Yearly Archives: 2018

“On Site” Opening, Trestle Gallery Brooklyn NY

On Site
Opening Reception & VIP Mixer Thursday, June 14th, 7-9pm
On view through July 18, 2018

Join us for Trestle’s Summer Tastings & VIP Mixer Thursday, June 14th from 7-9pm at our main location, 850 3rd Ave, Suite 411, Brooklyn, NY. This year’s mixer is free & open to the public, and will coincide with On Site, Trestle’s annual salon featuring artwork made by artists working in our space.

At the party there will be a live art auction, specialty beverages, tasty samplings provided by local, artisanal vendors, live music, wine, and over 60 artworks on view. In addition to attending the VIP Mixer party, attendees will have an opportunity to meet the artists and curators that make Trestle so special – including new Chief Curator, Alex Paik! As an artist-run space Trestle Gallery’s overarching goal is to put artists first, and in support of this ideal we will only be receiving 10% of each sale. Support emerging artists and curators by supporting Trestle Gallery.

Co-curated by Jacqueline Ferrante & Jen Nista

Featuring artwork by:
Yasmeen Abdallah – Angela Alba – Hannah Berry – Julia Blume
Rosa Bozkov – Nell Breyer – Andrea Caldarise – Nathan Catlin – Haleigh Collins
Jessica Dalrymple – Kat Deiner – Martin Dull – Todd Durm – Eliza Evans
Jacqueline Ferrante – Alexandra Frankel – Mayuko Fujino – Katherine Gagnon
Christina Graham – Abigail Groff-Hernandez – Kristen Haskell – Christopher Hayes
Dianne Hebbert – Erik Hougen – Lehna Huie – Caitlin Hurd – Rhia Hurt
Jessica Rose Jardinel – Christina Kelly – Richard Kessler – Myra Kooy – Nikolina Kovalenko
Taeko Kuraya – Seung Won Lee – Sandra Lippmann – Genevieve Lowe – Katrina Majkut
Allison Maletz – Sarah Mallory – Jamie Mirabella – Katherine Muehlemann
Steven Nedboy – Gal Nissim – Jen Nista – Justin O’Brien – Alex Paik
Panos Papamichael – Aston Philip – Mari Renwick – Jessica Rosen – Erika Roth
Zoe Schwartz – Zach Seeger – Alexandra Seiler – Julie Snyder – Marcy Sperry
Jeanette Spicer – Melissa Staiger – Rosemary Taylor – Carlos Torres-Machado
Ruyin Tsai – Lesley Wamsley – Lisa Warren – Chris Weller
Ezra Wube – Heidi Yockey – Sooyeon Yun – Cindy Zaglin – Ping Zheng

More Information:

Trestle Gallery
850 3rd Ave., (Between 30th and 31st st) Suite 411, Brooklyn NY 11232
train/bus: DNR – 36th, R – 25th, B37 – 3rd & 29th/30th
Gallery Hours: MWF 1:30-6:30p

Event Website: http://www.trestlegallery.org/on-site

A Brief History of Wind Energy for Artists

This post comes from the Artists and Climate Change Blog

We humans have been harvesting the wind for at least 5,000 years. A clay vase dating to 3500 BCE from Egypt’s pre-dynastic Naqada II period depicts what is considered to be the world’s first clear image of a boat under sail. The square sail illustrated on this vase, presumably made of linen, was used to propel early Egyptian rudderless boats upstream on the Nile River, catching the northerly winds against the flow of the river.

wind, sail, Egypt, Naqada, vase, jar, linen

Photo of the pre-dynastic Naqada II vase. Reprinted with permission from the British Museum online.

It would take another three millennia before humans transformed the wind’s kinetic energy into mechanical energy to operate machines to pump water, grind grain or mill wood. Early records suggest that by 200 B.C., simple windmills in China were pumping water. In 9th century Persia, vertical axis windmills with woven reed sails were grinding grain. In 14th century Europe, horizontal axis turbines were reclaiming land from low-lying marshland. By the 17th century, the Netherlands was home to approximately 9,000 windmills. Rembrandt’s The Mill, part of the National Gallery of Art’s Widener Collection in Washington, is widely considered to be one of his most famous paintings.

