Yearly Archives: 2015

Julie’s Bicycle and IFACCA release D’Art Report 34b – The arts and environmental sustainability: an international overview.

A global review of developments in policies and programmes related to culture and environmental sustainability has been published this week by key international organisations Julie’s Bicycle and the International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies (IFACCA).

The aim of the report, D’Art Report 34b – The arts and environmental sustainability: an international overview, was to inform international arts leaders about good practice and resources in this key policy area, and how such policies impact on national arts and cultural organisations.

This ground-breaking international overview is the result of surveys and interviews with arts funding agencies from around the world carried out by Julie’s Bicycle and IFACCA between November 2013 and May 2014 and supplemented with additional research. It follows D’Art Report 34, released jointly in 2009 by IFACCA and Arts Council England that presented examples of good practice in the arts and sustainability.

D’Art Report 34b provides a snapshot of arts and cultural engagement with environmental sustainability with an emphasis on policies, not on artistic content or wider arts practice. The report shows varied preoccupations and priorities according to social, economic, political and geographical context of the respondents.

The findings demonstrate that most respondents believe environmental sustainability to be relevant to arts funding agencies and funded organisations and that there is widespread interest in future development in this direction. However, tangible and applied mechanisms to support environmental sustainability both within agencies and in the organisations they fund are still uncommon and there is little practical and focused guidance for arts funders, workers, or practitioners.

The report, which financially supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and Arts Council Ireland, includes early examples of good practice; identifies agencies already embedding environmental sustainability in their country or region; and makes recommendations for enhancing the level of inclusion of environmental sustainability in cultural policymaking and action.

“The arts and cultural sector, in the main, has well-articulated values that promote equality, inclusion, diversity and community and strong arguments around social and financial sustainability. The sector is well-placed to integrate the environmental dimension with the social and financial dimensions: in part, the narratives have already been written. It is up to the sector itself to take up this leadership opportunity, developing greater cultural environmental literacy and an evidence base to articulate its contribution and value to sustainable development and the shaping of our future.”

– Alison Tickell, CEO, Julie’s Bicycle

“This report is particularly pertinent in the context of the current campaign to include culture in the post-2015 sustainable development goals, championed by IFACCA and five other international networks in consultation with UNESCO. It highlights the potential benefits of giving greater attention to culture’s fundamental role in achieving development outcomes.”

– Sarah Gardner, Executive Director, IFACCA

The full report is available at: www.ifacca.org/topic/ecological-sustainability/and http://www.juliesbicycle.com/resources/ifacca-dart-report .

Julie’s Bicycle Culture Change Conference 2015

Join Julie’s Bicycle for our Culture Change Conference at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, on 18 February 2015.

Bringing together artists, designer/makers, creative freelancers and organisations, this conference will make connections across our sector, and explore a more sustainable future for the arts.

Whether you are celebrating your achievements with Culture Change, or are just beginning your journey, come along to experience an inspiring day of speakers, workshops and performances.

Meet like-minded creatives, and build potential business relationships, in a relaxed and supportive atmosphere.

We are thrilled to announce that international designer and festival director,Wayne Hemingway MBE, will be speaking on the day.

You will also have the chance to hear from:

  • Visionary leaders within the creative sector
  • Key influencers shaping the future for the hub of creative industries in the East of England
  • Trailblazers and experts in environmental sustainability
  • Range of exhibitors showcasing local suppliers, artwork and opportunities

Experience the artistic excellence of the Royal Opera House first hand…

Enjoy an exciting, exclusive performance from the Jette Parker Young Artists(The Royal Opera).

Equip yourself with the skills and knowledge to succeed for the long term…

Choose from a variety of practical workshops that will share best practice and advice to help you grow your business:

  • Engage new audiences and build an effective, ethical brand
  • Meet future business challenges with an imaginative and practical sustainability strategy
  • Develop a financially-efficient, environmentally-conscious business model
  • Discover future funding opportunities from capital finance to crowdfunding
  • Find out more about the latest innovations happening in sustainable craft and design

Want to know what else you can expect from the day? More details and a full agenda will be announced soon…

Want to attend but can’t take a full day out of your schedule? Don’t worry, you can book your free tickets and come along for your preferred sessions.

Check out the ROH Culture Change website to find out more about the programme.

                           

The Shared Independent Theater List (The Sh.I.T. LIST)

shitlist_logoA new website for reusing theatrical goods

shit-list.biz 

CREATED VIA A GRANT FROM THE LIT FUND & 

SPONSORED BY GIDEON PRODUCTIONS, FLUX THEATRE ENSEMBLE & OTHER ARTISTS

On October 7, 2013, the LIT Fund selected the first recipient of their new annual community grant: the Sh.I.T. List. Less than a year later, Sh.I.T.’s about to get real.

