The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts

Maya Lin: Here and There

Cultura21 — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:30:08 +0000

Apr 26, 2013 – Jun 22, 2013, at Pace Gallery, in New York (USA)

New work by Maya Lin exploring her longtime interest in environmental issues, including rising currents and climate change, and expanding her engagement with natural and geographic forms.Click here for the gallery’s website

An article on the exhibition was published in the New York Times (on April 25th):

“…in a sense, Hurricane Sandy also woke up Ms. Lin. Soon after the floodwaters receded, she decided she wanted her latest show at Pace — her first conceived specifically for a commercial gallery — to fix on Manhattan and its surrounding landscape, environmental history and waterways.“I really wanted people to understand more about literally what’s right under their feet,” she said. “I wanted to really focus on revealing aspects of New York, which we might not be thinking about from a natural, topographic, environmental point of view.”

Read the full article here, by Carol Kino.

Her website, mentioned below, is well worth visiting:

“…the show’s most unexpected aspect is a space devoted to her Web site What Is Missing?(whatismissing.net), begun in 2011 as part of a larger memorial to vanishing species and habitats worldwide. “I see it as a guerilla artwork,” she said.”

Artists, Art Communities and Creative Initiatives in the Urban Spaces of Russia and Europe

Cultura21 — Sun, 19 May 2013 15:48:33 +0000

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Open Interdisciplinary Seminar series “Scientific Environment”, 6th meeting of the 2013 spring session

May 14th 2013, Faculty of Sociology, St. Petersburg State University (Russia), ul. Smolnogo 1/3, entrance 9, room 229, 18:00

Speakers:

Sacha Kagan (Leuphana University Lueneburg, and Cultura21): “Creative cities and the challenge of sustainability”

Nikita Basov and Anisya Khokhlova (St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of sociology): “Communication Practices of Knowledge Generation: Comparing Creative Communities in St. Petersburg”
Anna Zhelnina (Higher School of Economics at St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg State University, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences) and Alexandra Nenko (Higher School of Economics at St. Petersburg): “Self-Organizing Urban Initiatives: Actors and Practices of Creative Transformation of the City”

This event is organized by the Center for German and European Studies (a collaboration between the St. Petersburg State University in Russia and the University of Bielefeld in Germany).

Website (with abstracts): click here

New Directions in Social Ecology: From Climate Action to Housing Justice

Cultura21 — Sat, 18 May 2013 19:28:51 +0000

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New Directions in Social Ecology: From Climate Action to Housing Justice

An Intensive Seminar for All Levels

Each year, the Institute for Social Ecology hosts intensive seminars for students, activists, and community leaders to come together to explore sets of dynamic and urgent social and ecological issues. This year, the Institute for Social Ecology is thrilled to offer, for the first time, a seminar right in the heart of San Francisco.

We will be partnering with the California Institute for Integral Studies based in the SOMA district and on major transit lines. Classes will include the politics and philosophy of Social Ecology, international social movements for direct democracy, alternatives to capitalism, climate justice with a focus and emphasis on urban housing and land struggles. We have designed this intensive to be a bit longer than previous programs so as to secure time for local field trips that will allow us to get to know the community and history in which we are studying.

APPLY HERE! for the San Francisco Intensive

What is Social Ecology?

Social Ecology is an interdisciplinary perspective that weaves together aspects of ecology, philosophy, anthropology, and political theory. As a body of ideas, social ecology favors a moral economy over a market economy, while striving to foster human and biological diversity in a directly democratic world.

The Institute for Social Ecology (ISE) was founded in 1974 as an educational institution dedicated to the exploration of social ecology and its relationship to fields including philosophy, history, economics, the natural sciences, post-colonialism, and feminism. Historically, the ISE has been a pioneer in community-based approaches to alternative technologies, directly democratic organizing, and ecological urban design. ISE faculty, students, and alumna have played key roles in movements to challenge nuclear power, environmental racism, agricultural biotechnology, climate crisis, and global injustice.

What is an ISE Intensive?

The ISE organizes educational ‘intensive seminars’ that deepen students’ understanding of human/nature relationships, directly democratic movements, climate change, and the historical unfolding of Left politics. At ISE intensives, students establish links between their current political work on the ground to the ‘grounded theory’ of social ecology. In that spirit, the ISE has organized intensive seminars to among core Occupy NYC organizers while also fostering strategic ongoing movement-building in the New York area.

APPLY HERE! for the San Francisco Intensive

check out the event on Facebook!

“I was able to attend two of these [Intensives] in NYC and would love to go again!” – Jose Whelan

“I am enormously happy that the Institute for Social Ecology is coming to SF!!! Radical, coherent and powerful body of ideas taught by talented and dedicated teachers that can transform your perspective of politics, evolution, nature, revolution, environmentalism, climate change, capitalism, power and hierarchy.” -Liana Sweeney, past Intensive student

Dates: June 12th – 22nd, 2013

Location: California Institute for Integral Studies, 1453 Mission Street, San Francisco CA

Scholarships: Available, please inquire.

Tuition: $250 – $400 sliding scale or $50 per class. To secure your spot in the seminar, a deposit (30% of your fee) is required. To make your deposit, click on the donate button (up and to the right of this text) and describe your donation as “SF Intensive.”

Readings: coming soon!

Intensive Seminar Instructors

Dan Chodorkoff: What is Social Ecology/the Utopian Tradition

Dan Chodorkoff is a cultural anthropologist and co-founder of the Institute for Social Ecology. He recently published his first novel,Loisaida, a reflection on the rich history of people’s struggles in New York’s Lower East Side.

Chaia Heller: Direct Democracy and Dual Power / The Alter Left (History of the Left)

Chaia Heller is a cultural anthropologist and a professor of gender studies at Mt. Holyoke College. She is the author of Ecology of Everyday Life: Rethinking the Desire for Nature, and just released her second book, Food Farms and Solidarity: French Farmers Challenge Industrial Agriculture and Genetically Modified Crops.

Peter Staudenmaier: What is Capitalism?/A Moral Economy: Around the world, people dissatisfied with global capitalism face challenging questions about what kind of society could replace the present one: How can we build amoral economy in the wreckage of a market economy? This course will explore how capitalism works and how a fundamentally different economic system can be both possible and practical.

Peter Staudenmaier is a historian, and a professor of modern German history at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. He co-wrote the book Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience with Janet Beihl.

Brooke Lehman: Building Transformative movements: How can we build democratic organizations and movements powerful enough to shift systemic power and grounded enough to evolve the very nature how we relate to each other and to our own deepest sense of purpose? In this class students will develop their own personal mission and vision statements; practice communication skills for effective leadership; and learn how to design healthy organizational
structures and coalitions.

Brian Tokar: Social Justice and Climate Action

Brian Tokar is currently the director of the Institute for Social Ecology and a lecturer of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont. His most recent book is Toward Climate Justice: Perspectives on the Climate Crisis and Social Change.

Hilary Moore with James Tracy: Solidarity and Alliance Building

Hilary Moore is a founding member of Mobilization for Climate Justice- West in the Bay Area. She co-wrote the booklet Organizing Cools the Planet: Tools and Reflections to Navigate the Climate Crisis with Joshua Kahn Russell.