Rembrandt, The Mill, wind, windmill

Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606 – 1669), The Mill, 1645/1648, oil on canvas, Widener Collection 1942.9.62, National Gallery of Art.

But it wasn’t until the late 19th century that sapiens finally figured out how to convert the mechanical energy generated by a windmill into electricity. In 1887, the Scottish electrical engineer James Blyth built the first battery-charging wind machine that powered his cottage for 25 years. Later that same year, the American inventor Charles Brush built what is considered to be the first automatically operated wind turbine. It took another 100 years before multi-megawatt wind farms became commercially viable, prompted in part by the oil crises of the late 20th century.

But who, you might be asking, was the first artist to incorporate wind energy into a work of art? We may never know. Perhaps it was an ancient musician, who created – accidentally or intentionally – wind chimes of shells, bone, or bamboo. Wind chimes, a type of percussion instrument, are an example of chance-based music due to the randomness of the wind, which acts simultaneously as composer and player.

Or perhaps it was an Egyptian or Persian architect. Windcatchers (malqaf in Arabic; badgir in Farsi), also known as wind towers or wind chimneys, were a traditional Persian architectural roof-top structure designed to catch the prevailing winds to provide top-down natural ventilation and passive cooling within thick-walled buildings (often constructed partially or completely underground) in desert environments. So effective were windcatchers at cooling buildings that they were routinely used as a form of refrigeration in ancient Persia. The beautiful photo below of abandoned windcatchers near Yazd in central Iran was taken by Dave Ways.

Iran, Persia, architecture, wind catcher, windcatcher, wind tower, wind chimney, ventilation, passive cooling

Photo by Dave Ways, reprinted with permission from The Longest Way Home.

For a stunning contemporary interpretation of windcatchers, look no further than avant-garde Paris-based Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut’s The Gate Heliopolis, currently under construction in Cairo. Callebaut’s design includes nine oval “mega-trees” which function as giant windcatchers to suck prevailing winds deep into the heart of the building as natural (and free!) air conditioning in Cairo’s hot urban environment.

Screen Shot 2018-04-16 at 9.52.21 PM
Image downloaded from http://vincent.callebaut.org/
Screen Shot 2018-04-16 at 9.59.34 PM
Image downloaded from http://vincent.callebaut.org/

Another example of a contemporary artist inspired by wind energy is the renowned American sculptor Anthony Howe. I first wrote about Mr. Howe’s hypnotic wind-powered kinetic sculpture back in 2014. Since then, whenever I needed a creative fix – to be carried away by the beauty of his hypnotic artworks – all I had to do was visit his YouTube channel and start clicking away…

A 2016 headline in the Dallas News says it all: “Anthony Howe creates art that seeks to slow your heartbeat down and make your life better.” I promise you: this is not hyperbole!

In case you missed the opening ceremony of the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics, here is a video link of Mr. Howe discussing his massive two-tonne cauldron being “lit” by the olympic flame.  In an interview with PR Newswire, Mr. Howe explained that his olympic vision was “to replicate the sun, using movement to mimic its pulsing energy and reflection of light. I hope what people take away from the cauldron, the Opening Ceremonies, and the Rio Games themselves is that there are no limits to what a human being can accomplish.”

We Canadians are the lucky recipients of one of Mr. Howe’s most recent installations, right in the middle of downtown Montréal. Last year, Concordia University’s chancellor Jonathan Wener and his wife Susan donated Di-Octo II to their alma mater in honor of the 375th anniversary of Montréal and the 150th anniversary of Canada. This eight-meter-high kinetic sculpture now graces the northeast corner of De Maisonneuve Ouest and Mackay Streets.

Anthony Howe, kinetic, sculpture, Di-Octo, Di-Octo II, Montreal, Montréal, Concordia, wind

Photo by John Mahoney, Montreal Gazette, September 2017.

Although most of Mr. Howe’s sculptures are powered by the wind, they do not (yet!) generate electricity. Perhaps we will have to leave this challenge to the next generation of kinetic sculptors. In the meantime, the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is leading the way: encouraging artists and architects around the world to adopt “solution-based art practice” by designing public art and sustainable infrastructure that generate renewable energy within urban environments. One of their visions: clean power stations as tourist attractions.