Created by a group of independent artists in NYC, the Sh.I.T. List is a digital platform for renting, selling, bartering, and giving away theater and film goods. The mission of the Sh.I.T. List is to get these goods OUT OF THE DUMPSTER and into the projects that need them.  Now that it’s been beta-tested by The LIT Fund community, the Sh.I.T. List will be available for your use on September 16, 2014!

Gideon Producer Sean Williams enthuses, “I sincerely believe that The Sh.I.T. List is not only a brilliant solution to the problems plaguing our environment, it is an elegant plan for us all to survive the new financial realities of the 21st Century. It is so vital, so important and so necessary that in a few years, we will wonder how anyone was able to produce without it.”

Here’s how the Sh.I.T. List works:

Members (called “Dumpers”) can list their “Shit” and tag it with theater/film categories like costumes, props, set pieces, lighting equipment, video equipment, etc. Then members who are looking for these items (called “Divers”) can search for and contact Dumpers about their listings. One of the most exciting features – particularly for anyone just about to close a show – is the ability to list your strike schedule with links to the goods offered.  

Anyone can easily search by word or browse categories and sort results.  Diver membership is free and, thanks to the LIT Fund’s first Community Resource Grant, Dumper membership (which includes the option of listing gigs and events) is also free through at least July 2015.  

Need a wheelchair for your show?  Check.  How about some fake limbs?  We’ve got it.  So get on the Sh.I.T. List and start saving some … stuff.

For more information, please email contactshitlist@gmail.com.

Opportunity: Open Call for ‘Glasgow’s Green – Imagining a more sustainable city’

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Background

From 12 – 14th March Creative Carbon Scotland, Glasgow Arts and the Year of Green will host the culmination of a two-year European project, The Green Art Lab Alliance (GALA). This will mark the end of the GALA project and two years of activities across Europe exploring artistic and cultural responses to climate change and sustainability, bringing together 18 partners from 12 countries as well as artists, artistic organisations and local communities of Glasgow and beyond. The final day of the whole project (Saturday 14th March) will see the Glasgow Arts venue Tramway transformed into a hub of activity exploring how arts and culture can contribute to a more sustainable city with workshops, discussions and talks which provide hands on opportunities for audiences of all ages to engage with arts and environmental sustainability.

What we’re looking for

We’re inviting artists, makers, arts organisations, community organisers and those working in the area of sustainability to propose a short workshop, talk or discussion they might lead in the context of this final day which responds to the question of how arts and culture can contribute to a more sustainable city. Sessions can be aimed at any age including families.

What to expect

The day will be split into three parts within which a number of sessions will take place simultaneously. In between each of these parts we will gather in a central meeting point to reflect on the different activities we’ve taken part in before dividing again for the next sessions.

We expect to run up to 15 sessions across the whole day with around 15 – 20 participants for each session.

We’re hoping for a big attendance and will favour applications which specify a particular network or audience which they think their session will appeal to and which we would be able to invite to the event.

Form and content

Your session could take the form of a participatory workshop or artwork, a short film screening or performance, a talk or discussion or any other format which helps answer the question. We’re open to all suggestions and are looking for proposals which will enable audiences to think differently about the relationship between arts and environmental sustainability.

It could be something new which you devise for the day or a repeat of something you’ve done before. Particular themes which have been explored in the GALA network include urban and rural agriculture, energy, water and waste. Within the context of Tramway and the south side of Glasgow we’re also interested in the question of what makes a sustainable, diverse city.

Click here to read about our Glasgow and Edinburgh Green Tease events which will give you a flavour of our previous artist-run events linking to the GALA project.

Proposal specification

Please take the following into account in your application.

Timings
The session you lead could last between 30 minutes and 1 hour 30 minutes depending on the nature of your proposal. Please specify the proposed length of time of your session.

We want to pack in as much as we can to the day’s proceedings so each session must be planned with a maximum 15 minute set up and 15 minute take down period. There will be some help on hand for this but you will be responsible for the majority of the set up/take down unless specific help is required.

Budget
We have a budget of up to £250 for each session to cover a fee and materials which will vary depending on the nature of the proposal.

Travel
We will prioritise proposals made by those based in the Glasgow area but are open to applications from across Scotland and beyond. We have a small fund reserved for travel expenses. For those based in Glasgow, we would ask you to cover your own travel expenses and will consider covering travel expenses for those coming from further afield.