James Tracy is an organizer with the San Francisco Community Land Trust and author of Hillbilly Nationalist, Urban Race Rebels , and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times with Amy Sonnie.

Andrej Grubacic: International Movements for Democracy: What is democracy? This class will focus on several historical instances of direct democracy. From the Cossak “krug,” to the pirate ship, and from the runnaway “palenque” of Maroons, to the Chiapas village assembly.

Andrej Grubacic is a member of the International Council of the World Social Forum, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Global Balkans Network. His most recent work is Don’t Mourn, Balkanize! Essays After Yugoslavia.

*More teachers and evening speakers TBA. The Intensive will also offer a field trip to explore urban land straggles.

*Schedule and full class descriptions coming soon

For more information, email seminar@social-ecology.org

WHYLD

Chris Fremantle — Thu, 16 May 2013 19:27:37 +0000

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Join the Masters students of Art, Space, and Nature (ECA) for a private viewing of our exciting final show. WHYLD is an exhibition of works that manifest our various interpretations of the concept of wilderness. The show opens 23rd of May from 5pm to 8pm at Patriot Hall Gallery. Speak with the artists and enjoy food and refreshments.

Uranium Film Festival starts soon in Rio de Janeiro

Cultura21 — Wed, 15 May 2013 19:27:30 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

51 films from 20 different countries will be screened between May 16th and May 26th 2013 in the cinema of Rio de Janeiro´s famous Modern Art Museum (MAM). The International Uranium Film Festival is an annual festival dedicated to all films, short and feature documentaries, movies and animated films about nuclear energy, atomic bombs, nuclear accidents, uranium mining, depleted uranium weapons and radioactive risks. The best short, feature and animated films of the festival are awarded with the “Yellow Oscar”.

Two important new films of the Festival are for example: The feature documentary film “Uranium – To Die For – (HaZman Hatzahov)” by Shany Haziza from Israel about the most dangerous black market of radioactive uranium from the Congo. And “Nuclear Savage: The Islands of Secret Project” by Adam Jonas Horowitz: A documentary about nuclear bomb tests in the Marshall Islands.

Paddling Theater on the Minnesota River

Cultura21 — Wed, 15 May 2013 07:00:45 +0000

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Theater in canoes as part of the Minnesota River History Weekend &Minnesota State Water Trails 50th Anniversary

On May 18, 2013, PlaceBase Productions and performers from the Upper Minnesota River Valley area (in the USA) will stage a Paddling Theater Production on the Minnesota River as part ofMinnesota River History Weekend and Minnesota State Water Trails 50^th Anniversary. From their canoes, the audience will engage with stories, songs and characters from local river lore, presented both as live theatre and live-action radio drama in the original production: With the Future on the Line: Paddling Theater from Granite Falls to Yellow Medicine. Characters from throughout history will emerge on the river’s banks, to lead the audience on an interactive journey into the past, bringing the stories of the Minnesota River Valley.

The production is based on historical research and interviews with local residents, historians, and naturalists and written, produced and directed by Ashley Hanson & Andrew Gaylord of PlaceBase Productions. Guided 10-person voyageur canoes and a plethora of private canoes and kayaks will paddle from Kinney’s Landing, just South of Granite Falls, to the confluence of the Minnesota and Yellow Medicine Rivers. Along the way paddlers will meet with a host of explorers, scientists, river reprobates and prairie politicians, and learn about the ecology, stories, and history of the stretch of river between Granite Falls and the Upper Sioux Agency State Park. Hanson states, “the performance is a starting point for deeper discussion and connection with each other and with the place… by watching our history and stories unfold before us through interaction with lively characters and playful scenes, we learn about who we are and where we came from; then we can begin to envision our future together in a way that is creative and joyful.”

Clean Up the River Environment (CURE) and the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) have partnered with PlaceBase Productions (PBP) and Wilderness Inquiry (WI) to produce the Paddling Theater Production, as part of a larger weekend festival, Minnesota River History Weekend and Minnesota State Water Trails 50^th Anniversary. The full event runs from May 17-19. For more festival information and schedule of events, visit www.cureriver.org.

Event Details:

Starting Location: K.K. Berge Building (807 Prentice Street, Granite Falls)

Starting Time: Event Welcome 10:00am; Final scene at Memorial Park, Granite Falls at 7:30pm

Cost: $10 for a spot on Wilderness Inquiry Voyageur Canoes in advance and $15 on-site

Ages: ALL ages and abilities welcome to participate; Shuttle service provided.

Register at: www.wildernessinquiry.org/cure

Exhibition: Trouble the Water

Cultura21 — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:27:21 +0000

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Legion Arts, 1103 Third Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA (USA), May 3 – June 16 2013

Legion Arts presents an exhibit in which a dozen contemporary artists from around the world explore issues related to water: droughts and floods, climate events and climate change, as well as the economics, distribution, uses and scarcity of this incomparable commodity. Trouble the Water is curated by Diane Barber, Houston, Texas.

Featured artists include Janet Biggs (New York), Erika Blumenfeld (Qatar), Maarten Demmink (Netherlands), Chris Turner with Helen Friel & Jess Deacon (UK), Sant Khalsa (California), Mark Klett (Arizona) & Byron Wolfe (California), Nathalie Miebach (Massachusetts), Carlos Montani (Argentina), Yuka Nakajima (Japan), Lori Nix (New York), Susannah Sayler & Edward Morris (New York), Dustin Yager (Minnesota).

Public reception from 5 to 7 pm on Friday May 3. Read more here

Call for participants: Case Pyhäjoki – Artistic reflections on nuclear influence

Cultura21 — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:26:54 +0000

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Case Pyhäjoki – Artistic reflections on nuclear influence
Transdisciplinary expedition, production workshop and events

Location: Pyhäjoki, Finland
Time: 31.7. – 12.8.2013
For whom: artists, activists, scientists, thinkers and doers + everything or opinion in between.
Deadline to apply: 5.5.2013

‘Case Pyhäjoki: Artistic reflections on nuclear influence’ is a transdisciplinary artistic expedition, production workshop and presentation events in Pyhäjoki, North Ostrobothnia, Finland 31st of July to 12th of August 2013. The sixth nuclear power plant of Finland is planned to be built at Hanhikivi Cape in Pyhäjoki.

The aim of the project is to explore artistic perspectives on the vast changes planned in Pyhäjoki, through the planning of a nuclear power plant at the site, and this way of considering energy production and consuming in the world. Artists can not only reflect upon and depict social phenomena and socio-economical relations, but can also situate themselves in between politics, activism and science. Can art make changes? If so, what would be the creative tools of activism? Life itself has become increasingly politicised in the new millennium and obviously this reflects on us all. There are plenty of art works that comment on issues seen unethical or wrong, revealing different kinds of world views. Also, there are community art projects that comment for example social condition that involve participants from different fields. But can the border in between art and activism be blurred more? Could it be involving yet aesthetical? Aren’t we all activists? What are other ways of activism in addition what we are used to think? And what is the change we are after? The nuclear power plant in Pyhäjoki is a concrete project that connects many aspects from NGO-activity, politics, local and global economical situation to energy production and consumption expectations as well as decreasing natural resources.

