Yearly Archives: 2016

2016 LAGI international design competition

Open Calls

The Design Guidelines

LAGI 2016 invites creatives, scientists, engineers, and others from around the world to submit ideas for large-scale and site-specific public art installations that generate carbon-neutral electricity and/or drinking water for the City of Santa Monica, California.

The competition is free and open to everyone. We encourage designers, artists, engineers, architects, landscape architects, university students, urban planners, scientists, and anyone to enter who believes that the world can be powered beautifully and sustainably. There is a cash prize of $15,000 for the 1st Place winner and $4,000 for the 2nd Place winner.

Please take a moment to click on the “register” link and create an account. By doing so, you will stay informed as there are updates.

  • JANUARY 1, 2016 Announcement of call to teams
  • JANUARY 1, 2016 to APRIL 15, 2016 Open period for questions
  • MAY 15, 2016 Deadline for submission
  • JUNE 2016 Selection and jury process
  • JULY 2016 Winners and shortlist contacted
  • OCTOBER 2016 Announcement of winner and award ceremony, Public exhibit of selected entries

MORE INFO

 

Shivaji Competition Open Call

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The great warrior king of 17th century India, Shivaji Maharaj, established the Maratha Empire against the dominant Mughals and held off the territorial ambitions of the Europeans. Part of his legacy is a group of island forts in the Arabian Sea with stonewalls ringing the edges against the sea and the Europeans. The Shivaji island forts are the starting metaphor and reality for responses to the invasion of the seawaters for the barrier islands and low elevation islands and deltas around the world.

With the predicted sea level rise of one meter, thousands of islands and deltas and millions of people around the world will be threatened with frequent saltwater floods from storms and king tides. Freshwater may disappear. Sewer and rainwater drainage will not function. Evacuation will intensify a refuge crisis and tensions in national borders. Most islands have a light human or agricultural intervention. Others like Miami Beach are dense urban places.

The competition asks artists, architects, designers, planners, scientists and writers to propose the practical and impossible to maintain the continued human habitation of these islands throughout the 21st century. The ideas should be demonstrated on an island or delta under high risk to bring worldwide attention to these threatened places and push the world to live up to Article 8 of the COP21 agreement signed in Paris.

Responses can be elaborate infrastructures for urban cities and DIY methods for agricultural islands by residents with very limit economic resources. (or vis-a-versa). Both parody and reality are welcome as long as the proposals help wake up politicians, engage the minds of a broad public and respect the people of the islands or deltas. Think like Shivaji. The old political structure has lost its ability to respond and the invasion of the little known outside forces from the sea pose a serious threat to your way of life.

Each entry will be submitted online as a GIF demonstrating a proposal when the sea rises at least one meter. The GIFs should be persuasive to an international audience. Humor, drama, paradox and factual reality in photographs, anime, renderings and all other visual formats are acceptable. Clarity of idea and message is very important.

A group of 15-25 finalists will be selected by most of the participating artists, architects and scientists from Rising Waters Confab 2015 & 2016. These finalists will become part of a traveling exhibition available to museums, global warming conferences and outdoor giant screens. One of the finalists will be selected to join Confab 2016 for one week in May 2016. All expenses will be paid to travel and to participate.

Organizer

The competition is a project organized by Glenn Weiss as a contribution to the Rising Waters Confab 2016 dialogue. Weiss has curated and managed other competitions and exhibitions for the public art agencies in the USA including Times Square and for institutions such as the Storefront for Art and Architecture and PS1 in New York City.