We’ve come a long way since 3500 BCE. In fact, we’ve come full circle, back to the future: the very first energy revolution was renewable (wood, wind, water); the second was coal; the third was oil; and the fourth – which we are currently living through – is renewable once again. But tighten your seat belts! This time around, the 21st century version of the renewable energy revolution portends virtual power plants, energy democracy and the break up of energy monopolies within our lifetimes. The Holy Grail is finally within reach: a post-carbon economy. Artists can help get us there faster by creating positive stories of clean abundance and endless possibilities.

(Top image: Wind turbines by Joan Sullivan.)

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Joan Sullivan is a renewable energy photographer based in Québec, Canada. Since 2009, Joan has focused her cameras (and more recently her drones) exclusively on the energy transition. Her goal is to create positive images and stories that help us embrace the tantalizing concept that the Holy Grail is finally within reach: a 100% post-carbon economy within our lifetimes. Joan collaborates frequently with filmmakers on documentary films that explore the human side of the energy transition. She is currently working on a photo book about the energy transition. Her renewable energy photos have been exhibited in group shows in Canada, Italy and the UK. You can find Joan on Twitter and Instagram. 


 

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

Ethical Making Resource Launched

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Fairtrade, Fairmined and Sustainable

The Incorporation of Goldsmiths have just launched their Ethical Making Resource: a website dedicated to the social, economic and environmental sustainability dimensions of jewelry design and making.

www.ethicalmaking.org

The Incorporation of Goldsmiths has created the Ethical Making Resource in the interest of helping jewellery and silversmithing community of makers to access information which supports their ambitions towards ethical making.

Previous research had found the pre-existing information unclear, difficult to locate, and sometimes dubious in origin and accuracy, and this new resource has been produced in collaboration with the sector to make it as clear, useful, truthful, concise and accessible as possible. The resource takes the form of a website covering everything from the sourcing of materials (a particular concern in the metal and gem industries, where unethical practices are rife) to sustainable studio practices which minimise chemical use and maximise resource efficiency.

At Creative Carbon Scotland, we’re thrilled that this resource is being made available to makers, especially as we know through our work with Craft Scotland and the Green Crafts Initiative that there is a big demand for this information and support from jewellers. We have supported the development of the resource in advising around the environmental sustainability dimensions of the resource.

Ethical Making Symposium

The resource was launched at the Incorporation’s second Ethical Making Symposium – one year on from the inaugural event which spurred the research and action presented at the 2018 symposium.

Over the course of the day (held at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall – a venue member of our Green Arts Initiative, and itself committed to sustainability in its own operations) delegates heard from a range of practising makers, academics, and support organisations, including:

  • Dr Greg Valerio, MBE on how he has tried to change the ethics of the sector – from a ‘we do not do ethics’ approach, to the introduction of the Fairtrade and Fairmined standards. Greg challenged all makers to be honest and be engaged in the ethics of their practice: doing what they can in small steps to transform their part of the sector.
  • Ute Decker, Jen Cunningham and Alison MacLeod on how the issues of unethical and unsustainable production are essentially ‘man-made’ problems which can equally be solved by humans, and how makers must ensure that jewellery that is externally beautiful has not had a destructive and ugly origin. Each of the three makers spoke of the origins of their practice, with an emphasis on how small changes (like putting pressures on their suppliers, investing in tools which enabled them to recycle small amounts of metal, and launching small ranges of Fairtrade products) have transformed their approach.
  • Ian Nicholson on how his work as director of the Precious Metals Workshop and his visits to international mines have influenced his commitment to Fairtrade and Fairmined metals and spurred his ‘Going for Gold’ project, which aims to raise awareness of the issues around artisanal gold mining.
  • Dr Peter Oakley on the complex issue of recycled silver (a material that has traditionally been a by-product of other metal-mining industries, and which has a majority industrial rather than jewellery use) and the role of education and academic research in this field.
  • Jane Barnett and Theodora Panayides on how consultancy organisation Levin Sources is working on responsible sources and mining practices, how such material sourcing is often a long journey, and how ultimately ethics are subjective so each maker should define their own approach.