The local situation in Pyhäjoki, and the planned nuclear power plant, is a case example for the workshop. People have formed strong opinions about the plant. The small community in the area has divided into those who are for and those who are against the power plant project. The aim of the expedition is to familiarise well with the current conditions in Pyhäjoki and try to collaborate with the local community, although many questions may be raised with are not easy. What kind of political process leads to the power plant plan? What does it mean to a small, agricultural community like Pyhäjoki or Ostrobothnia area? What does it mean at the national and global level? Can nuclear power mitigate climate change? What are the alternatives to nuclear power i.e. zero growth or new means of renewable energy production etc? Pyhäjoki is an excellent case study during the times of continuing ecological, social and economical crisis of the different path choices which humankind can take in order to flourish.

The first days of the expedition are for discussions, presentations (both local, national and international researchers, activists and artists), getting to know the area and its’ people with trips and excursions. The rest of the days are dedicated for independent or group work that can lead to e.g. a project demo, plan, performance, artistic action tools, discussion event, intervention etc. locally or creating overall action structures that can be implemented elsewhere. There will be a final public presentation and if needed a small exhibition for demos, ideas and documentations in the end of this production workshop. The aim is to have something concrete in our hands in the end to continue the work in the future.

PRACTICAL DETAILS

Please send your letter of motivation to Mari Keski-Korsu mkk[-at-]katastro.fi by 5th of May 2013.

Case Pyhäjoki -project covers the participants travel, accommodation and per diems. There is also a possibility for documentation fee in the end. We will accommodate in a cozy Holiday Village Kielosaari and utilise some other spaces in Pyhäjoki.

The travel dates are 31st of July and 12th of August.

The selected participants will be contacted in May 2013.

ORGANISERS AND SUPPORT

Case Pyhäjoki was initiated by artist Mari Keski-Korsu and is now a collaboration in between artist-organiser and researcher Andrew Paterson/Pixelache, musician and artist Antye Greie-Ripatti/Hai Art and Finnish Bioart Society. Please read more about the organisers in the end of this post.

Case Pyhäjoki is funded by Kone Foundation and Arts Promotion Centre of Finland.

BACKGROUND INFO

The actual building location of the nuclear power plant is Hanhikivi Cape. 65% of the area is nature preservation with rich marine flora and fauna. It is also a rare land lifting shore where the land is still rising up from the sea due to processes of the last Ice age. There is no industry or energy production at the cape. The infrastructure for the nuclear power plant will be build as new in a so called greenfield location. Even thought the building of the plant will last for years, we are living the last moments to experience Hanhikivi as it is now. More information www.hanhikivi.net

The nuclear power plant is hoped to bring prosperity to the local community but there are still many people against the building plan. People are scared to loose their land, homes and all the risks the nuclear power production brings. Recently, the company responsible of the project Fennovoima Oy announced the plan to store the nuclear waste materials also at the Pyhäjoki plant, as the Finnish long-term nuclear waste material storage ‘Olkiluoto/Onkalo’ may not be able to store all the country’s nuclear waste. In autumn 2012, the German energy company E-on resigned from the Pyhäjoki Nuclear Power Plant project. It was the biggest investor in the project and was considered to have the best know-how of the building process. Other international nuclear energy partners have been approached to replace E-on.

The biggest town close to Pyhäjoki is Raahe and the neighbouring municipalities including Pyhäjoki have been very much dependent on one big employer, steel factory Rautaruukki Oy, established in Raahe in 1960. It was seen as an answer to economical despair after the local shipping companies declined, and now that Rautaruukki has been laying off people. Hence, the nuclear power plant is seen to bring new jobs and basically repeat the economic promise that Rautaruukki brought to the area previously. Another point of view is also that the plant can produce energy for the needs of the steel factory.
www.raahe.fi
www.pyhajoki.fi

MORE INFO ABOUT THE ORGANISERS AND PARTNERS

Mari Keski-Korsu (Artist, initiator of the project, organiser, born in Raahe)
Mari Keski-Korsu (mkk) is an transdisciplinary artist. She explores how ecological and socio-economical changes manifest in people’s everyday life. Her works have a political nature with a humorous twist. The basis of the work is in location, a place and people’s relations to it. Keski-Korsu started her artistic career with photography and then started to work with internet live streaming in the mid 1990′. This lead her to work with live video visualisations as well as net and video art, interventions, documentary, installations and location based art. She is interested in relations in between art, politics and science. The works has been exhibited in Europe and in several other countries around the world. She collaborates with artist groups, researchers as well as organises and curates different types of projects.

Pixelache (Contact person and participating artist Andrew Paterson)
Pixelache, based in Helsinki, is a transdisciplinary platform for experimental art, design, research and activism. Amongst our fields of interest are: experimental interaction and electronics; renewable energy production/use; bioarts and art-science culture; grassroot organising and networks; politics and economics of media/technology; alternative economy cultures; VJ culture and audiovisual performances; media literacy and engaging environmental issues. Pixelversity, its outreach and education programme since 2010, aims to be a ‘learning bridge’ between practitioners, cultural and non-profit organisations, interested individuals and larger institutions, and an outreach programme extending beyond Helsinki. Consideration is given to the relationships between the different activities, and how they may build up accumulative knowledge and skills towards future Pixelache events. The CasePyhäjoki project is part of the Pixelversity 2013 programme’s ‘Techno-ecologies’ theme.
pixelache.ac/pixelversity

Hai Art (Contact person and participating artist Antye Greie-Ripatti, director of Hai Art)
Hai Art is an artist ran international art platform with focus on contemporary art forms such as new media, sound art, environmental, ecological and participatory arts with crossover to science and education to intertwine international and local programs in Hailuoto/ Finland. The main activities of Hai Art include public sound choir KAIKU, international The Wilderness Art Conference, national and international artist residencies as well as courses and workshops for children and youth. Hai Art occupies unused spaces, beaches, a ferry, forests, fields and public spaces etc. in Hailuoto.
www.haiart.net

The Finnish Bioart Society (Contact person Erich Berger)
The Finnish Bioart Society, established May 2008 in Kilpisjärvi, is an organisation supporting, producing and creating activities around art and natural sciences, especially biology. The Finnish Bioart Society is creating public discussions about biosciences, biotechnologies and bioethics. Additionally it is the Finnish contact node in international networks of bioart and art&science.
The Finnish Bioart Society has currently 60 members, representing different art and research fields and other expertise – bioart, theatre, film, music, video, performance art, art&science, fine arts, media art, sculpture, environmental art, design, zoology, botany, ecology, environmental sciences, animal physiology, genetics, philosophy, cultural production, art history, engineering, etc.
www.bioartsociety.fi

Pro Hanhikivi Ry (Contact person Hanna Halmeenpää)
Pro Hanhikivi is a non-governmental organisation found in 2007 at Parhalahti village to preserve Hanhikivi Bay as a nuclear power free nature and amenity area. The organisation has 300 members (autumn 2012). Pro Hanhikivi activists collaborate with the officials both in Finland and in EU, organise Hanhikivi Days festival and other smaller event as well as try to affect in many ways to stop the nuclear power plant plan in Pyhäjoki.
www.prohanhikivi.net

Proposals for creative art+science, participatory and open environmental education in the Gulf of Finland / Baltic Sea Region

Cultura21 — Sun, 12 May 2013 19:26:05 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

PROPOSALS FOR CREATIVE ART+SCIENCE, PARTICIPATORY, AND OPEN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION IN GULF OF FINLAND / BALTIC SEA REGION

Six proposals are introduced below for creative art+science, participatory and open approaches to environmental education and awareness in the Gulf of Finland Year 2014- / Baltic Sea region. They were first presented by Andrew Gryf Paterson at the Gulf of Finland Year Trilateral Environmental Education seminar, Tallinn, 28.2.2013, and are part of an ongoing dialogue and cooperation with Russian NGO Friends of the Baltic, based in St. Petersburg.