Rising Waters Confab 2016 at Robert Rauschenberg Residency
The second annual Confab will be held for 4 weeks at the Robert Rauschenberg estate on the threatened island of Captiva in the Gulf of Mexico. In the 2016, Buster Simpson and Glenn Weiss are coordinating the residency and think tank to produce works and dialogues about rising seas and global warming. The 2016 list of artists, architects and scientists has yet to be released, but 2015 included David Buckland, Mel Chin, Xavier Cortada, Orion Cruz, Gretel Ehrlich, John Englander, Walter Hood, Lewis Hyde, Natalie Jeremijenko, Edward Morris, Helen Nagge, Jeremy Pickard, Andrea Polli, Thomas Ruppert, Susannah Sayler, Tom Van Lent, Glenn Weiss, June Wilson, Kristie Anders and organizers Buster Simpson, Laura Sindell and Anne Focke. The online catalog of projects from 2015 can be downloaded at https://risingwatersrr.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/risingwatersreportfinal.pdf

Links

What can the arts contribute to a Land Use Strategy for Scotland?

ecoartscotland

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Woodland cover in Scotland. Image from Scottish Government website

The Scottish Government is consulting on a new Land Use Strategy for Scotland. This builds on the first Strategy (2011) and also on the two pilot studies done (Aberdeenshire and the Scottish Borders).

At the heart of the Land Use Strategy are the ideas of Natural Capital and Ecosystems Services Assessment. and the use of GIS to integrate many different aspects of our understanding of the land.  Dr Aileen McLeod, Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform, says in the Introduction to the consultation document,

In the wider context we have seen the development of the natural capital agenda and the formation of the Scottish Forum for Natural Capital, the increased use of an ecosystems approach and significant developments in areas such as the use of spatial mapping tools.

Natural Capital and Ecosystems Services Assessment are problematic both in terms of the financialisation of everything, as well as in the fundamental anthropocentric focus.  But they also shift the framework from ‘single issues’ to ‘systems,’ and the Ecosystems approach recognises the cultural dimension, albeit mostly through a tourism lens.

It is acknowledged that the cultural dimension is particularly difficult to assess in part because it relates to both tangible (e.g. recreational areas, footpath networks, scenic beauty as well as perhaps traditional practices) as well as intangible (e.g. stories, myths and values as well as again traditional practices). Traditional agricultural practices for instance shape the landscape, but are also part of the cultural identity of a landscape. An example of the intangible aspect of this might be the Bothy Ballads of the North East. These form part of the landscape metaphorically, but also can perhaps contribute to understanding the pattern of land use.

But the cultural dimension is not only understanding and valuing the past, it can also be about the present and the future. This has been exemplified in two recent publications. Alec Finlay’s ebban an flowan is a poetic primer for the marine renewable industry and We Live With Water is a vision for Dumfries, where “…tak[ing] an alternative approach and try to imagine a future where increased rainfall, sea-levels and river surges would be seen as an opportunity. We tried to imagine Dumfries as River Town….a place that embraced its environment…a place that Lives With Water.

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As previously highlighted in the blog Land Use Strategy Pilot: What’s it got to do with artists? there are many examples of contemporary arts practices which can contribute to the Land Use Strategy, and we highlighted ones which already work with GIS systems, the spatial planning tool which is at the heart of Land Use Strategy development.

GIS is very valuable for seeing the relations between soil, water quality, biodiversity, ecosystems health and resource extraction. But it is a particular challenge to introduce cultural knowledge into GIS systems both because cultural knowledge doesn’t typically have a spatial character in the way that knowledge about soil type, forest cover, water or agricultural land quality is inherently spatial.

But if we believe that ‘place’ should be at the heart of any Scottish Land Use Strategy then artists and other cultural practitioners across the humanities (cultural historians and geographers, environmental philosophers, anthropologists, literature and language studies and art historians amongst others) need to find ways to contribute to the Land Use Strategy, especially given that the inclusion of the cultural dimension within the Ecosystems Services Assessment legitimises that input.

Moreover arts practices that focus on the systemic, relational and dialogic, artists with social and community, environmental and ecological practices, can make very important contributions. They can ask questions such as,

“What would Scotland’s landscape look like if significantly more people had stewardship over it?”

“Is conservation, and in particular keeping people out, the only way to manage areas of iconic significance?”

