Yearly Archives: 2012

The tide could turn with ‘Ten Billion’

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory
Wallace Heim writes:

Theatre critic Kate Abbott in today’s Guardian joins Michael Billington in reporting a life-changing experience watching Ten Billion at the Royal Court.

Like the facts that Stephen Emmott presented, Abbott can recite the well-polished instructions to “help us out of this hole”:

“Never buying a car, iPod, or cotton T-shirt again … stopping our addiction to fossil fuels, starting a mass-desalination programme, building green energy power points on every strip of land, harnessing every scrap of wind, and every turn of the tide …”

But one change is missing. What about demanding that theatre itself changes? What about demanding that mainstream theatre no longer turns away from the compelling emotional, moral and intellectual questions of how humans can continue to live in a time of climate instability? Theatre is more than science, more than facts, more than an instruction manual. What about demanding that theatre takes on its full life-changing role, somewhere between fiction and fact, and becomes the place where audiences wrestle with their future?

See ‘Ten Billion’ from another side.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

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New Red Stables Art & Ecology Summer School publication

This post comes to you from An Arts and Ecology Notebook

Image: A meeting of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club at the Giant’s Causeway, 11 June, 1868. Photograph © National Museums Northern Ireland Collection Ulster Museum

Image: A meeting of the Belfast Naturalists’ Field Club at the Giant’s Causeway, 11 June, 1868. Photograph © National Museums Northern Ireland Collection Ulster Museum

I gave a presentation of my theory and practice research, and my video experiments to date (see video at top of my homepage), the Hollywood Diaries: screen reel 2008-12. There were contributions from many other diverse fields that were part of significant projects undertaken by Seoidín O’Sullivan and Geraldine O’Reilly. My video was shown along with films and videos by Seoidín O’Sullivan, Grace Weir, David Nash, Andy Goldsworthy, Christine Mackey, Toon.ie animations.A great legacy of the Dublin Red Stables Art & Ecology summer school, in which I took part in August, has now been produced. The series of events and projects have been reviewed and collated into a new publication created by the Dublin City Arts Office, edited by  Seán O Sullivan with an essay by invited curator and cultural geographer, Dr Karen E. Till.

All are welcome to attend the book launch, details below. I will putting a copy of the book into the National College of Art & Design for those that are interested. My thanks to Denise and the staff at Red Stables for creating such a important project and to Karen Till for reviewing what is becoming an important new area in fine art/visual culture and cultural geography.

The book  launch was this Saturday 15 December 2012.

The Red Stables Summer School: Jul – Aug 2012
St. Anne’s Park, Dublin 3

Edited by Seán O Sullivan

This Saturday, Dublin City Council Arts Office will launch a book entitled The Red Stables Summer School: Jul – Aug 2012, which details two major projects, Seoidín O’Sullivan’s Field Work and Geraldine O’Reilly’s Weeds Are Plants Too!. This year’s summer school included a rolling series of talks and field trips with invited artists, geographers, botanists and architects and an art & ecology summer school.

Alongside more than sixty full-colour illustrations, the book includes essays by Seán O Sullivan, Dr. Karen E. Till [Cultural Geographer, NUI Maynooth], and Dr. Declan Doogue, [Botanist, Dublin Naturalists’ Field Club]. It is printed lithographically on high quality book paper in an edition of 250 copies, and it is available free of charge.

This book which highlights art and ecology projects that took place in St. Anne’s Park will be launched by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Naoise Ó Muirí, who will also switch on the Christmas tree lights.

Following on from The Red Stables Summer School and the theme of art and nature, there will be a ‘Winter Walk’ in the park with Botanist, Dr. Declan Doogue.

This project is supported by Dublin City Council Arts Office and the Arts Council of Ireland.

  Screen Shot 2012-12-12 at 21.33.02

Related links:

My talk online and video works at Red Stables Art & Ecology summer school,  17 July 2012

Art and Ecology at the Red Stables Summer School Dublin

Stories from the Field and Forest seminar at Red Stables Dublin

Please note:

Due to time demands, I am now posting a lot more regularly on my new phd website www.ecoartfilm.com which you are also welcome to follow. Just add your email to bottom of homepage. Here you will find info on experimental ecocinema practice and theory, my work and others in this small field.

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

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To Life! eco art in pursuit of a sustainable planet

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Linda Weintraub has produced an excellent series of books on arts and ecology – they are toolkits and learning resources suitable for people who want to know more or engage groups in arts and ecology.

The most recent just published by the University of California Press is To Life!  The blurb is here Linda Weintraub: To Life! and you can purchase it here University of California Press.  Other titles are here.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.
It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.
Go to EcoArtScotland

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Call for Papers – Crisis, Critique and Change

This post comes to you from Cultura21

esa-150x150The European Sociological Association (ESA) is calling for papers for their 11th conference, taking place in Turin, Italy from the 28-31 August 2013. The topic of the conference is “Crisis, Critique and Change“.

There are multiple calls by all the different Research Network and Research Streams, ranging from Environment and Society or Quantitative Research to Social Theory, as well as a Call for Paper for a pre-conference PhD Workshop at the end of August.

