landscape and the work of art are seamlessly linked. The artworks frequently exist in the open, left to change and erode under natural environmental conditions (Jeffrey Kastner, Land and Environmental Art, survey by Brian Wallis. Phaidon Press. 2010). Examples of notable land art projects include: Andy Goldsworthy, Woven Branch Arch; Maya Lin, The Wave Field; Nancy Holt, Sun Tunnels; Michael Heizer, Double Negative; Buster Simpson, The Hudson Headwaters Purge; Christo and Jean Claude, Surrounded Islands. 

The City will host an informational question and answer meeting on Wednesday, August 5, 2015, 6:00-7:30pm, at the Plummer Park Community Center (7377 Santa Monica Boulevard) to answer any questions about the RFQ. This meeting is not mandatory. Artists who have never applied to a public art opportunity are encouraged to attend. The meeting may also include members from the Facilities & Field Services, Innovation & Strategic Initiatives, and Environmental Services departments to discuss any concerns and/or limitations that artists may need to be aware of. To RSVP for this meeting please email Rebecca Ehemann, Public Art Coordinator, rehemann@weho.org, with the names of the artist(s) who wish to attend.

ELIGIBILITY

The Request for Qualifications is open to professional artists/artist teams residing in the United States.

BUDGET

Budgets for individual projects will range from $5,000 to $12,000. Project budgets are all-inclusive and intended to cover the cost of design, fabrication and installation. It is anticipated that a group of ten (10) semi-finalists (individuals and/or teams) will be identified during the selection process to prepare proposals for the installation. Semi-finalists will be awarded a $500.00 honorarium for their proposal.

SELECTION PROCESS

A selection committee composed of, but not limited to, Arts Commissioners, a Public Facilities Commissioner, and City of West Hollywood Staff will convene to review submissions through this request for qualifications. Artists will be selected for the qualified pool according to the following criteria:

  • Proven artistic merit and strong professional qualifications as demonstrated through previous public art experience or gallery and/or museum exhibitions (public art experience not required)
  • Ability to execute a high quality artwork
  •  Experience working with sustainable, recycled or natural materials (desirable but not required)

The selection committee will identify a group of semi-finalists from the pre-qualified pool of artists to develop proposals for the exhibition. Semi-finalists will be paid an honorarium for their proposals. Semi-finalists will present their proposals to the selection committee for consideration.

SEMI-FINALISTS PROPOSALS

Artists who are invited to submit a proposal will be asked to provide two concept sketches and/or renderings, a preliminary budget and a 150-300 word narrative to incorporate three or more of the following concepts into their land art proposal:

  • Utilize sustainable or natural materials
  • Express ecological concerns to educate the public about the California drought
  • Inform and interpret nature and it’s processes
  • Reveal environmental forces, such as wind, water, and/or light.
  • Re-envision our relationship to nature, propose a new way for us to co-exist with our environment
  • Reclaim and remediate a damaged environment, restoring ecosystems in an artistic way

Artists will be asked to consider the local setting for the artwork and weigh the impact that the proposed material(s) may have on the immediate environment. The length of the exhibition is anticipated to be 12 months.

BACKGROUND

In the wake of the water crisis in California the public has been forced to reconsider how they use water in their everyday lives. The City of West Hollywood has already begun to take action by enforcing water usage restrictions and encouraging residents and businesses to conserve water (http://www.weho.org/city-hall/city-departments/public-works/environmental-services/water-conservation). Through the Can You Dig It? exhibition of temporary, site-specific, land art installations the City invites artists to reimagine its dry and arid public landscapes.

The California Department of Water Resources estimates that California would need much more rainfall to replenish its 12 major reservoirs and bring an end to the drought. Currently, the major state reservoirs stand at 54 percent of total average storage. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) estimates California needs 11 trillion gallons of water to recover from the drought.

The threat of a severe water shortage is a serious one for the City, where daily existence depends largely upon water piped in from sources outside the region. West Hollywood residents and businesses are served by two water utility companies: Beverly Hills Public Works and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). Both utility companies urge customers to cut back water usage and to consider installing water-conserving fixtures.

CITY OF WEST HOLLYWOOD

The City of West Hollywood, known as the “Creative City,” was incorporated in 1984. It is 1.9 square miles in area and is bounded by Beverly Hills to the west, Hollywood to the east, and Los Angeles to the north and south. West Hollywood is home to approximately 37,000 residents and over 3,500 businesses. Sixty percent (60%) of adults are college-educated, and 54% are employed in managerial and professional occupations. Approximately 40% of the City’s residents are gay or lesbian, 10% are Russian-speaking immigrants, and close to 20% are senior citizens.