The aims of the proposals are to invigorate previous cultural association and environmental NGO work in the region, including recent Luonto-Liitto -led Itämeri-lahettilas toiminta (Baltic Sea Ambassadors activity); promote the role of trans-disciplinary collaborations, open solutions and systems-thinking; connect younger and experienced generations of environmentalists, combine old+new commons perspectives; and insist on ecological conservation+knowledge sustainability. It is also hoped they contribute to expanding the scope of the emergent Open Sustainabilitymovement, by integrating OpenGLAM (in Finland) and Open Education Resources initiatives.

Create new educational materials with participants, using creative participatory methods, for example using ‘sprint’ model, i.e. doing things fast, together, during the 2-3 days camps organised by trilateral environmental NGOs.
Offer creative art-science workshops in cooperation with trilateral environmental NGOs, based on shared-interests, for example ecological, river-water basin, agriculture and renewable energy issues, etc.
Educational training/mentorship for Environmental NGOs in Gulf of Finland / Baltic Sea Region to learn more about Open -Data, -Education, -Sustainability, and -GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums, ie. Culture)
Make accessible previously-made educational materials in digital formats, including graphics, diagrams, texts, and other data by negotiating with makers/copyright holders. This can be a selection from over a period of years, or a particular project or publication. Can be done in stages, testing & getting feedback in the process of what is useful and needed.
Contribute media (photos, videos, audio interviews and commentary) to commons-oriented repositories which promote open access, sharing and download of media materials.
Investigate & implement peer-to-peer ecologically sustainable ICT solutions for sharing materials.

If you are interested to contribute to the proposals, see elaboration, or add constructive comments, visit the related etherpad document.

Contact: Andrew Gryf Paterson | andrew [-at-] pixelache.ac

Note: Paterson, in addition to working for Pixelache, is also a member of Finnish Bioart Societysince 2011, and a new member of Open Knowledge Foundation Finland since 2013.

Internaturalism

Cultura21 — Sat, 11 May 2013 19:25:03 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Collective exhibition, 8 May – 29 September 2013, and international symposium, 8 May, at PAV (Via Giordano Bruno 31, Torino, Italy)

On Tuesday, 7 May 2013, at 6.30 pm, the PAV will open the collective exhibition Internaturalism, curated by Claudio Cravero. The exhibition aims to investigate some of the research and practice of the branch of contemporary art generally known as “ecological art” or “Bioart”, demonstrating the links and connections to current ecological debates. The works of art on show in Internaturalismassume an essential role as vehicles of social understanding of the world around us, and succeed in constructing concrete meaning from often abstract issues related to the environment and ecological drift (from loss of biodiversity to pollution and global warming). Emerging from the works of the sixteen artists in the exhibition are visions and narratives of nature that coincide with the concept of “internaturalism”, namely the capacity to imagine a hybrid between the different meanings of nature, understood not only as the common good of humanity but of all living beings.

The exhibition

Among the works on display is Perpetual Amazonia, an environmental video installation by Lucy + Jorge Orta. Commissioned in 2010 by the Natural History Museum in London, it is the narration through images and prose of an expedition undertaken in the Peruvian rainforest. The study of nature is also explored from an ethological point of view in the work of Henrik Håkansson, through a video-documentary that examines the behaviour of insects and birds. Addressing similar themes are 108, Luana Perilli’s living installation that consists of a domestic scene featuring everyday objects and a colony of ants; Colombaia mobile (Mobile Pigeon Coop) by Filippo Leonardi, a housing structure that connects two spaces through the use of carrier pigeons and, finally, Laurent Le Deuff’s sculpture in the park which is based on the underground tunnels drawn by moles. The relationship between man and nature with regard to the common cellular and organic matrix that combines living beings and the environment is also explored in the exhibition, for example in the interactive installation Bio-acqua by Piero Gilardi or in the biological processes analyzed in a mining cave by Andrea Caretto and Raffaella Spagna. Through Brigitte de Malau’s ritual performance and the work on seeds waste by Norma Jeane, Internaturalism also explores the land and the nutritional habits connected to it. Last but not least, some of the works in the exhibition intend to trigger an awareness of the typical behaviour of the homo consumer, actions aimed at the commodification of nature and of the profits related to so-called bio trade (as in the work New Alliances by CAE|Critical Art Ensemble and in the light installation Shelf-life by Uli Westphal). A series of cultural reflections on the theme of language completes the exhibition. In this regard, the results of the workshop Segni d’incontro (Signs of meeting) conducted by Nja Mahdaoui and Agostino Ferrari are presented, as well as Mixture of Plants by Gabriella Ciancimino. Ciancimino’s work is installed in the courtyard and consists of a sound apparatus through which a conversation between the artist and Christian Berg, scientific head of the Botanical Gardens of Graz, is heard.

As part of the exhibition, the Educational and Training department of the PAV, curated by Orietta Brombin, will host Rerum Naturae, a programme on the role of man in relation to natural phenomena; Cultivating Signs which addresses the issues of exchange and relationships andDelicatessen, or edible matter as an artistic medium. In terms of training for adult audiences, onFriday, 31 May, Saturday 1 June and Sunday 2 June, Andrea Caretto and Raffaella Spagna will lead Workshop_33 / Back and Forward_Colonization_02, a collective and immersive activity based on housing and work as methods to explore a place.

The Symposium

On Wednesday 8 May, from 10 Am to 6 Pm, at the Casa del Teatro Ragazzi, the PAV will host a symposium entitled Internaturalism, dedicated to debates around the theme of nature. The conference will analyse the theme of nature from multiple perspectives (aesthetic, ethical, anthropological and artistic). For more details about the symposium: click here to download the PDF file.

Collins & Goto at the Edinburgh Art Festival

Chris Fremantle — Fri, 10 May 2013 19:23:51 +0000

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Eden3, Collins & Goto, 2006 ongoing

ecoartscotland is pleased to partner with Creative Carbon Scotland and Edinburgh College of Art to present Collins & Goto’s Spirit in the Air at the Edinburgh Art Festival 2013.

Collins & Goto, the eminent US ecological artists now based in Scotland, will present new work, using the Tent Gallery as a base of operations and performance to explore the actual rate and flow of CO2 in the environment in Edinburgh. This project asks the question If humans produce gas in cities and there are no trees around to breathe it, does anyone care?