Venue
We have booked numerous spaced in Tramway for the day of activities which include:

• T4
• Studio
• Upper Foyer
• Boiler House (Hidden Gardens)

Please let us know if you have a preference for your session.

Audience
Please state what particular audience or network you have in mind for your session.

Tech
There will be minimal technical equipment and support provided so please think creatively about how you could adapt your idea to this environment. Please also specify where equipment may be required in your proposal.

Health and Safety
Please notify us of any health and safety considerations that should be taken into account in your proposal.

Equal Opportunities
Session proposals are open to all and we will work to support those with particular needs within the confines of the venue. Please state if you or the participants require any special assistance in your proposal.

—
Please note that we will work to craft the day to allow for a wide variety of high quality sessions to take place. Depending on the number of proposals we may not be able to accommodate all applications for this event. If you have any questions about any of the above please get in touch with us at gemma.lawrence@creativecarbonscotland.com or 0131 529 7909.
—

Application

Please read this section carefully and make sure you send the right information with your application. Applications should include the following information:

• Name and contact details (including email address)
• A CV or biography
• An outline of your proposal (500 words maximum)
• Details of the proposed length, equipment and space requirements, minimum and maximum number of attendees and anything else you think we need to know.

Please send your application to Gemma Lawrence at gemma.lawrence@creativecarbonscotland.com by midnight on Monday 26th January.

The GALA meeting is supported by:

logos collection

Image: Julia Bauer, from Nic Green’s project An Clutha: http://nicgreenartist.tumblr.com/

The post Opportunity: Open Call for ‘Glasgow’s Green – Imagining a more sustainable city’ 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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Julie’s Bicycle’s Praxis: Culture and Sustainability

Praxis: Culture and Sustainability

Wednesday, 28 January 2015 from 10:30 to 17:30 (GMT)

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Bringing together thinkers, artists and innovators, this day of talks, performances and workshops will explore the new ways of working that are shaping a more sustainable future for the arts and culture.

The day aims to inspire debate and equip participants with new insights and practical actions, with spotlights on: working internationally, materials and suppliers, skills sharing economies, how ‘green’ digital technology really is, and presentations of new work from The Cambridge Junction in collaboration with Angharad Wynn Jones.

The day will be shaped by two themes: 

The Artist is Not in The Room

Focusing on environmentally sustainable international working models, speakers will discuss touring exhibitions by sea, working rurally and operating globally, and present performances enabled by digital collaboration.

Rip It Up and Start Again

The second theme will look at the environmental and social issues around where we source our materials and resources. Speakers will explore a rethinking on how we use materials, and the emergent ‘circular’ and exchange economies shaping a sustainable future for the arts and culture.

Throughout the day there will be performances and practical action planning workshops.

Confirmed Speakers Include: 

Laura Billings: Trade School London, Civc Systems Lab

Jane Penty: Practicing designer and educator, BA Product Design, Central Saint Martins,

Diana Simpson Hernandez: Designer, Golondrina Design, SustainRCA Alumna

Donna Lynas: Artistic Director, Wysing Arts Centre

Angharad Wynn Jones: Creative Producer, Arts House, Artist

Save the date and register now to secure your place!

More speakers and the final agenda will be announced over the coming weeks.

A Julie’s Bicycle event in partnership with:

This event is part of the Culture Change Programme.

Do you have questions about Praxis: Culture and Sustainability? Contact Culture Change

Jon Schueler Visual Artist Residency 2015

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Residency programme encourages artists with interest in landscape and the environment.

Online applications are now being welcomed for the third Sgoilearachd Jon Schueler/Jon Schueler Scholarship, Visual Artist in Residence, an exciting international residency opportunity to take place in Skye in the summer/autumn of 2015. In a unique international partnership between Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, the National Centre for Gaelic Language, Culture and the Arts (Scotland) and the Jon Schueler Charitable Trust, the successful applicant will have the opportunity to come and research, develop and produce work for 3 months in the dedicated artist’s studio in a spectacular setting overlooking The Sound of Sleat, the place which so inspired Schueler as an artist.

The Scholarship is open to international artists (including Scottish and UK) working to the highest level of contemporary professional practice in a visual medium and with a particular interest in landscape and the environment. Artists must have completed formal arts education at least 3 years previously.

The annual (2013 -2016) visual arts scholarship has been set up in celebration and in memory of the life, work and artistic influence of internationally renowned artist and abstract expressionist, Jon Schueler (1916-1992), in recognition of his very special relationship with the landscape and environment of the Sound of Sleat

The aims of the residency are 1. to provide a visual artist working to the highest level of contemporary practice a period of research, development and production in a unique environment 2. to promote Skye, The Gaeltachd and Scotland as an exciting, distinct and inspiring place to work for a contemporary artist, and to promote the exchange of ideas.

