Yearly Archives: 2016

Green Tease: Land Art Generator Initiative – Creative Carbon Scotland

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

 

What would a renewable energy project for Glasgow look like if the design process was led by artists, architects, landscape architects, and urban planners, working in collaboration with engineers?

Over the past ten months, three interdisciplinary design teams have worked together on proposals for a new renewable energy generation site in Port Dundas, Glasgow in association with the internationally acclaimed Land Art Generator Initiative. The teams have included artists Alec Finlay, Dalziel + Scullion and public art agency Pidgin Perfect.

Coinciding with an exhibition of the resulting designs at the Lighthouse, you are invited to join Creative Carbon Scotland and partners from Land Art Generator Initiative Glasgow – Chris Fremantle (eco/art/scot/land) and Heather Claridge (Glasgow City Council) – for a discussion of the role of creative processes in the development of renewable energy infrastructure in Glasgow.

Timings

On June 20 The event will begin with a viewing of the LAGI Glasgow exhibition in Galleries 4 and 5 of the Lighthouse (from 5:30 – 6pm) followed by a facilitated by a talk and discussion with refreshments provided (6 – 7:30pm).

Go here for booking:  http://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/event/green-tease-land-art-generator-initiative/

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

Powered by WPeMatico

Artist Opportunity: Imagine 2020 Summer Lab

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

ARTIST CALL OUT – Imagine 2020 Summer Lab: Art, Ecology and Possible Futures

29-31 August 2016, Ljubljana Marshes, Slovenia

Artsadmin are offering an opportunity for a UK-based artist over 18 years old working in performance, live art or theatre with an interest in ecology and sustainability. This three-day lab for 20 people takes place outside, in the beautiful environment of Ljubljana Marshes, an area with a fragile eco-system increasingly affected by pesticides and pollution. Guided by practitioners from art, biology, ecology and agriculture, the group will collaboratively imagine solutions for this polluted landscape.

Artsadmin and the lab hosts Bunker will cover travel costs from the UK, accommodation, meals and per diems. The working language of the lab will be English.

Full lab and application details at:

http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/artist-support/advice-info-training/imagine-2020-summer-labs

Deadline for applications: 20 June 2016, 6pm

The post Artist Opportunity: Imagine 2020 Summer Lab 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

Creative Carbon Scotland Green Tease Open Call

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Creative Carbon Scotland is pleased to announce a funded open call for artists, freelancers, and cultural and environmental sustainability organisations to shape and contribute to our ongoing Green Tease event series: connecting cultural practices and environmental sustainability.

Green Tease events have been running since 2013 as a regular informal meeting points for people interested in building links between the arts and sustainability through the exchange of ideas, knowledge and practices.

We’re very excited now to open up the running of Green Tease events to others to widen interest and activity across cultural and sustainability communities.

How will this work?

We’ll continue to run some sessions ourselves, but at the same time, we are opening up the platform so that people can run their own events. This is a chance to share your knowledge, skills and ideas with the Green Tease network and help build Scotland’s arts and sustainability community of practice. Events could take the following forms or other formats that you’re interested in:

  • Talk or presentation about a project you have been involved in or are developing;
  • Practical workshop involving the learning of new skills or trying out of new ideas;
  • Group discussion on a particular theme which you feel could benefit from contribution from artistic or sustainability perspectives;
  • Walk, tour or site visit;
  • Film screening;
  • Events run in tandem with a wider conference, festival etc.
  • Guidelines and support

We’ll provide the following support to help make your event happen:

  • Up to £175 budget. This could cover organising or presenting at the Green Tease, refreshments, and venue hire if necessary (often we can help to source a venue free of charge);
  • Help marketing your event to the Green Tease network;
  • Green Tease DIY handbook with some guiding principles to follow;
  • Event evaluation.

You can find more information on previous events on our project page and Green Tease reflection blogs.

Selection process

Events will be selected on the basis of content quality, inclusivity and the exploration of the interface between arts and sustainability. We will also aim to ensure the continuing development of the overall programme and it’s usefulness and value to the Green Tease network. Following your submission we will be in touch to ask any follow up questions that we might have. Please note, depending on levels of interest we may not be able to support all submissions.

If you have any questions before submitting a proposal feel free to get in touch with gemma.lawrence@creativecarbonscotland.com.

Submit your event proposal here.

The post Green Tease Open Call 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

Imagine No More Warming

This post comes from the Artists and Climate Change Blog

This is an update of an article that originally appeared in the Hong Kong-based magazine, Ecozine in the spring of 2015.

Over the past few months, I’ve noticed something curious whenever  I climb to the top of a wind turbine.  Looking out over the landscape from my bird’s-eye view 80 meters above ground, I often find myself thinking about John Lennon:  wondering what kind of songs he would have written about climate change if he were still alive today. Wondering what lyrics he would have invented to underscore the urgency of global action and, simultaneously, to promote solutions to climate change such as these wind turbines that I love to photograph.

In this age of the Anthropocene, what poetry would Lennon create to challenge the status quo and inspire radical change, as he did with Imagine, his 1971 iconic anthem at the height of the Vietnam War and one of the most influential protest songs in history?