Call for Applications: Default 13

Cultura21 — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:37:04 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Art, Cities and Regeneration. Asia – Europe. Masterclass in residence – Lecce, Italy, 17th -26th September 2013

Eighteen creatives and artists (9 from Asia and 9 from Europe), selected through an international open call, will be given the opportunity to discuss and try to answer the question “What is next in art, cities and regeneration?”, focusing on the role and perspectives of public art and its implications for the social, urban context as a tool for socio-cultural transformation.

The works will take places at Manifatture Knos and other regenerated spaces in the city of Lecce.

At least one of the best artistic proposals will be realised after the Masterclass. A publication documenting the Masterclass and individual artist projects will be edited afterwards as well. Works will be in English.

Call for applications: 28th March – 26th May 2013

Organisers

DEFAULT 13 is organized by RAMDOM association (Lecce, Italy) and curated by Arthub Asia (Shanghai, China).

It is presented in collaboration with Gasworks (UK), Rogue Art Asia (Malaysia), Made in Carcere (Italy), Manifatture Knos (Italy), Cultura21 Nordic (Denmark), the School of Critical Engagement (Denmark), PB43 (Denmark), Vessel (Italy), the Region of Apulia (Italy), the Municipality of Lecce (Italy).

DEFAULT 13 project is supported by the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), Arts Network Asia (ANA) and Trans Europe Halles (TEH) as part of the programme Creative Encounters: Cultural Partnerships between Asia and Europe.

This project supports the candidature of “Lecce Capital of Culture 2019” .

Read more: click here

Seminar on how to manage more sustainable cultural centres

Cathy Fitzgerald — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:42:33 +0000

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

Think green: Invitation to Creative Strategies of Sustainability in ufaFabrik

A week of workshops and common reflection on the theme ‘Creative Strategies of Sustainability for artistic and cultural centres in Europe’ is organised in Berlin, Germany, in September 2013, to give cultural workers new inspiration concerning how to build and manage more sustainable cultural centres.

9–14 September 2013

‘Creative Strategies of Sustainability’ is a week of debate and action around the theme Culture and sustainability, and more specifically on the Creative strategies of sustainability for artistic and cultural centres in Europe.

ufaFabrik in Berlin has always been engaged on the path of sustainability and green energies. In September 2013, they organise for the second time this week-long programme for cultural operators, which proposes a common reflection and a time of intense experiences sharing around the potential “creative strategies of sustainability” that the participants might initiate for their own centres.

Composed by six full days of activities including workshops, lectures, exploring sustainable places and projects in Berlin, initiation about straw bale building, artistic expression, social interaction and more, it will be a unique opportunity for exchange, discussion and discovery of some practical examples of existing practices.

The seminar 2013 will be a mixture out of the “Best of 2012” programme and new challenging inputs and actions. A limited number of people who joined the seminar 2012 are welcome.

The number of participants is limited to 20 people. For the participants all travel and accommodation costs will be covered. There might be a small fee for food (related to the financial standards in your home country) and extra costs (upgraded hotel standard).

If you are interested, you can send an email to csos@ufafabrik.de or fill in the application formand send it by the latest of 28 May 2013.

Arts for a safe climate – in Australia

Cathy Fitzgerald — Sun, 05 May 2013 13:29:30 +0000

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

What are the Australians doing in the field of arts and sustainability? CLIMARTE is an Australian organisation which has set out to “harness the creative power of the arts to inform, engage and inspire action on climate change”, and their April 2013 newsletter gives you a good introduction to the numerous arts activities in the country which are dealing with issues of sustainability or climate change:

Newsletter from Climarte – Arts for a Safe Climate

Fiona Hall: Big Game Hunting
One of Australia’s most prominent contemporary artists, Fiona Hall is best known for extraordinary works that transform commonplace materials into vital organic forms with both contemporary and historical resonances. This trans-disciplinary survey exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art highlights her recent practice and her continuing focus on the relationship between nature and culture.

The exhibition includes trophy-style sculptures of endangered species from the International Conservation Union’s ‘Red List’, rendered in military camouflage and embellished with recycled items from contemporary culture, and a series of stunning bark-cloths, video and sculptural pieces inspired by a 2011 expedition to the unique marine environment of the Kermadec Trench on the Pacific Rim of Fire. This is a thought provoking and eerily beautiful exhibition — not to be missed!
At Heide Museum of Modern Art until 21 July 2013.

Carbon Arts at Sydney Windmill
The Rocks Windmill will be host to the ElectriCITY Sparks program, which sees a windmill as the platform for exploring creative responses to our collective energy future, demanding an examination of history, community, and sustainability.

ElectriCITY Sparks focuses on energy efficiency, a journey that everyone of us can embark upon, and calls upon the creative sector and the creative in all of us to make this journey fun, rewarding and effective.

Over a week from 6-12 May, Carbon Arts will be putting on a film night, an exhibition, a panel session with leading industry, government, artist and community members, a gadget demo of all manner of home energy management devices from the kooky to the collaborative and a Hacker workshop for DIY and energy enthusiasts.

Most events are free, but need to be booked. Visit therocks.com or click on the links below for details on each event.

May 6-12 (9am-5pm): ElectriCITY Sparks Community Eco-Viz Exhibition
May 8 (5.30-8pm): ElectriCITY Sparks Panel Discussion
May 11 and 12 (2-4pm): ElectriCITY Sparks Gadget Demo
May 11 (3.30-6.30pm): ElectriCITY Sparks Maker Workshop
May 12 (6-8pm): ElectriCITY Sparks Film Night

Location: The Rocks Square, Sydney
Start date: 6 May 2013
End date: 12 May 2013
Price: mostly free

Presented by the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority, Media Lab and Carbon Arts. Most events FREE, but places are limited so book to avoid disappointment.

Climate Guardians
Climate Guardians are a political theatre troupe formed in response to insufficient Government action on increasingly alarming findings by climate scientists that we are fast approaching a ‘tipping point’ after which we will not be able to avert catastrophic climate change.

“We follow the practice of civil disobedience and all our actions and interventions are non-violent.” Check out some of the Climate Guardian’s latest actions

Thin Ice
Visit researchers on four continents and the ocean as they study the changes in the atmosphere, oceans and ice sheets through measurements (from instruments, satellites, ice and rock) and computer modelling.

They talk about their work, and their hopes and fears, with a rare candour and directness, creating an intimate portrait of the global community of researchers racing to understand our planet’s changing climate. View on-line, or arrange a public screening.
Film Search
Environmental Film Festival Melbourne 2013 is looking for films highlighting the impacts of society on the environment, or the impacts of the environment on society. EFFM will consider all submissions and select films for presentation at EFFM 2013. Entries close 31 May 2013. You can get the submission form here.

Petition: Paid to Pollute
Australians are encouraged to tell the Federal Treasurer and their local MPs to stop Australia’s $10 billion annual handout to big fossil fuel polluters.

Money to Australian arts student’s study in the US
The American Friends of the National Gallery of Australia Inc., in conjunction with the American Australian Association, is offering a scholarship for an Australian graduate or post graduate student of the Fine Arts or Curatorial Studies wishing to further their studies in the United States. The AusArt Fellowship is for up to US$ 30,000 a year. More information here.