The residency is for 12 weeks and will take place from Monday 20th July – Friday 9th Oct 2015.

For more information and to apply, please visit the opportunity listing.


Image: Rhythms I, Jon Schueler, New York, 1954, graphite on paper, 8.5 x 11″ paper size. Courtesy Ingleby Gallery.

 

The post Jon Schueler Visual Artist Residency 2015 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

Powered by WPeMatico

Guest Review: Review of Estuary, by Lydia Fulleylove, with artwork by Colin Riches

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

David Borthwick, who runs the University of Glasgow’s masters programme Environment, Culture and Communication at the university’s Dumfries Campus, reviews Lydia Fulleylove’s Estuary, a new book of poems published by the excellent Two Ravens.

Estuaries are, as in the title of one of Raymond Carver’s stories, ‘where water comes together with other water,’ fresh into salt, and as estuaries are characterised by tidal influx, where salt reaches back upriver.  They are transitional zones where local systems meet global ones, the activities of the land meet the open sea; indeed, they are also open to the tractive pull of moon and sun, linking them to celestial bodies too.  An estuary is defined by relational forces, then, and this also makes it a profoundly susceptible space.  One might say an estuary is produced through its myriad relations.

Colin Riches, 'moon and stream'

Colin Riches, ‘moon and stream’, silt, oil and acrylic

Estuaries are profoundly cosmopolitan areas, rich in the symbolism of transition, and this is perhaps why these environments have proven fertile grounds for poets in recent years.  The Severn estuary, in particular, has received considerable attention in both Alice Oswald’s book length A Sleepwalk on the Severn, and Philip Gross’ collection The Water Table (both 2009).  Oswald refers to ‘this beautiful / Uncountry of an Estuary’.[1]  Her ‘uncountry’ is ‘both a barren mudsite and a speeded up garden’.  It is between, untenable, and indefinable, irreducible to notions of rootedness, permanence or stability.  Phillip Gross describes an estuary in terms of its ‘indefinite grounds’, characterised by ‘constant inconstancy’; its ‘indefinable grounds’ and ‘irrefutable grounds’: ‘six hours and the grounds / are remembered.  Forgotten. Remembered’.[2]

Lydia Fulleylove’s Estuary, published by Lewis based Two Ravens Press, adds to but also enlarges this resurgent interest in estuaries.  Centred on the River Yar estuary in the west of the Isle of Wight, Fulleylove’s eclectic book demonstrates in its very form the power of relationality.  The book is part nature daybook—a diary of visits to the estuary, interactions with it over the course of a year—but also a poetry collection.  It also has elements of deeply personal memoir.  One of the book’s strengths is that Fulleylove cannot bracket off her personal relations (an aging father during illness), her job as a creative writing tutor at HMP Isle of Wight, nor indeed the politics which sees one of the estuary’s farms carefully dismantled during her period of residency in the area.  It is all of a part, each element a channel or rivulet in the book’s flow outwards.  This is only added to by Colin Riches’ contribution of artwork at the collection’s centre: pictorial representations of estuary features, animals (domestic and wild), and artefacts.  Many of these have been created using materials from the estuary as their medium: estuary mud, sheep dung, bramble juice.

Fulleylove and Riches employ sensory information as a key part of their work here.  In one poem, the artist is observed at work:

Dung, mud, ink. The artist makes

the cow in the winter barn,

legs tucked under like a cat,

tail pressed close. Black eye watchful,

nostrils, ears flared. Long after

she is gone, these marks will call up her absence,

draw her presence out of dark.

This attempt to capture presence is vital, poetic and visual work going hand in hand as a means of representing the estuary faithfully, even as the environment shifts around one with the tide:

cracked mud mud-gasps

river dark glass

look down clouds sky

look up clouds sky

here is river

see sea-river

The stutters and repetitions here enact not only the process of trying to write the estuary, but its own particular and fluid behaviour.  Everything described must relate to the estuary, the estuary itself formed by these relations, and with all being fluid this negotiation even reaches into the language that Fulleylove uses.  The process of rounding up sheep is rendered in riverine terms.  Sheepdogs are:

Swift, slick

they whip round the sheep,

close to the ground. The flock

runs like a river into the pen

any stray rivulet

channelled back in.

It’s done almost before it’s seen.