“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection”
Mark Twain, via the Ethical Making Symposium

To complete the symposium, the Incorporation of Goldsmiths hosted a ‘Circular Economy Design Challenge’ and competition, where delegates had a short amount of time to design an item of jewellery that was inspired by the
principles of the circular economy: an economy in which we keep resources in use for as long as possible, maximising their value, recover materials at the end of that particular use, and reject the ‘take, use, dispose’ model of our current system. ‘Designing for disassembly’ and being inspired by the ‘waste-free’ model of natural systems was a theme throughout the ideas generated.

Commitments from the Sector

Also at the Ethical Making Symposium were several announcements from those in the jewellery-making sector about their new commitments to ethical and sustainable making. In particular, a commitment from all the jewellery and silversmithing courses, HND level and above, in Scotland to include ethics and sustainability within their courses curriculum, and to make responsibly-mined materials the norm in their workshops – making it the expectation for all new jewellers, and developing a generation of informed makers.

 


The Incorporation of Goldsmiths is a not-for-profit organisation, based in Edinburgh, which runs the Edinburgh Assay Office and supports the jewellery and silversmithing trade in Scotland and beyond.

The Green Crafts Initiative is a joint project between Craft Scotland and Creative Carbon Scotland aiming to enable the craft sector to contribute green actions within Scotland’s cultural industries. Becoming a member of the Green Crafts Initiative is easy, quick, and free! Complete this form and we’ll be in touch.

All photos by James Robertson.

 


The post Ethical Making Resource Launched: Fairtrade, Fairmined and Sustainable 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

Kate Foster: Engaging with Peatland Restoration

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

As artists, we (Kerry Morrison and Kate Foster) have discovered a common purpose of embedding ecological artistic practice and research within peat landscape restoration projects. This post invites readers to ‘watch this space’ for how we are, and will be, involved in restoration work on blanket peatland and raised bogs that will be carried out by three Landscape Partnerships that have been recently funded by the Heritage Lottery Landscape Partnership Fund.

The significance of peatlands in terms of wildlife, climate action and hydrology is increasingly recognised by government policy which is leading to artists’ opportunities, such as with the Peatland Partnership in the Flow Country. For anyone interested in the cultural values of peatland, there is much artwork to draw inspiration from, such as Sexy Peat ; ongoing work by postgraduate students of Art Space and Nature at Edinburgh College of Art; the respective work of Laura Harrington or Lionel Playford, both based at the University of Northumbria; and Wind Resistance by singer-songwriter Karine Polwart.
Within this wider context, our respective artistic aims include profiling existing community culture, skills and knowledge – the living heritage. We will be developing artwork during the stage of ecological restoration, contributing further ways to how peatlands can be culturally valued. We see this as an opportunity to reflect on art practice with others (artists and non-artists) who have similar interests, over a three-year period.

The Pendle Hill Landscape Partnership programme

As director and lead environment artist at In-Situ, Kerry had been working with the Forest of Bowland during the development stages of their Landscape Partnership Heritage Lottery bid for Pendle Hill. This included developing and managing a pilot arts programme which informed the final, and successful, bid. Working closely with Cathy Hopley (Development Officer at Forest of Bowland AONB) to embed art into the landscape restoration strand of the Pendle Hill four-year programme, In-Situ have become one of the partners and will lead an art strand called The Gatherings which includes a two-year artist residency during which Kerry will work alongside the team restoring the upland peatlands of Pendle Hill Summit.

The Gatherings programme integrates arts practice and research into a number of the Pendle Hill Landscape Partnership themes, including: Pendle Hill Summit, Archaeology, High Nature Value, Traditional Boundaries, Woodlands, and What’s a Hill Worth?

The Gatherings strand has been designed/curated as a coherent programme consisting of temporary interventions, events, residencies, films and public gatherings. The art projects, beginning in 2018, will evolve in partnership and collaboration, developing and responding to the project strands as they progress over the 4-year delivery period. The role of the artist will be multitudinous: to shed light on the landscape restoration programme, to outreach and engage communities including audiences that have been identified as the most infrequent visitors to the Pendle landscape, and to contribute to new knowledge. The creative processes, outputs and new knowledge gained will be shared in year 4 (2022) at a 3-day conference.