One particular Research Network is the Sociology of the Arts RN chaired by Tasos Zembylas:

Art’s position within society and politics has always been complex and ambivalent. Artists may raise a critical voice or offer ideological legitimation for a dominant, hegemonic image of society. They may display a strong commitment or keep a distance from others’ fate. The attitude of the arts towards contemporary issues such as the ecological crisis, the debt crisis, violence against minorities and opponents, economic exploitation, and deprivation of people’s rights has never lost any relevance. Therefore, we would like to create special sessions and invite papers on this topic with the expectation that they may include a broad nexus of sub-issues around the relation and commitment of arts in society.

More information on this specific call, is available here.

The deadline for submissions is the 1st February 2013. For further information on the Conference, all the Calls for Papers and the submission procedure please visit:http://www.esa11thconference.eu/home/

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

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‘Ten Billion’ from another side

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Wallace Heim writes:

Michael Billington, in his nomination of Ten Billion as the best theatre event of 2012, claims that all the people he knows who saw the production found it life-changing. From my unscientific poll of the dozen people I know who saw the production, including myself, it’s possible we were in a different theatre. The lecture was well-crafted, the production tight, but the event was neither moving, informative or motivating. It was ‘old news’, a ‘first-year introductory lecture’, ‘Al Gore without the cherry picker’.

Billington’s lauding of the production is encouraging. That he, and others, were deeply affected is even more so, although one wonders what he has avoided reading or seeing for the past 20 years if the information presented was shocking. But Billington finds that it is not merely the accumulation of statistics, but the presence – the performance - of Stephen Emmott, the verifiable scientist, the speaker with a creditable reputation outside the theatre, that gave the production its urgency.

For this audience, the fluid realm of belief and disbelief that makes theatre work had to break down for the shock of climate instability to be heard. At the same time, the very theatrical occasion of sitting in that darkened room redolent of emotions of past productions, listening to another human speak, heightened any effect.

Asking again of those who found the production lacking, I found in each person’s experience at least one, if not many moments when the numbers add up, when the terror hits, when someone trusted speaks about a future irreconcilable with what one could bear. These events can be motivating and if Ten Billion provided that for some, then theatre’s role as educator has been met.

But if you’ve already had that experience, theatre is where you want to go to understand it, and a collocation of facts will not do that. This is a far more confused territory, requiring human imagination and many avenues of intelligence, deliberation, conflict and consent. It requires doing something like the processes of science, itself – its questioning and cross-questioning, experimentation, doubt and informed agreement.

Theatre may not be the place to present firm courses of action; Emmott’s advice to get a gun falls especially short. Conventional forms of theatre may, or may not, be adequate to the combination of reality and fiction that understanding climate change demands. But theatre, or something like it, continues to be a place where collectively, humans find a way through. There will continue to be many kinds of productions for many kinds of audiences. The hunger for a theatre by the audience that gets the facts but wants more continues to be strong.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.

The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

Powered by WPeMatico

‘Ten Billion’ changes Billington

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Stephen Emmott in Ten Billion

Wallace Heim writes:

Michael Billington in today’s Guardian nominates Ten Billion as the ‘most momentous theatrical performance’ of 2012. The show was a lecture by Stephen Emmott, at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, on the consequences of human overpopulation and climate change.

Billington writes: ‘I came out shaking with fear, but also moved by theatre’s capacity to confront the emergency facing our planet.

‘This was theatre doing what it does best: confronting us with unpalatable facts about our very existence. This doesn’t mean that there is no room for invented stories or that King Lear and The Lion King have suddenly become redundant. But Ten Billion, directed by Katie Mitchell, shocked us into a new awareness of the future, and even the existing present, with ecosystems being destroyed, the atmosphere polluted, temperatures rising and a billion people facing water shortages.

‘I don’t know a single person who saw it who didn’t feel it was a life-changing experience. If enough people, especially those in positions of power, could see Emmott’s lecture, it might, just might, help to save our planet from destruction’.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

Powered by WPeMatico

A Climate Change in the Art World?

This post comes to you from Cultura21

An interesting article on www.artnews.com, written by Robin Cembalast, gives insight about the impact of Hurricane Sandy on the art community in New York and shows that Sandy could have been the wake-up call for the community to realize that action against climate change is required on their part.

Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s Chief Curator of Architecture and Design is thinking about reshaping New York in a collective movement of architects, designer, officials and others:

“I don’t want to have yet another panel discussion, I want something that takes it to yet another level of effectiveness. I’m trying to figure out what that is.”

A more radical art project concerned with Global Warming is the Greenhouse Britain by theHarrisons, as it addresses resettlement as the final consequence of climate change and shows how artists can work with architects and urban planners to redesign cities and neighborhoods. Of course this proposes a more drastic approach to the reaction to climate change and arts’s role in it, as it asumes that rising water levels are inevitable and that the then displaced population will need a differently designed civilization. But maybe adaption to climate change will require this kind of transformation?

For the whole article at artnews.com, click here.

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

Powered by WPeMatico