“What does a river see when it looks at us?”

“How can brownfield restoration meet more than legislative requirements?”

“What if renewable energy technology was developed by architects, designers and artists for communities?”

You can contribute to the Scottish Government’s Land Use Strategy consultation here.  The questions seem to be very specific and directed at confirmation (or dissent) rather than any sort of open-ended discussion, participatory or deliberative process.

If you are willing to share your thoughts about what you you think the questions are and how the arts might contribute to understanding those questions (or enabling other questions to be asked) with ecoartscotland we’ll publish them to promote a greater understanding of the ways in which artists, producers, curators and cultural managers can contribute to this important issue.

Please include examples: we are particularly interested in examples of arts projects that address ecosystems, eco-cultural well-being, and ways of working with GIS systems (or challenge the spatial technologies).

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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New Infographics Mapping Summer Touring Patterns

Creative Carbon Scotland

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

This summer, four Scotland-based singer-songwriters, Rachel Sermanni, RM Hubbert, Louis Abbott (Admiral Fallow) and The Pictish Trail, worked with Jo Mango to explore the themes of travel, the environment and music in their songwriting practices. Together they created a new EP of songs titled Wrack Lines released today and which will be performed at Platform in Glasgow on 21 January 2016 as part of Celtic Connections. 

Coinciding with the writing of songs, each musician kept a log of their summer touring schedules as they travelled across the 2015 festival season. Maps of their movement were used as the basis for the artwork created by illustrator and designer Helen Kellock, published today which reveals the visual patterns arising from their different travel routes.

Read more about the Wrack Lines EP here.

Wrack-Lines-infographic_600px-wide_final

Wrack Lines will be released on CD and on digital format through Olive Grove Records on 15 January 2016. Rachel Sermanni, Louis Abbott, RM Hubbert, The Pictish Trail and Jo Mango celebrate the launch of the new EP with a one-off performance at Platform in Glasgow on 21 January 2016 as part of Celtic Connections. Find out more and order tickets here.

If you’re interested in keeping track of your travel, whether your an artist or working within an organisation, you can do so using ClaimExpenses.com. This free, easy to use travel tool keeps track of your expenses whilst calculating the associated carbon footprint.

The post New Infographics Mapping Summer Touring Patterns 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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Opportunity: Call for Young Craftmakers & Designers

Creative Carbon Scotland, Open Calls

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

The Modern Heritage Craft Project has run in 2014 and 2015 giving eighteen 15-25 year olds, all at different stages in their careers, the chance to work with Dumfries and Galloway’s most talented makers.

After a successful pilot period supported by The Holywood Trust and The Heritage Lottery Fund, the Modern Heritage Craft project has now become Modern Makers.

Last year, Amanda Simmons and Shona Guthrie worked with nine young people. In 2014 Ian Cameron Smith and Godfrey Smith also worked with nine young people to create a range of contemporary functional objects.

This year the Maker will be Sam Booth who has over 30 years of experience in interior, product and building design.  In the last two years he has establishedEcho Living realising a long held ambition to develop beautiful, sustainable, small buildings, and has now designed a collection of  bespoke, site specific projects, and off-grid, modular solutions.

Modern Makers 2016 will enable up to 6 young people, age 15-25 years old from Dumfries & Galloway the chance to work with Sam for 20 days between February – June 2016. The final dates will be decided between the Maker and particpants.

The deadline to apply for this opportunity is 18th January 2016.

Download more information and guidelines on how to apply here.

Modern Makers is funded by The Holywood Trust and CashBack for Communities through Creative Scotland’s CashBack for Creativity Programme.

 

This opportunity comes from Upland, a bold, ambitious, world-class, rural-based visual art and craft development organisation based in Dumfries & Galloway, SW Scotland.