Colin Riches, 'Reed and River', reed, earth, ink and gouache

Colin Riches, ‘Reed and River’, reed, earth, ink and gouache

What separates Fulleylove’s book from some of the celebrated ‘New Nature Writing’ is that it continually brings the reader back to community, away from the writer’s solitary observations and into the eddies and turbulence of issues affecting wider concerns.  Local writers’ and artists’ groups are taken out into the estuary to experiment.  Farmers’ views are recorded verbatim and inserted into poems.  Most powerfully, the estuary is brought indoors in order to engage prisoners with an external environment they cannot access.  Among the artefacts offered to prisoners are leaves: ‘what the men most want to do with the leaves is to smell them.  A leaf is passed round nose to nose.’  Sensory apprehension again.  The prisoners’ reflections in their own writing are recorded here too.

There is a powerful social justice imperative within the book, from the treatment of the poet’s father in institutional care, to the politics of landscape which places farmland in ownership that cares not for local experience and traditions— and of course to the welfare of those in prison.

Estuary tacitly suggests that all of Fulleylove’s concerns are intimately connected.  Indeed, connection is a recurring motif.  A Schoolgroup is taken to see the last of the farm’s animals as it is transformed from an Aberdeen Angus carcass to food.  The visit is meant to reconnect the children with the food chain because, as Fulleylove notes, ‘we can’t be disconnected from this earth’.

Colin Riches, 'Last Year's Leaves', mixed media

Colin Riches, ‘Last Year’s Leaves’, mixed media

And yet because we are ‘wrapped in layers of distance’ from the nonhuman world, and perhaps from each other, we ignore the interconnections which inform and shape us all.  From the flora and fauna of the estuary, to the farms upon it, and even the prison, relations exist which conjoin to form a relational space.  In short, the estuary, this place, exists only as the total interactivity of these factors.  There is no ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, but a reciprocal set of interactions in which we are all enmeshed.  In Fulleylove’s thoughtful book, the estuary becomes a powerful symbol for relations and responsibilities.

Indeed, in her prologue Fulleylove says that all of the book’s segments exist as ‘as sign of having been there, evoking the relationship with place at that moment’.  The work is, she says, ‘a dialogue’; it is all about ‘the act of paying attention’: using the senses, different materials, extending empathy to the lives of others, both human and non-human.

In a relatively slight book of under a hundred pages, Fulleylove manages to weave together all of the elements of the local environment on the Yar estuary.  Her vision is clear, her work concise and potent.  She is capable of reflecting back and forth in landscape, and in time, in a way that makes the book more than a diary of a specific place, but an exploration of a place’s multiplicity through the seasons, in which every detail is made to resonate, and flow outwards from itself:

I pick one barley stalk from this dry sea

to stick on the white field of my page.

Winter, I’ll look back at slant, hard-packed grain,

like Brent geese streaming in close line.

[1] Alice Oswald, A Sleepwalk on the Severn (London: Faber, 2009), p. 3.

[2] Philip Gross, ‘The Water Table (Tarset, Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2009), pp 47-48.

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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Call for Proposals: Eco-Justice and Activism

1420225763Art, Activism, and EcoJustice Education

Eastern Michigan University
College of Education
March 19-21, 2015

Call for Proposals, Deadline January 15th 30th, 2015

Join us for the Fourth Annual EcoJustice and Activism conference and workshops March 19-21, 2015 at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, MI.

This year’s theme, Art, Activism, and EcoJustice Education aims to explore the ways the arts can focus public attention and responsibilities toward developing eco-ethical consciousness and action that challenges devastating social and ecological degradation occurring both locally and globally. We encourage a wide range of critical perspectives from within artistic, scholarly, and activist traditions and groups. These could include presentations, performances, or exhibitions around site specific art, insurgent art education, place-based art education, performance art, radical and guerrilla art, eco-art education, sustainable art, indigenous arts, anarchist arts and more.

We also welcome related presentations on animal welfare, environmental philosophy, climate change, ecofeminism and other gender studies, critical race theory, eco-pedagogy, eco-ability, post-humanism, anarchist studies, place-based education, critical animal studies, critical cultural studies, political ecology, peace studies, critical geography, indigenous studies, indigenous education, post/anti-colonial studies, critical literacies, critical pedagogy, urban studies, eco-philosophy, eco-democratic reforms, EcoJustice education, and critical disability studies.

Questions? Contact Co-Chairs, Rebecca Martusewicz,rmartusewicz@gmail.com, or Monica Shields Grimason mshield1@emich.edu

See Proposals Guidelines in menu above. This year we are  we are moving to a refereed proposal process.

Proposals are due January 15th 30th, 2015 to Rebecca Martusewicz, rmartusewicz@gmail.com