Yearly Archives: 2011

Conference: “People and Nature in Mountains”

This post comes to you from Cultura21

21st to 23rd September 2011, Trondheim, Norway

Abstract submission deadline: 15th June.

This conference will address how archaeology and cultural history can be integrated with long-term and contemporary ecology to understand landscape dynamics and underpin sustainable management and conservation of both cultural heritage and biodiversity in mountain environments. For more information visit: www.ntnu.no/vitenskapsmuseet/peopleandnature.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)

– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)

– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)

– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

a little girl and a big snake – can the arts connect us before its too late?

This post comes to you from An Arts and Ecology Notebook

Post image for a little girl and a big snake – can the arts connect us before its too late?

Was just reading the following quote from a book The Care of Creation (2000) and thinking about this ecopoem entry into last weeks British Talent show that has gone viral on youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyYizYZKFtU

”When the greatest beasts before whom our ancestors shrank in terror is in danger of extinction, when the very biodiversity of the planet seems to depend on the implementation of a political treaty, the only thing to be in awe of is the dizzying power of human culture…. our problem today… is that our awe has given way to an exploitative and managerial approach to nature.”

save the humansI loved Olivia’s courage to present her ‘passion, which she knows is out of fashion’ but I couldn’t help but feel though that many in audience while applauding this audacious poetic gesture fail to see the bigger crisis that extinction is pointing to, ie that extinction doesn’t only apply to snakes! (I saw the polar bear image above earlier this week and thought, yep, the polar bears have got it – a friend of mine has it as his avatar on Facebook)

Other contributors to Care of Creation printed back in 2000, from scientists to theologians state that ‘the ecocrisis is so serious that scientists and political solutions alone are unlikely to address it satisfactorily’… which some of us are beginning to realise. One of the contributors quotes an earlier writer, Hamilton in 1993, who argued, ‘it is not the ecologists, engineers, economists or earth scientists who will save spaceship earth, but the poets (even small ones), priests, artists and philosophers’.

Here’s another creative work which dovetails Olivia’s piece above, don’t you think.

[iframe http://player.vimeo.com/video/19569018?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0 500 281]

Olivia gets where science often fails and where artistic performance excels…. ‘if I say their Latin names will you listen more?’

An Arts & Ecology Notebook, by Cathy Fitzgerald, whose work exists as ongoing research and is continually inspired to create short films, photographic documentation, and writings. While she interacts with foresters, scientists, and communities, she aims to create a sense of a personal possibility, responsibility and engagement in her local environment that also connects to global environmental concerns.

Go to An Arts and Ecology Notebook

Summer Residency Program: “Reconfiguring Site”

This post comes to you from Cultura21

July 11 until August 19 in New York City by the School of Visual Arts

The six-week summer program ”Reconfiguring Sites: New Approaches to Public Art and Architecture” highlights different areas that are currently manifest in public art: such as social intervention, new media technologies, interdisciplinary collaborations with architecture, ecological and environmental interventions, and performance.

Prominent figures working in these areas will discuss their practice and offer critiques of participants’ work. In addition, resident artists will attend workshops that are designed specifically to learn the tools essential to working in the field of public art.

Through the workshops and the guidance of faculty and guest lecturers, interdisciplinary and collaborative teams will be encouraged and artists will develop and present a professional proposal. This program covers topics such as reading from the plan, grant proposal writing, contracts, funding for self-initiated projects and workshops in fabrication.

Taking full advantage of New York City’s rich resources, participants will engage with leading artists, architects, landscape architects, curators and critics in the field. SVA’s state-of-the-art digital sculpture facility offers the resources for experimenting with ideas in an environment conducive to creative exploration and supportive of logistical issues involved in public art pursuits. Sculpture facilities and facilities for working with custom electronics, high-end digital photography, video, 3D graphics and sound production equipment are available.

Current faculty and lecturers include: Herve-Armand Bechy, Mary Ellen Carroll, Charlotte Cohen, Eiko and Koma, Christina Ewing, Wendy Feuer, Anita Glesta, Deborah Gans, Marlina Gonzalez, Kendall Henry, Jonathan Lippincott, Tom Otterness, Lauren Ross, Harriet Senie, Meryl Taradash, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Jerry Van Eyck and Krzysztof Wodiczko.