The image below is of a group of young people from Brierfield Action in the Community, celebrating, having achieved the steep climb to Pendle Hill Summit. Their day out was part of a series of workshops to test the Pendle Hill Engagement Kit, developed by In-Situ in partnership with The Forest of Bowland and artist Amy Pennington.

Image Source: http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/68e4ff_4cea9d953e814874aab938ba380a4638.pdf

The Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership programme

“The Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership aims to connect people living and working in the area with its heritage and landscape in a drive to secure a prosperous future for the communities around the Water of Ken and River Dee, right from their source to the sea.”

source: http://www.gallowayglens.org/about/

Further details of the scope of the proposed programme can be seen here. Peatland Connections is one component, led by Dr. Emily Taylor of the Crichton Carbon Centre and to be jointly funded by the Scottish Government programme, Peatland Action. Peatland Connections aims to:

… highlight the significance of Galloway peatlands and, using a demonstrator site beside the Southern Upland Way, trial a new framework to be used to revert areas of forestry back to peatlands, highlighting the resulting water quality, biodiversity and carbon balance benefits. These capital works will be supported by a suite of public engagement/artistic activities highlighting the importance and relevance of peatlands. Source: http://www.gallowayglens.org/projects

Kate’s art practice is concerned with different kinds of land use, focussing on wetlands. Various projects prepared the way for making links to Peatland Connections. For example, in 2016 she co-ordinated an event themed Wetlands, Flow, and Questions of Scale, at the Stove in Dumfries.  The range of inspiring and thought provoking presentations revealed the depth of existing interest and also the possibilities for further connections.

Image source: https://inthepresenttense.net/2016/07/17/getting-down-to-the-ice-age/

The image above shows a group with a demonstration peatcore at a workshop on Kirkconnel Flow, led by Dr. Lauren Parry of the University of Glasgow.

Kate proposed Peat Culture as an element of the Peatland Connections in consultation with Emily Taylor. As lead artist, Kate intends to profile the biocultural heritage of Galloway Glens Peatlands by creating an anthology; by developing original artwork as artist-in-residence to the restoration; and by jointly creating material for an exhibition.
Recognising synergies in their practice and collaborative approach with landscape Partnerships, Kerry and Kate began to discuss the potential of connecting Galloway Glens and the Pendle Hill Partnerships to widen the scope, reach and impact of ecological art and peat restoration. Both Landscape Partnerships embraced the idea of connecting and partnering, and to also work with the Carbon Landscape Project (another Heritage Lottery Fund Landscape Partnership with a peatland focus), which is in the early stages of delivery.

The Carbon Landscape Project

The Carbon Landscape Project is a Landscape Partnership based around Salford and Warrington, and draws on the area’s importance in the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. A short informative video Taking a Round View of the Carbon Landscape can be seen here.

The Carbon Landscape Project is changing the way in which we approach landscapes and communities in Wigan, Salford and Warrington. Twenty-two interlinked projects will provide a forward-thinking and effective programme that will have lasting benefits for local communities and wildlife.

Source: http://www.lancswt.org.uk/carbon-landscape-project

The scheme is in its first year of their 5-year delivery phase, with work getting underway.

Peat Meets

People involved in developing peatland projects of the Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership, the Pendle Hill Landscape Partnership, and the Carbon Landscape Project travelled to a Great Peat Meet in New Galloway last November, in order to exchange information about their programmes. The proposed peatland restoration projects will offer varied ways of engaging communities. Once the projects are all underway, further exchange visits are planned.

Image source: http://www.gallowayglens.org/2017/11/

The image above was taken during a site visit to Clatteringshaws Visitor Centre Galloway, allowing informal discussion during a walk over deep peatland. Glens Development Officer, McNabb Laurie, said:

“We were proud to welcome these other Landscape Partnerships to Galloway and to hear how the condition and use of peatland sites varies across the UK. It is great that a number of schemes are coming together to highlight the importance of peat on factors such as water quality, biodiversity, flood management and also the global significance as a carbon store. We can contribute to a national approach to these issues.” Source: http://www.gallowayglens.org/2017/11/

As artists, we attended and have both been proactive in making proposals and connections between the Landscape Partnerships. The aim is to profile the many and varied ways that peatlands are already valued culturally, as well as contribute new creative work. Plans include a seminar series, to create a network with people involved in similar projects elsewhere and to encourage reflection on interpretation and creative practice.