PLUMMER PARK

Plummer Park (8.5 acres) was formed around a farmhouse and outbuildings that were originally part of Rancho La Brea (later Plummer Ranch). This park is the City’s oldest park, dedicated in 1938 by the County of Los Angeles along with the Plummer Park Clubhouse (now known as Great Hall and Long Hall). Fiesta Hall, featuring an auditorium for community events, was built in 1951. These buildings are still located on the site today, along with the more recently built Community Center and child care center. After West Hollywood’s incorporation in 1984, the park became a City of West Hollywood park and the City took responsibility for its operation and maintenance.

Today Plummer Park is actively used by the community. Off-street parking is provided for park users and every Monday morning the Helen Albert Certified Farmers’ Market is held in the north parking lot. The tennis courts are well used, and there is open space with grass, trees, and paths for walking. Fiesta Hall has an auditorium that is available for community and civic events. One of the most visible groups of users in the park is seniors, especially from the Russian-speaking community, who are often seen playing chess, walking, and socializing in the park. Senior Citizens are regularly provided educational and health lectures as well as opportunities for socialization through card playing, literature clubs, folk dance, fitness and yoga classes, and language classes

SANTA MONICA BOULEVARD

Until 1998, Santa Monica Boulevard was owned and operated by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) as State Route 2. Since incorporation, West Hollywood had continually disagreed with the State agency about maintenance and operations of the street. Finally Caltrans agreed to relinquish the street to West Hollywood, and the City developed a master plan to redesign and reinforce the identity of the City’s main street.

Almost 1,200 new evergreen elm, jacaranda, silk floss, and queen palm trees, together with shrubs and grasses, were planted on the sidewalks and in the new median islands as part of the project’s landscaping plan. The City also created a variety of green spaces, landscaped areas around bus stops, and areas to showcase public art. Specifically, existing medians were redesigned to provide landscaping and pathways, new medians were installed, and the Sal Guariello Veterans’ Memorial was developed at the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Holloway Drive. The median at the City’s western border for West Hollywood on Santa Monica Boulevard was enhanced with palms, walking paths, and lighting. The vision for this median was a showcase of major arts commissions, to allow for pedestrian exploration and an art experience that was visual and tactile, and fully integrated with the landscape.

DEADLINE

Applications must be submitted online by 5:00pm (PST), August 26, 2015.

  • IMPORTANT DATES (subject to change)
  • July 15, 2015 – RFQ released
  • August 5 - Information meeting at Plummer Park (optional)
  • August 26 - RFQ deadline
  • September 14 - Semi-Finalists invited to submit proposals
  • October 30 - Proposals deadline
  • November 5 - Semi-Finalists presentations; Finalists selected
  • November - Finalists meet with Facilities to discuss logistics of proposal
  • TBD - Installations begin
  • January 2016 - Opening Reception          

QUESTIONS

or all questions related to this call to artists contact Rebecca Ehemann, Public Art Coordinator, City of West Hollywood, (323) 848-6846, rehemann@weho.org.

  • The City of West Hollywood reserves the right to cancel or postpone this Request for Qualifications at any time.
  • The City of West Hollywood reserves the right to photograph, videotape and distribute images of the temporary artwork for non-commercial purposes.
  • The City of West Hollywood reserves the right to retain, remove, and relocate all artworks commissioned as a result of this RFQ.

For additional information on City of West Hollywood arts projects please visit www.weho.org/arts or www.facebook.com/WeHoArts.

 

 

 

The post Can You Dig It? – Call to Artists! appeared first on Green Public Art.

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Rebecca Ansert, founder of Green Public Art, is an art consultant who specializes in artist solicitation, artist selection, and public art project management for both private and public agencies. She is a graduate of the master’s degree program in Public Art Studies at the University of Southern California and has a unique interest in how art can demonstrate green processes or utilize green design theories and techniques in LEED certified buildings.

Green Public Art is a Los Angeles-based consultancy that was founded in 2009 in an effort to advance the conversation of public art’s role in green building. The consultancy specializes in public art project development and management, artist solicitation and selection, creative community involvement and knowledge of LEED building requirements. Green Public Art also works with emerging and mid-career studio artists to demystify the public art process. The consultancy acts as a resource for artists to receive one-on-one consultation before, during, and after applying for a public art project.

Go to Green Public Art

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