For more information about this program visit: reconfiguringsite.sva.edu.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)

– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)

– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)

– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

“Imperishable Water” and the Question of Development

This post comes to you from Cultura21
Reposted from poieinkaiprattein.org

photographer Nikos Kasseris


Field workshop from 29th of May until 5th of June 2011 in Rhodes, Greece

Departure: 29th of May 2011, 19.00 from the Port of Piraeus with the Blue Star Ferries.

On the occasion of the World Environment Day, June 5th 2011, this field trip aims at combining artistic, philosophical and environmental approaches to the question of the future development of wetland ecosystems of Rhodes.

Objectives:

  • Examine the contradictions or convergences among the various models of economic management (farming, stock-breeding, tourism and housing) inside the specific landscapes, in relation to the existing institutional conservation framework.
  • Resuscitate the memory of wetlands, by tracing the evidence of wetlands in time, as preserved by the material and immaterial culture (language, customs, technology etc.).
  • Positive evaluation of the environmental aspect inside the cohesive network of the insular landscape.
  • Energize the local communities by strengthening the bonds with the work- people, educators, local government institutions and youth.
  • Manifest the power of culture (philosophy, architecture, literature, music, visual and performative arts) towards responsible attitudes of stakeholders or policy makers.
  • Investigate the development models in site specific landscapes marked by the urgent need of the preservation of water resources.

Actions:

  • Organize a collaborative field work with joint actions, in site specific areas, among the relevant institutions of the island and the team of the workshop consisted of philosophers, anthropologists, biologists, architects-planners, environmentalists, new media artists and poets, coming from Greece or other European countries.
  • Ensure an on going and follow-up digital or conventional recording and documentation as well as the inauguration of a data base resulting from the field work and depicting the diverse fields of research.
  • Collaborate with the educational sector, First Degree and the University of the Aegean in order to organize programmes with an artistic content (music, visual and performative art and literature) having as inspiration the water resources and the landscapes of wetlands.
  • Co-operate with the International Writers and Translator’s Center of Rhodes by focusing on the poetess Katerina Anghelaki Rouk and the natural element in her poetry.
  • Produce an artistic action e.g. a performance at a site specific wetland, Sunday 5th of June 2011, World Environment Day.
  • Organize a Day Conference with the following aims: to manifest the cultural dimension as the only way of rescue as well as being the most prominent vehicle of development procedures, to energize the local institutions and organizations in order to undertake initiatives with permanent perspectives in respect to environmental and cultural criteria, to propose the diversion of the main economic activity, that is tourism, from the massive, consuming model to the quality dimension, in respect to the diversity, the beauty and the mosaic of the landscape. Outcome: a Co-operation Memorandum with the agreement of all participating institutions.
  • Produce a half an hour documentary addressed to participate during the ‘’Rodos ecofilms –International films and visual arts festival’’ taking place annually in Rhodes.
  • Future perspectives-2nd stage. Fist show of the documentary during the ‘’Rodos ecofilms –International films and visual arts festival’’ June 2012 and parallel site specific land art istallation.

Sites of Interest-Wetlands of Rhodes:

  • Wetlands: Rivers, creeks, estuary and delta of rivers, lakes, lagoons, marshes, springs, lakeside or riverside sites, salt-pits, artificial water reservoirs.
  • Rhodes is among the islands with the largest number of wetlands
    • River Loutanis and Dam of Gadouras
    • Marsh of Plemmyri and Marsh of Katavia
    • Torrent Kontaris and Damlake of Apolakkia
    • Streamlet of Butterflies and River Platis
  • In some of the above wetlands is still observed the threatened endemic fish gkizani (Ladigesocypris ghigii), biological symbol of the island.

This project is organized by:

  • Haroula Hadjinicolaou, art historian Benaki Museum
  • Anna Arvanitaki, president of Poiein kai Prattein and urban/land planner at Greek Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change
  • Hatto Fischer: coordinator and poet / philosopher

In collaboration with:

The text reproduced above was written by the  project organizers at  poieinkaiprattein.org. For more information, please visit that website.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)

– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)

– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)

– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Water: Traditional Knowledge

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Recognising the value of Traditional Knowledge is an ongoing project.  The United Nations University’s Institute of Advanced Studies Traditional Knowledge Project contributed to the 5th World Water Forum in 2009.  The proceedings published on their web site give a hint of the depth of this area.