This article has been prepared by artists Kate Foster and Kerry Morrison in consultation with colleagues in their respective Landscape Partnerships projects.

Contacts for further information:
Kerry Morrison – kerry@in-situ.org.uk
Kate Foster – art@meansealevel.net
Pendle Hill Landscape Partnership:
Cathy Hopley: cathy.hopley@lancashire.gov.uk
Galloway Glens Landscape Partnership:
McNabb Laurie: mcnabb.laurie@dumgal.gov.uk

 

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.</ br></ br>

Go to EcoArtScotland

Guest Blog: Images From a Warming Planet

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Photographer Ashley Cooper writes about documenting climate change and the rise of renewable energy on every continent on the planet.

I have spent the last thirteen years travelling to every continent on the planet to document the impacts of climate change and the rise of renewable energy, the only living photographer to have done so. This epic journey involved visiting over thirty countries and took me from nearly 300 feet below sea level in Death Valley to 18,000 feet above, in the Bolivian Andes, from 500 miles from the North Pole, to the Antarctic Peninsular, from remote Pacific Islands to the Chinese/Russian border.

Along the way I documented extreme weather, flooding, drought, permafrost melt, glacial retreat, sea level rise, sea ice retreat, impacted communities, impacted plants and animals, food security, forced migration, all types of renewable energy, and much much more.

A month in Alaska

It all started off in the early part of this century when I started reading about climate change in scientific journals. I decided to do a specific climate change photo shoot, which was to spend a month in Alaska. I planned to cover glacial retreat, permafrost melt, forest fires and had a week on Shishmaref, a tiny remote island between Alaska and Siberia. Shishmaref is home to around 800 Inuits. Their mainly hunter gatherer lifestyle meant that they had a tiny carbon footprint. I was to learn something on Shishmaref, that I have seen many times since in my travels, and that is those that are least responsible for climate change are most impacted by it. The problem on Shishmaref was that the sea ice that used to form around the island in late September, was not forming till maybe Christmas time. Any early storms hitting the island before the sea ice had formed, were knocking great chunks out of the land and tumbling the Inuits houses into the sea.

Four feet under water

Even in 2004 it was obvious the Arctic was warming very rapidly, and the many impacts of climate change were blindingly obvious and in your face. I returned from Alaska determined to do more. My second photo shoot was to the remote island Nation of Tuvalu, in the Pacific Ocean. More people climb Everest every year, than visit Funafuti, one of Tuvalu’s main islands. These low lying coral atoll islands are extremely vulnerable to sea level rise. I had planned my trip for the highest Spring tides of the year. At high tide the middle of the islands were in places four feet under water. Tuvalu will probably be the first country to completely disappear as a result of climate change.

Documenting climate change

It wasn’t long before I decided I should try and document the impacts of climate change on every continent. Something, that thirteen years on I have achieved.

Following a successful crowd funding program, I have just published “Images From a Warming Planet”, a 416 page hardback, art photography book containing 500 of the best images from my epic journey around the planet. The book has come out to amazing reviews and is on sale now. You can read the reviews and see around 100 of the pages online, as well as purchase the book at www.imagesfromawarmingplanet.net. The Images from a Warming Planet exhibition is currently on display in Brantwood in the Lake District. Get in touch to discuss hosting the exhibition.


Ashley Cooper is an award-winning environmental photographer. In 1986 Ashley became the first person to climb every 3,000 foot mountain in GB and Eire in one continuous expedition. A feat that involved over 1400 miles walking and 500,000 feet of ascent. the event raised £14,000 for the British Leprosy Relief association. For the last 25 years Ashley has been a member of the Langdale/Ambleside Mountain Rescue Teams, one of the busiest teams in the UK, and has personally attended over 700 rescues. Following the publication of Images from a Warming Planet Ashley now plans to raise an additional £55,000 to set up iCommit, a new, global climate change initiative.