The post Opportunity: Call for Young Craftmakers & Designers 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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Opportunity for Artists: Open Call for SFRM

Creative Carbon Scotland, Open Calls

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Spring Fling Rural Mural was launched in 2014 to huge acclaim and appreciation. The project saw 11 artists collaborate to produce numerous large murals across the region on buildings, vehicles and unusual objects. Upland has again joined forces with urban art specialists, Recoat, to grow and evolve this innovative project.

Call Out for SFRM Artists

We are looking for Upland artists to take part. We need artists who are interested in collaboration and open to working with others to learn new skills and create concepts.

The artists will collaborate to create large-scale murals in both D&G and the Recoat artist’s home city. Therefore we need artists who have some experience of painting and obviously experience of painting larger works would be of benefit, but it is not essential.

The murals in D&G will be painted between the 2nd– 17th April and the murals in other cities after Spring Fling 2016 in the summer.

Please email your CV, a statement that outlines why you would like to take part in the project (no more than 1 side A4) and up to 8 example images of your work to (joanna@spring-fling.com).

The deadline for SFRM applications is Monday 25th January 2016.

Previous SFRM applicants and participants can apply but should explain clearly in their statement why they should be considered again. Non-member applications welcome (membership needed if successful). SF 2016 participants who have noted interest in taking part in their application should send a statement outlining why you would like to take part. No images necessary.

The post Opportunity for Artists: Open Call for SFRM 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

Powered by WPeMatico

Opportunity: Film Residency

Creative Carbon Scotland, Open Calls

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Cove Park supports the creation of new work and/or new ways of working, especially through collaboration across disciplinary borders and research that takes artists into new professional and/or creative territory. This film residency will therefore include 2 or 3 others, from different sectors or disciplines, with whom the filmmaker has not worked previously.

Applications are open to mid-career or established screenwriters or writers/directors based in Scotland. Please see the ‘Call for Applications’ PDF for information on how to apply.

Filmmaker Residency Guidelines

The closing date is 18th January 2016.

The post Opportunity: Film Residency 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

Powered by WPeMatico

Let the River Flow: Looking for the Kifissos

MELD

This post comes from MELD

A couple of months before the Climate Summit in Paris, Cop21, MELD decided to add its grain of salt and produce an experimental action for Athens and its central river, the Kifissos. Athens is one of the least green cities in Europe and the Kifissos was covered by a highway at the dawn of the Olympic Games.

When I arrived in Athens, people kept mentioning the “potami” (the river) as a geographical locator, but the river was nowhere to be seen and when asked, Athenians were vague and uninformed about its existence.  For the past five years, MELD has been developing a multimedia art work with German artist, Alexander Schellow, 50 Greek experts in the fields of architecture, green chemistry, anthropology among others as well as people living by the river.  The piece has been shown in different formats in various countries in the world, but we never had the opportunity to show any of the work in Athens.

For Let the River Flow, we wanted to create a project that would connect the river to the Athenian civic society: inviting the citizens to meet us at the mouth of the river and form a “human” river linking the different districts of this area.  A small gesture to inspire Athens to connect and reclaim its river.  The act of uniting citizens from all walks of life around a river they have never seen (a large majority) and linking them with each other and the river as a catalyst could only bring awareness, but as well emotional links to the participants.

We have produced several actions in Athens inviting the citizens to participate and in each and every one of them, had a very successful turnout and feedback, both from city officials, and people on the ground.  As usual, we proceeded by calling upon our community and volunteers in Athens.  Though the response was not great, we managed to compile a team of six photographers and filmmakers, as well as 6 volunteers to help us coordinate the making-of the river.  The Municipality of Athens came on board and was going to disseminate the information through their press contacts: business as usual.

On Saturday morning, the day of the event, in route to the Southern suburbs, where the river plunges in the Sardonic Gulf, I was bombarded by a series of messages from our volunteers saying they were unable to attend.  To make a long story short, we ended up with 2 volunteers, a couple of photographers and around twenty participants. The river was suddenly becoming a smaller stream than planned.  In the midst of the deception of seeing so little engagement and commitment from the civic society to its environment, we had to transform the action and adapt to this peculiar situation.  We were lucky as the participants, mainly women, had a great level of social responsibility and commitment.  Passion and kindness was floating in the air.  Enthusiasm became our fuel.