There are various reports bringing traditional knowledge to bear on national and international water policy, including Northern Voices, Northern Waters from the North West Territories, the Anishinabek Report from Ontario and A Policy Statement on North Australian Indigenous Water Rights.

What is striking about all of these documents is that the meaning of water rights is deeply embedded in beliefs, cultural histories and traditional knowledge, but that the recommendations are framed in the modern management language of leadership, recommendations and executive summaries.  This ability to frame critical issues with respect and also with impact is a particular strength of the voice of indigenous peoples: Gavin Renwick relates that the Elders talk about the need to be “strong like two people” meaning to be strong in the western culture, and also strong in the traditional culture.

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

Nuclear history, nuclear future

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Artists have been working with the cultural and environmental dimensions of nuclear power for a long time.  Many have also been anti-nuclear activists as well.  The artists want to raise awareness and contribute to the public discussion.

This work isn’t facile or simple, and drawing attention to it is done in a spirit of respect for the people currently working to minimise the impact of the disaster at Fukushima.

Gair Dunlop is launching his film Atom Town with a tour including Inspace at Edinburgh University 27/28 May, Caithness Horizons, Thurso, 3 June and Arts Catalyst, London, 23 June.  There is a short ‘sketch’ on Vimeo:

Dounreay Atomic Research Establishment (official website for decomissioning) is a sprawling monument to solidity, optimism and analogue engineering. The intangible alchemies and sense of romantic science at its heart are trapped like amber in archive film and in its colossal structures. Over the last two years, unprecedented access to the facility and to the UKAEA Archive at Harwell have allowed Gair Dunlop to explore the dream and the consequences of high science in a remote community.

Eve Andree Laramee has successfully secured funding through UnitedStatesArtists.org amongst other sources for her film/video project Slouching Towards Yucca Mountain.  Yucca Mountain in Nevada is a proposed nuclear waste repository.  This work in development is about another aspect of legacy.

Her initial proposal video is on youTube:

She has also posted some initial character sketches on youTube:

But each of these artists has their own personal history with nuclear activism. Sitting with Lorna Waite discussing art and nuclear activism I discovered that the reason she didn’t get to be Civic Week Queen in Kilbirnie when she was 16 was because she asked “What exactly is a safe container for radioactive waste?”  She went on to an action to disrupt a meeting of the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management – she took some sand from Dalgety Bay in a lead-lined container and a home-made Geiger-counter to the meeting.  Dalgety Bay is polluted with radioactive waste because the luminous dials for WWII aircraft have ended up there (download an NHSFife document on the subject).  She then went on to talk about the assassination of Willie Ross, an SNP activist who had been working on legal arguments against Nirex and their plan to do test drilling in the Scottish Highlands in preparation for developing a nuclear repository. 

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

Unconference: “Re-Rooting Digital Culture”

This post comes to you from Cultura21

13th of May at the University of Westminster

Over the last decade the awareness of anthropogenic climate change has emerged in parallel with global digital communication networks. By their very nature, the new tools, networks and behaviours of productivity, exchange and cooperation between humans and machines grow and develop at an accelerated rate.

The transdisciplinary panel will explore the impact of digital culture on climate change, developing themes adopted in grass-roots, emerging and established practices in art, design and science.

The ideas for the unconference have grown out of Furtherfield’s Media Art Ecologies programme. ”Unconference” thereby stands for a participant-driven meeting, which tries to avoid some of the aspects of a conventional conference, such as high fees, sponsored presentations, and top-down organization.

Furtherfield was founded in 1997 as the Internet took shape as a new public space for internationally connected cultural production and is now a centre where upwards of 26,000 contributors worldwide have built a culture around co-creation – swapping and sharing code, music, images, video and ideas.

For more information visit: www.furtherfield.org.