Discussing the enduring popularity of Imagine’s gentle melody and simple lyrics – both of which camouflage radical anti-war and anti-capitalist ideals – Lennon is quoted by author Geoffrey Guiliani as saying: “Now I understand what you have to do: put your political message across with a little honey… our work is to tell [apathetic young people] there is still hope and still a lot to do.”

He clearly didn’t mean “sugar coating.” I suspect Lennon figured out in his short life what has taken behavioural scientists and communications experts decades to understand: that you can’t change an individual’s or society’s behaviour by clobbering them over the head with constant negative imagery and doom-and-gloom stories. As Amory Lovins has famously said: “You can’t depress people into action.”  Instead, let’s offer hope, a tangible way forward, creative solutions, a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Yes, even a little dab of honey.

Lennon’s advice is particularly relevant to climate change artists. As I have previously written on this blog, artists from all disciplines and from all corners of the globe must rise to the challenge to collectively transform apathy into action, despair into hope.

Baptized by the protest music of the 60s and 70s, I have great faith in the power of poets, songwriters and other artists à la Dylan and Lennon to define and influence a whole generation through music. It’s just that they seem to be conspicuously missing right now, when we need them most. Echoing the New York Times’ Andrew Revkin, I believe we are long overdue for a new wave of protest musicians to burst onto the scene Woodstock-style to question authority, motivate Millennial and the so-called iGeneration to get involved, to march in the streets, to raise their voices, to divest from fossil fuels, to not lose hope, and to show the rest of us how to embrace the inevitable transition towards a post-carbon, clean energy economy.

To put it simply: I’m convinced that Lennon would agree that protest music is the missing ingredient to breathe new life and a sense of urgency into the global climate change conversation.

As a photographer, I’ve taken Lennon’s advice to heart: I have decided to focus my camera exclusively on the way forward, on positive and tangible solutions to climate change, notably renewable energy. As a photographer, I am truly inspired by the breathtaking speed at which the clean tech industry is evolving. Much of this work is quite technical in nature; the challenge for me is to find ways to artistically interpret the social, public health and environmental benefits of these potential breakthroughs: energy storage; distributed energy; green architecture; solar powered roads; micro-wind turbines.

I now understand that we will never solve climate change by waiting for our politicians to solve it “for us.” No. At this time, it is the dreamers, the creative visionaries and risk takers such as Elon Musk and Danielle Fong who are moving us forward, imagining the future, inspiring radical transformation of the world as we know it.

I hope Lennon would approve of my taking liberties to modify his original lyrics to adapt them for the Anthropocene. You can listen to my version – Imagine No More Warming – here, sung and arranged by Pierre Laurier. If any musicians out there reading this post would be interested in using these lyrics for a cover, I would be thrilled. Let me know your thoughts.

Follow Joan Sullivan on Twitter @CleanNergyPhoto

______________________________

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Filed under: Music, Photography

———-

Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

Powered by WPeMatico

CALL FOR ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCHERS AND PRACTITIONERS + THEATER ARTISTS

Superhero Clubhouse is proud to announce the launch of the Science and Stage Collaborative Fellowship, a new initiative uniting environmental experts and theater artists in a semester-long residency to tackle pressing questions about humanity’s relationship to climate change.

For four months this fall, three select professionals from the fields of climate science, economics, engineering, and policy will work in collaboration with three select theater professionals, forming a diverse ensemble. This ensemble will simultaneously study a variety of climate change topics and approaches to theater-making through a series of bimonthly workshops, presentations, and social events. The fellowship program will culminate in a rehearsal process and performance of a new work made by the ensemble.

The fellowship program will take place September-December 2016 in NYC. Fellows will meet twice a month on weekends and weekday evenings. In December, fellows will meet more frequently to create and rehearse a theatrical production. The production will be staged, designed using sustainable materials, and performed for the public on December 18. 

The Science and Stage Collaborative Fellowship is run by Superhero Clubhouse, a collective of artists and scientists working at the intersection of environmentalism and theater. The Fellowship gives participants an opportunity to work collaboratively with professionals in other disciplines to address critical issues. Fellows will actively practice creating devised theater based on rigorous research, and learn new ways of communicating their work to a public audience. 

APPLY HERE. DUE JULY 1

If you have questions, refer to the FAQ section on the application. Further questions can be directed to Allie Tsubota: allie@superheroclubhouse.org

Our Fellowship Committee includes:

  •  Sergio Botero(biologist at Rockefeller University and multidisciplinary artist)
  • Josh Browne (Postdoctoral Research Associate at The Earth Institute at Columbia University)
  • Jonathan Camuzeaux (Senior Economic Analyst at Environmental Defense Fund and musician/composer)
  • Nada Petrovic (fellow at USAID, former researcher at Center for Research on Environmental Decisions).
  • Our Fellowship Manager is Alexandra Tsubota, a dancer working at the junction of art and environment.

Superhero Clubhouse is a collective of artists and scientists working at the intersection of environmentalism and theater. We make original performances via a collaborative, green and rigorous process. Through the creation of new mythologies reflecting our changing world, we work to ignite environmental conversations among audiences and communities in the pursuit of revolutionary theater and ecological consciousness. Learn more at www.superheroclubhouse.org.