Our stream started its procession towards the river’s mouth, from the Old Faliro subway station.  We entered the coastal no-man’s land.  In fact, this entire area is an everlasting landfill. TheSaronikos Gulf has been the center ofEutrophication because of the untreated sewage pollution discharged from the metropolitan Athens and Piraeus areas and the shipping pollution of the port. Before, the effect of sewage effluent (calculated at 600-750,000 m3 per day) on the benthos of the Saronikos was catastrophic from pollutants, such as hydrocarbons, sediments, heavy metals and PAHs.

Numerous abandoned Olympic facilities populate the area. In the background, separated by the motorway, the old invisible coastline used to be the residence of the golden age of Athens *1920-30s, where Athenians had their secondary homes and glamourous hotels.

Today we can still find traces of these secondary homes, abandoned or squatted by the homeless.  What was one of the most desirable areas of Athens has become a no-man’s land and a depository for garbage.  An area that is better forgotten.  How can that be?  As we make our way among the recycled Olympic buildings, we reach the mouth of the Kifissos.  Here the river stands facing the Aegean, gorged with water.  We decide to take a short brake to honor the river and understand why it is in such a state.  Access is more than difficult: nobody really knows where it is and there are no signs.  Additionally, there is no pathway to the river.  You have to find it and walk through a hostile landscape, among which plastic bottles and all kind of garbage.  We don’t have access to the river, but GARBAGE does. How ironic!  The sun is shining, it’s a beautiful day, we encounter very few people on our path, aside from some fishermen waiting patiently for the catch of the day.  I certainly would not dare try any fish from this area, between the river’s polluted bank and the seaside where there is very little chance to seize a “healthy” fish.

A few meters away from the mouth, we discover another river, the Illisos, that has been high-jacked for other purposes.  The Illisos has also been covered by roads, legal and illegal settlements and now has been rerouted to facilitate water to a couple of new developments on standby on that very coastline.  Developments located in different urban zones, which often lead to political discussions ending up in using the rivers as such, but leaving them in a total state of abandonment, both in reality and in the collective memory of the Athenians. Whether it is The Niarchos Park, or the Hellinikon project, we are sold on sustainable mega projects, which mostly emphasize the commercialization and privatization of the land. A land that has ceased to belong to the citizens of Athens for a long time and is the pray of local and international developers. This disconnect between the natural environment, the city and it citizens is fueled by political and economic decisions and accepted by the large majority of citizens, including the European commission, which is keener to collect “debt money” than enforce European and Greek environmental laws.

The Niarchos project in Kalithea is commendable for bringing to Athens another lung to the city, as well as a new cultural program, but ignoring the living rivers by its side in the name of politics and economics is not an acceptable proposal in the effort of sustainability.  It is more than time for Athenians to look back at their ancient history and not only at their cultural heritage, but at the inherent connections that exist between the citizens, the gods and Nature.

The post, Let the River Flow: Looking for the Kifissos, appeared first on MELD.
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meld is an ongoing interactive global art platform and collaborative catalyst to commission, produce and present ground-breaking and evocative works of art embedded in the issues and consequences of climate change. meld invites exceptional artists and innovative thinkers dedicated to the moving image and committed to fostering awareness and education to join us in our campaign for social change. Through a collaborative dialogue, we hope to provoke new perceptions, broaden awareness and education and find creative solutions concerning climate change, its consequences and its solutions.

meld was formed by a devoted group of individuals guided by a passionate belief in the power of art to convey personal experience and cultivate social progress. meld is inspired by the idea that when art melds into the public realm, it has the power to reach people beyond the traditional limitations of class, age, race and education and encourage public action.

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