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)

– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)

– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)

– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

Materials, Objects, Environments – A HotHouse Workshop on Ecological Thinking

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Reposted from www.projetcoal.org

19 & 20 May 2011; Lowy Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

What is ecological thinking and how does it transform the way we understand materials, objects and environments? Participants of this HotHouse workshop are invited to brainstorm about a future exhibition project on hyperobjects for the new gallery complex at the College of Fine Arts.

Tickets and registration on: www.niea.unsw.edu.au

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)

– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)

– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)

– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

UK Green Film Festival

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

LAUNCHING IN CARDIFF, LEEDS, LEICESTER, LONDON

& GLASGOW at the GFT

The UK Green Film Festival, launching in 2011, is a not-for-profit, national film festival showcasing films and filmmakers engaging with environmental and climate change themes. We’re not here to preach. We’re here to challenge, inspire, educate, learn and entertain.

The GFT will be showing GasLand, With Landscape in Mind, Plastic Planet, Planeat and The Pipe about Rossport’s resistance to the gas pipeline. 

 

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

CSPA Prague Convergence: Reduce Waste at the Prague Quadrennial – Can You Help?

CSPA Prague Convergence: Reduce Waste at the Prague Quadrennial

Our Goal

To create a design-based performance piece in response to the 2011 Prague Quadrennial that examines materials, and then organizes and redistribute (would be wasted) materials to the local arts community.

CSPA Prague Convergence: Reduce Waste at the Prague Quadrennial

Our Story

The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts is a hybrid organization dedicated to gathering and redistributing information about sustainable practices in art making.  This project marks our first initiative to solve one of the major dilemmas of creating art on the ground:  Wasted Materials!  We will travel to Prague this summer to focus on the environmental impact of production at the 2011 Prague Quadrennial and will creatively repurpose the waste generated from this 10-day design conference of over seventy exhibiting countries.

Organizing team members include Ian Garrett and Miranda Wright (co-founders of the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts), Sarah Peterson (Production Manager, Theater Artist, New York CSPA Associate), Moe Beitiks (artist, cultural volunteer, and writer for inhabitat, CBOT, and the CSPA), Misa Rygrova (leading researcher on this topic in the Czech Republic), and James McKernan (faculty at York University and Technical Director for the PQ’s Scenofest).

CSPA Prague Convergence: Reduce Waste at the Prague Quadrennial

The PQ

The Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space is a leading world artistic event – a presentation of contemporary work in a variety of performance design disciplines and genres including costume, stage, lighting, sound design, and theatre architecture for dance, opera, drama, site-specific, multi-media performances, and performance art.

Founded in 1967, the Prague Quadrennial has presented work from more than 70 countries on 5 continents. The exhibition draws thousands of performance and theatre professionals, students, and spectators from all over the world. At the most recent Quadrennial in 2007, 35,000 visitors came to enjoy installations, photos, videos, and live performances of work ranging between theatre and visual arts, as well as more than 500 events, workshops, performances, presentations, lectures, and discussions.

CSPA Prague Convergence: Reduce Waste at the Prague Quadrennial

The Impact

This project will be a significant catalyst for the advancement of sustainability in theater and design.  It is an opportunity to develop a comprehensive case study on community engagement in creative resource management.  As a performance, it will examine the relationship of production communities from around the world to their use of materials practically and dramaturgically.  It will create new methods for distributing large amounts of previously used materials quickly, test the limits of a community’s ability to absorb the material, and develop a mode of a working network of materials exchange.

CSPA Prague Convergence: Reduce Waste at the Prague Quadrennial

What We Need & What You Get

We are looking for $4,000 in additional funding to supplement travel for our team, and to provide resources and tools for distributing materials and documenting this project.

We promise to give you what we get:  INFORMATION!  We’ll be documenting this project, and will gladly share our findings with you.  Other perks include copies of the CSPA Quarterly, a publication dedicated to sustainable practices in all creative areas, CSPA membership, and special tokens from the PQ!

Other Ways You Can Help

Spread the word!  Share this project with your friends and colleagues.

To support the greater effort of the CSPA, become a member by visiting www.sustainablepractice.org/join-the-cspa

Campaign CSPA Prague Convergence: Reduce Waste at the Prague Quadrennial — IndieGoGo.