All images copyright Ashley Cooper

 



The post Guest Blog: Images From a Warming Planet 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

Imagining Water, #8: Rachel Carson’s Poet Heiress of the Sea

This post comes from the Artists and Climate Change Blog

The eighth in a year-long series on artists of all genres who are making the topic of water a focus of their work and on the growing number of exhibitions, performances and publications that are popping up in museums, galleries and public spaces around the world with water as a theme.

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Although most commonly known as the author of Silent Spring, the 1962 book that is credited with starting the environmental movement, Rachel Carson was also what historian and author Jill Lepore described as a “scientist poet of the sea.” In her recent article in the March 26, 2018 issue of The New Yorker, entitled “The Right Way to Remember Rachel Carson,” Lepore describes Carson’s enduring love of the ocean and its shorelines. Lepore notes that all of Carson’s books prior to Silent Spring, including Under the Sea-Wind (1941), The Sea Around Us (1951) and The Edge of the Sea (1955), focused on her decades of research on the life of the sea and her daily observations of ocean life. Carson’s lyrical and captivating writing style, which reinforces her own sense of herself as a poet of the sea is reflected in this excerpt from her first published work, “Undersea,” an essay that appeared in a 1934 issue of Atlantic Monthly.

Who knows the ocean? Neither you nor I, with our earth-bound senses, know the foam and surge of the tide that beats over the crab hiding under the seaweed of his tide pool home; or the lilt of the long, slow swells of mid-ocean, where shoals of wandering fish prey and are preyed upon, and the dolphin breaks the waves to breathe the upper atmosphere. Nor can we know the vicissitudes of life on the ocean floor, where the sunlight, filtering through a hundred feet of water, makes but a fleeting bluish twilight, in which dwell sponge and mollusk and starfish and coral, where swarms of diminutive fish twinkle through the dusk like a silver rain of meteors, and eels lie in wait among the rocks. Even less is it given to man to descend those six incomprehensible miles into the recesses of the abyss, where reign utter silence and unvarying cold and eternal night.

In 1964, right before she died and after Silent Spring brought environmental issues into public consciousness, Carson had been observing another puzzling phenomenon that, unfortunately, she did not have the chance to pursue. She wrote presciently: “We live in an age of rising seas…in our own lifetime we are witnessing a startling alteration of the climate.”

Timeless_YK0318_082.jpg

Rachel Carson observing the sea.

Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner is an internationally acclaimed poet and spoken word artist who was born and lives on the Marshall Islands, a remote chain of coral atolls located in the Northern Pacific Ocean halfway between Hawaii and Australia. Although she is not a scientist like Rachel Carson, Jetnil-Kijiner shares Carson’s love of the sea and her use of poetic language to express her feelings and concerns about the environment, especially her acute alarm about the rising tides that Carson had observed 54 years ago.

Jetnil-Kijiner’s poetry is focused primarily on her beloved Marshall Islands, which lay only six feet above sea level, the same six feet that scientists predict the seas will rise by the end of the century, and which are already experiencing significant tidal flooding once every month. According to Marshall Island Foreign Minister Tony de Brum, the island of his childhood is “not only getting narrower – it is getting shorter…There are coffins and dead people being washed from graves – it’s that serious.”

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A seaside cemetery on the Marshall Islands that has been eroded due to rising tides. Credit: New York Times.

In 2014, Jetnil-Kijiner was catapulted from her relatively obscure presence as a “YouTube poet” into a highly sought-after global poet/climate activist after she was selected to perform as the Civil Society Speaker at the opening of the United Nations Climate Summit in New York City. In the poem she recited that day, “Dear Matafele Peinam,” Jetnil-Kijiner promised her baby daughter that she and an army of others would work ceaselessly to ensure that her homeland would not be overcome by the rising tides threatening its shores and that she would not become a homeless climate refugee.