Digital Change Makers
The Collaboratory are looking for four passionate change makers to undergo an eight week intensive training program provided by some of Australia’s leading digital change makers.

Gain skills and experience in order to co-create strategy, build websites, communicate online and use social media to build movements of positive change.

Apprenticeships start on 13 May 2013. Applications close: 3 May 2013.

Climarte writes on their home page:
“The arts can be a catalyst for change. Those who work, live and play in the arts represent all that is creative, imaginative and hopeful in humanity. It is time for us to engage with our communities and our leaders, our peers and our audiences. It is time to let them know that we will act, and that we expect them to act on this threat to humanity and our world. It is time to have our voices heard on climate change.”

You can subscribe to CLIMARTE’s newsletter here: climarte.org

CLIMARTE’s postal address is:
P.O.Box 2429 Richmond South
Victoria 3121 AUSTRALIA

Su Grierson’s correspondence from Fukushima Province collected

Chris Fremantle — Sat, 04 May 2013 13:30:23 +0000

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Su Grierson has, with the assistance of Jan van Boeckel, collected her blogs from her residency in Fukushima Province in Japan which were posted to ecoartscotland. She has added a lot of new images which did not originally feature. The blogs describe her time meeting and living with people affected by the tsunami and nuclear meltdown. Her visit took place two years after the event, but the consequences remain with the people on so many levels.

Ecoartscotland is pleased to include this collection as part of the ecoartscotland occasional papers. There are hi res and lo res version available for download here: Su_Grierson_Corresponding_from_Fukushima_Province_Japan_hi_res Su_Grierson_Corresponding_from_Fukushima_Province_Japan_lo_res

Call to Artists – GREEN ART PARADE

Rebecca Ansert — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:04:54 +0000

This post comes to you from Green Public Art

Green Public Art Consultancy invites artists, performers and designers to create floats, placards, portable sculptures, kites, performances, art bikes, balloons and street spectacles for a Green Art Parade! Parade entries can make political statements, environmental messages. For inspiration, visit this pinterest board to get those wheels turning! www.pinterest.com/greenpublicart/green-art-parade/

The route will begin at a location TBD in North Park and will conclude at Art Produce (3139 University Ave, San Diego, CA 92104). Participants must be able to walk, run, and/or roll the entire route. The route will not exceed 1 mile in length.

The Green Art Parade will occur on two dates, Saturday, July 13, 2013 and Saturday, August 10, 2013 from 7:00 – 8:00pm. An artist’s reception at the Art Produce gallery and garden will immediately follow each event. The parade will coincide with North Park’s Ray@Night (www.northparkarts.org/).

To extend the ephemeral nature of the parade, Green Public Art Consultancy intends to exhibit a number of Green Art Parade entries in the Art Produce gallery and garden space from July 8, 2013 – August 18, 2013. Art Produce is a unique, artist-run, storefront exhibition space and public art experience in North Park, San Diego. The gallery, entirely visible from the sidewalk, is designed to accommodate sculptural installations, cross-disciplinary works, digital media, and performance events. www.artproduce.org/

ELIGIBILITY: This call is open to all artists residing in Southern California. Artists living in San Diego are especially encouraged to apply.

CRITERIA: Selected artists / teams will have experience creating artworks that express green design theories, utilize green materials and techniques, or express a significant environmental concern; have previously demonstrated a successful collaboration on a project; and are available to participate in a minimum of two public art parades.

DEADLINE: Submission materials are due May 15, 2013 by 5:00pm via email to:
info@greenpublicart.com. Selected artists notified on May 20, 2013 with an official
invitation to participate.

ABOUT THE CURATOR: Rebecca Ansert, founder of Green Public Art Consultancy, is an art consultant who specializes in public art project development and management, artist solicitation and selection, and creative community involvement for private and public agencies. She earned a master’s in Public Art Studies at the University of Southern California and has a unique interest in how art can demonstrate green processes or utilize green design theories and techniques in LEED certified buildings. She founded her Los Angeles-based firm in 2009 in an effort to advance the conversation of public art’s role in green building. For more info: www.greenpublicart.com

TO APPLY: The following materials must be received by 5:00pm, Wednesday, May 15, 2013:

Submit all materials to info@greenpublicart.com in one pdf document labeled: ArtistName.ProjectName.2013
Cover page: Name, Organization (if applicable), Address, Phone, Email, Website, and Narrative bio/artist statement (100 words or less)
A one-page letter of interest describing your proposed project / performance / spectacle
Five digital work samples of similar past projects. Identify each project with a title, dimensions, location, and year. Video clips should be no more than 5 minutes long each and included as links to YouTube, Vimeo, or your website.
Resume and website (limit to one-page please)

SCHEDULE

May 15, 2013 Artists submit application materials listed above
May 20 Artists notified of selection; Artists begin working with Green Public Art Consultancy immediately upon selection
Saturday, July 13 Artist participates in Green Art Parade #1
6:00pm Artist arrives at parade start route
9:30pm Artist removes artwork from Art Produce
Saturday, August 10 Artist participates in Green Art Parade #2
6:00pm Artist arrives at parade start route
9:30pm Artist removes artwork from Art Produce
August 18 Exhibition closes

BUDGET: While Green Public Art Consultancy believes in paying all artists for their time, this project is strictly voluntary and does not have funding available for artist fees or materials. Green Public Art fully supports artists who wish to find outside funding to realize their project.

QUESTIONS: Please contact Rebecca Ansert, rebecca@greenpublicart.com or 424-229-2257

CSPA Quarterly: Issue 10

Miranda Wright — Wed, 01 May 2013 00:09:27 +0000

We see our tenth issue of the CSPA Quarterly, this very issue you have in your hands, as an opportunity to renew, refresh, and even rewind a bit. Since our first issue, the CSPA has grown in reputation; we have travelled the world with special projects, have increased our global membership, and have published well over 2,000 posts online highlighting projects, tools and reports in service of sustainability through art making practices. Our Knowledge Network is expanding quickly, and this Quarterly has been a critical tool in sharing information at conferences, in-person meetings, and with our membership.

This issue contains content from contributors who were part of Issue #1, along with a few new perspectives. We have lovingly called this issue 1.0. As an experiment in looking back, we’ve re-published Sam Goldblatt’s comprehensive report on greening events from 2009, which cites the London 2012 Sustainability Plan. We’ll check in on this plan in a later issue this year. We are also re-running a call to action from Thomas Rhodes in this issue- on renewable energies in organizations. Have we progressed as a movement since these two writings were initially published?

We’ve invited updated articles from frequent contributor Meghan Moe Beitiks, now part of a new “performance research collective” based in Chicago, as well as Olivia Campbell, writing on site-specific dance and it’s relationship to sustainability. Linda Weintraub has contributed a fantastic essay on the curator’s role within our complex arts ecosystem.

And, of course, we feature Dianna Cohen’s latest works in our issue 1.0. Since our first issue, Dianna’s work has been exhibited in several galleries and museums internationally. She has delivered one of the most memorable TED talks on plastic pollution in our oceans, and continues her work with the Plastic Pollution Coalition.

We thank our collaborators in this issue, and our membership for their ongoing support. The issue is available from MagCloud, both in print (on-demand) and as a digital reader.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE PRINT OR DIGITAL EDITION

Art, Environment, Sustainability – Call for articles

Cultura21 — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 00:28:12 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

For an upcoming issue of Antennae

Submission Deadline: 1st of September 2013

“At the forefront of today’s social issues are questions related to the human relationship to nature and the environment, the meaning of a sustainable future and the relationship of environmentalism to modernity and today’s economic structures. While the sciences have, until recently, dominated the debate, the arts are making an increasingly important contribution. Antennae is seeking submissions to an issue focused on Art, Environment, Sustainability. We are seeking contributions that go further than being a mere rehashing of the narrative of environmental activism (the human as destroyer of nature; the dangers of climate change; extinction of species; etc, etc.) to address more fundamental meanings, explore ambiguities and engage with the complex societal questions that arise from the environmental and sustainability debate – and the role of the arts in that debate. We encourage potential contributors to be bold and creative in generating and exploring perspectives that move beyond the apocalyptic and often “preachy” culture of modern environmentalism.”

Academic essays = length 6000-10000 words
Artists’ portfolio = 5/6 images along with 500 words max statement/commentary
Interviews = maximum length 8000 words
Fiction = maximum length 8000 words

www.antennae.org.uk - antennaeproject [at] gmail [dot] com

JALAN JATI (TEAK ROAD)

Cultura21 — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:28:13 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

On show at the John Hope Gallery Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (UK) until July 7th 2013

The results of three years of research and production, the interdisciplinary exhibition from Singapore, Jalan Jati (Teak Road) opened at the Edinburgh Science Festival on 21 March 2013 and runs at the John Hope Gallery Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh until July 2013.

Jalan Jati (Teak Road) traces the material, genetic, historic and poetic journeys of a teak bed found in a Singapore karang guni junk store back to where the original tree may have grown, via photography, woodprint collage, animation and DNA tracking technology.

Fish Story Talk and Artmaking Workshop in Memphis, TN (USA)

Cultura21 — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:28:13 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

A pre-opening event for Memphis Social, at Crosstown Arts – Organizer: Aviva Rahmani, ecological artist

Address: 427 N Watkins St, Memphis, TN 38138 (USA) – Date: Monday, May 6, from 6 pm to 7:30 pm

Where do the lives of fish and people meet in Memphis? An evening of talk and artmaking will map the answers! Middle and high school students and community members welcome. The results will become part of a public exhibition at the Memphis College of Art. Please reserve your place. Refreshments will be served. (Suggested donation to cover materials and refreshments: $30.)

Registration details- ghostnets [at] ghostnets [dot] com – More info- www.ghostnets.com– See also the Memphis Social calendar of events: click here

Call for abstracts: Ecology In Practice – Creative Conservation Symposium

Cultura21 — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 22:09:52 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

5th World Conference on Ecological Restoration in Madison, Wisconsin, USA October 6-11, 2013

The symposium is convened by David Haley and Richard Scott. Haley has convened and chaired the Ecological Arts symposia at SER (Society for Ecological Restoration) World Conferences in 2000 (Liverpool), 2005 (Zaragoza) and 2011 (Merida), and contributed to Richard Scott’s Creative Conservation workshops at these and European SER conferences. In 2013 they will combine arts and science concepts through formal oral presentations concerning practical research approaches to ecological restoration. In particular, contributors to this event, will aim to shift the focus away from the common position of having to justify the art in an ecological restoration context, or even justifying ecology in an arts context. They will consider the position that art and ecology exist naturally in the world, but that many societies continue to spend much time, effort and money extracting and destroying these embodied phenomena, resources and values. While some artists’ practical interventions reveal ecology through their art, or contribute new perspectives to ecology, their art may also transform the material world, ecologically. These intentions and manifestations are very different from art that merely illustrates nature, or art as a tool to popularize scientific endeavor. Here, ecological art is a necessary component in interdisciplinary thinking and research, and through creative practices, may emerge as a new ‘transdisciplinary’ form of working towards restoration.

Deadline extended: Please make your submissions directly to SER by 15th of May 2013(click here for the conference website), but also do send them by email to David Haley (d [dot] haley [at] mmu [dot] ac [dot] uk), if you wish to be included in the Symposium – ‘Ecology In Practice – Creative Conservation’. (Please note that Haley and Scott have absolutely no access to any funding to support your attendance.)

Art and biodiversity: sustainable art ?

Cultura21 — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 22:09:53 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Plastik, a bi-lingual (French-English) online journal on art & science published at Institut Acte (CNRS and Université Paris 1 Sorbonne), is announcing the following open call for articles for its upcoming 4th issue on “Art and biodiversity: sustainable art?” (deadline: June 15, 2013 – the call is also available in French language here):

“Interest in ecology and sustainable development is unprecedented, as is to the increasing concern overshadowing society’s well-being. With the news of massive deforestation and the scarcity of water resources, we are continually reminded of how animal and vegetable species are endangered. It’s clear that the need to respect the environment is shared by all but that natural resources are being exhausted through conflict of interest and contradictory action. As a result living and endangered organisms are affected by a kind of universal heritage value, as if representing the memory of an uncertain future.

Since the ’60s, artists have testified to, and denounced, through their work, the ravages that human activity has brought on a planetary scale. With art interventions that have taken place in nature or have been an actual part of a landscape, the concepts of the environment, of site and territory, have become more visible in the art world. By demonstrating the physical properties of the material, and of the living, such artworks – whether perennial or ephemeral, in natural or developed spaces – actively call for the spectator’s participation, alternately as observer, walker, or explorer in a double game with the attitude of the artist him/herself. To what extent have the new contours of spatialization in an artwork and art’s modus operandi in general contributed to the change in the way we look at the natural world? What impact has it all had on increasing the general public’s awareness, and of protecting our environment?

Between the esthetic and ethics, art and the science of the living, the 4th edition of Plastikwill present an evaluation of the perimeters of action and the meaning of artistic practice dealing with the subject of safeguarding biodiversity. The ties between environmental issues and artistic creation will be tackled from the point of view of the real as well as the symbolic scope of such practices, between the implementation of an ecological, imaginary approach, and social commitment. We will try to understand the propositions revealed by artworks which entertain a relationship to the balance at play between the living and the extinction of species. What kind of response do such artworks develop in relation to this new challenge, launched by scientists, as being of the greatest interest for humanity? Is it ecological art or ecologically-made art? Can one talk of eco-gestures in art? Through their experience as researchers, artists, critics, or exhibition curators, the authors will gather together a collection of testimonials and studies, questioning the procedures in order to understand how the preservation of biodiversity has become the subject of today’s most significative artworks.”

The editors of this journal are “asking:
- Are researchers, and artists, in the face of environmental challenges: the new crisis managers?
- Notions of creation and destruction, safeguarding and conservation
- Reevaluating nature, landscape, and territory
- Eco-art, the green esthetic, neo-naturalism, sustainable art?
- Collaborative environmental intervention
- Animal ethics in artistic practice, abolitionism and welfarism
- The eco design approach, and individual commitment?
- Implementing art and eco-gestures : exploration-fiction, surveying, plantations, collecting, ethnography, gentle intervention
- Museums, institutions and their ecological responsibilities”

Admission criteria for articles

Authors are invited to propose texts of between 10 000 and 20 000 characters/signs (not including spaces). Contributions can contain up to 10 images with a resolution of 72 dpi.