This excerpt from “Dear Matafele Peinam” is followed by a video of her 2014 UN presentation.

dear matafele peinam,

you are a seven month old sunrise of gummy smiles
you are bald as an egg and bald as the Buddha
you are thighs that are thunder and shrieks that are lightning
so excited for bananas, hugs and
our morning walks past the lagoon

dear matafele peinam,
I want to tell you about that lagoon
that lucid, sleepy lagoon lounging against the sunrise

men say that one day
that lagoon will devour you

they say it will gnaw at the shoreline
chew at the roots of your breadfruit trees
gulp down rows of your seawalls
and crunch your island’s shattered bones

they say you, your daughter
and your granddaughter too
will wander rootless
with only a passport to call home

Since her breakout 2014 performance, Jentnil-Kijiner has been featured in numerous publications and broadcasts, including CNN, Democracy Now, Mother Jones, The Huffington Post, NBC News and National Geographic. In 2017, her first collection of poetry, entitled, Iep Jaltok: Poems from a Marshallese Daughter was published by the University of Arizona press, giving her the distinction of being the first published author from the Marshall Islands. Not limiting herself to poetry as her only form of action against the dangers of climate change, though, Jetnil-Kijiner has co-founded Jo-Jikum, an organization empowering Marshallese youth to “seek solutions to climate change and other environmental impacts threatening their home island” and has spoken all over the world on climate change including at COP (Conference of the Parties) 22 in 2016 and COP 21 in 2015.

As she warns in her poem “Butterfly Thief,”:

But what if we don’t save Tuvalu
what if bees and butterflies become extinct
what if our/my islands don’t survive

just who
do you think
will be next?

I’m taking you with me

As a poet lover of the sea and environmental activist, Kathy Jentnil-Kijiner is a legitimate heiress to the spirit and work of Rachel Carson.

(Top image: The Marshall Islands during a King Tide.)

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Susan Hoffman Fishman is a painter, public artist, writer, and educator whose work has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries throughout the U.S. Her latest bodies of work focus on the threat of rising tides caused by climate change, the trillions of pieces of plastic in our oceans and the wars that are predicted to occur in the future over access to clean water. She is also the co-creator of two interactive public art projects: The Wave, which addresses our mutual need for and interdependence on water and Home, which calls attention to homelessness and the lack of affordable housing in our cities and towns.


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

Creative Carbon Scotland…in Italian! La Terra Non è Mai Sporca published

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

We’re excited to announce that the work of Creative Carbon Scotland has been featured in an international book!

Authored by Luciana Ciliento and Carola Benedetto, the book is a collection of essays written by land artists, mountaineers, environmental activists, politicians, farmers, and our very own Green Arts Project Manager – Catriona Patterson!

The earth is never dirty

The book is entitled ‘La terra non è mai sporca’, which translates as ‘The Earth is never dirty’. Each chapter is written by a different contributor, and reflects on their differing perspectives and relationship with our physical environment. A number of wide-ranging topics are covered, including: new humanism, the intersection with politics, fast fashion, borders and identity.

We’re thrilled to be included in this publication, and to have had the opportunity to share our approach with a wider audience. Creative Carbon Scotland’s contribution focuses on Scotland’s national efforts to become more sustainable (through things like our ambitious climate change targets) and how culture should be a fundamental driver in our society, particularly when it comes to re-evaluating our actions and approaches in the time of climate change.

Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award nominee

We’ve previously worked with Luciana before, in her role at Italian performing arts company Gruppo Del Cerchio. Their production, Song of the Earth was shortlisted for the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award (which we run with the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts) back in 2014. It’s fantastic to see an arts company so committed to environmental sustainability – working across performance and literature to achieve a more sustainable global society.

Creative Carbon Scotland...in Italian! La Terra Non è Mai Sporca published 2We’re not Italian speakers here in the Creative Carbon Scotland team, so there are no dramatic readings planned (yet!) but we are happy to lend out our copy to those who can read it first-hand!

The book is also available in e-book format and physical copy format through a variety of online websites, including Mondadoristore.it.

Find out more about the book and other contributors on this website.

Presenting Creative Carbon Scotland’s work internationally

In June, Catriona will be speaking at Leggendo Metropolitano, an International Festival of Cultures and Innovative Techniques in Sardinia, created and promoted by the Associazione Prohairesis from Cagliari. Find out more about the festival www.leggendometropolitano.it

The post Creative Carbon Scotland…in Italian! La Terra Non è Mai Sporca published 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