Images should be sent separately, with mention of their place, title and source. The same goes for pictures and other illustrations under format image. The first page must contain: the title of the article, the name of the author(s), their affiliation, email and postal address, a summary of 10 to 15 lines and a list of keywords characterizing the contents of the article.

Deadline for articles: Please send your articles by email before June 15, 2013, to Agnès FOIRET, agnes.foiret-collet@univ-paris1.fr and to Olga KISSELEVA, olga [dot] kisseleva [at] univ-paris1 [dot] fr

Mierle Laderman Ukeles at Grazer Kunstverein

Cultura21 — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:09:51 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Maintenance Art Works 1969–1980 – On show until May 19th 2013

This is the very first comprehensive European solo exhibition of the artist’s earlier work. Originally organized in 1998 by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts gallery in New York, the exhibition presents a body of work spanning over a decade of significant production.

In 1969, following the birth of her first child, Ukeles wrote “Manifesto for Maintenance Art” as a challenge to the binary systems of opposition that draw the line between art/life, nature/culture, and public/private. The manifesto proposed undoing boundaries that separate the maintenance of everyday life from the role of an artist in society. Ukeles was interested in how artists could use the concept of transference to empower people to act as agents of change and stimulate positive community involvement toward ecological sustainability.

Grazer Kunstverein
Palais Trauttmansdorff
Burggasse 4
8010 Graz, Austria
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday 11–18h
www.grazerkunstverein.org

The Fargo Project: Jackie Brookner at TEDxFargo City 2.0

Cultura21 — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 22:09:50 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

For humans to survive, ecological artist Jackie Brookner says it is not enough to change the ways we fuel, feed, entertain and shelter ourselves. Something much more basic has to happen. We need to mainstream a different understanding of who we are, as individuals and as a species. She calls this “the being of human,” and says it is about the “verbing” of our existence.

Within this context, Brookner introduces The Fargo Project, the recipient of a prestigious “Our Town” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Fargo Project is transforming a functioning 18-acre storm water detention basin into a prairie commons, through a community driven process that fosters collective creative agency.

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

Green Mobility Guide for the Performing Arts

Cultura21 — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:46:12 +0000

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Research dossier available in 5 languages

Commissioned by On The Move to creative industries environmental experts Julie’s Bicycle, the Green Mobility Guide offers practical recommendations for professionals across the performing arts, case studies and resources, including the Julie’s Bicycle “IG tool” for tracking carbon emissions while on tour.

Available since 2011 in English language, and now also in: Chinese, French, German, Italian.

To find out more and download the guide in all 5 languages, click here.

Conference in Indonesia: ‘The Power of Culture as Catalyst in Sustainable Development’

Cathy Fitzgerald — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 17:46:10 +0000

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

New pathways for locating culture as an integral part of sustainable development will be explored and highlighted when a World Culture in Development Forum is held in Bali, Indonesia, on 24-29 November 2013.

The aim of the World Culture in Development Forum is to create a space to discuss, debate and contest established ideas and approaches, and in doing so to recommend:

• new pathways for locating culture as an integral part of sustainable development,
• ethical frameworks for ensuring community engagement and stakeholder benefits,
• qualitative and quantitative cultural indicators for measuring sustainable development, and
• inputs into the framing of Sustainable Development Goals – SDGs in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

It is envisaged that the World Culture in Development Forum will result in strategic initiatives to:

• promote knowledge communities for intercultural, intergenerational and interfaith dialogue,
• further ethical investment and business practices for cultural industries,
• establish clearing houses for people-centred projects and practices, emphasising local knowledge systems, and
• develop conceptual frameworks informing the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Leading international agencies and critical thinkers, notably Nobel Laureates, will challenge the participants on four seminal themes that will form the overarching framework of World Culture in Development Forum 2013:

• Culture, Freedom and Social Sustainability,
• Culture and Economic Sustainability,
• Cultural Convergence in a Global Context, and
• Culture and Environmental Sustainability

Gender mainstreaming, active youth engagement and children of today and tomorrow will be the cross cutting themes woven across the entire Forum. A series of discussions, debates, performances and symposia will be programmed with the participation of experts and practitioners from across the world. An inspirational and leading edge cultural programme will be part of the hospitality spectrum.

The UN General Assembly (2011) has called for a more visible and effective integration and mainstreaming of culture into development policies and strategies at all levels. It is important to note that despite the recent global financial crisis there has been continuous growth and prosperity in the domain of culture among the countries of the South. This is the most significant indicator in considering the paradigm shift from the persistent deficit model of culture in development to an affirmative and empowering approach where creativity, knowledge, culture and technology are drivers of job creation, innovation and social inclusion.

The Common Statement on the Outcome of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20) calls for innovative and entrepreneurial ways of moving forward. We have learned from the successes and failures attaining of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is acknowledged that there remains much to be done including ensuring that culture in all its dimensions needs to be integrated more forcefully in development. Culture must become an integral part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the post-2015 Development Agenda.

For more information please contact:
WCF Secretariat, Ministry of Education and Culture, Republic of Indonesia,
Building A, 2nd Floor, Jl. Jenderal Sudirman, Senayan, Jakarta 10270, Indonesia
Tel: +62 21 3611 3104 • email: secretariat@wcf-bali.com

Web site: wcf-bali.com

Congress in China: ‘Culture: Key to Sustainable Development’

Cathy Fitzgerald — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 21:46:32 +0000

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

An international congress entitled ‘Culture: Key to Sustainable Development’, organised by UNESCO with the support of the Government of the People’s Republic of China, will be held in Hangzhou, China, on 15-17 May 2013.

This is the first international congress specifically focusing on the linkages between culture and sustainable development organised by UNESCO since the Stockholm Conference in 1998. As such, the congress will provide the very first global forum to discuss the role of culture in sustainable development in view of the post-2015 development framework, with participation of the global community and the major international stakeholders.

The congress will examine the multifaceted role of culture in achieving sustainable development goals. It aims at informing the global sustainable development stakeholders’ decisions, at engaging the international community in an open debate on the contribution of culture to sustainable development, and at providing state-of-the-art knowledge, research and best practices on the contribution of culture to sustainable development at the policy and operational levels.

Input for post-2015 sustainable development agenda
The results of this Congress will also serve as a substantial input to the discussion on the framework for the United Nations post-2015 sustainable development agenda. While culture was absent from the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), integrating the cultural dimension into actions and goals in achieving sustainable development is an approach that is making its way on the international level. The outcome document of the MDG Summit, Keeping the Promise: United to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals (2010), emphasized the importance of culture for development and its contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

Despite the progress made, the most recent United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, Rio+20 held in June 2012, accorded a very modest weight to culture. The Rio+20 experience shows that unless a broad and in depth examination of the nexus between culture and sustainable development is done within the global community, the post-2015 development framework and decision makers will not be fully informed on the effective contribution of culture to sustainable development.

For further information on the Congress, please consult its website, unesco.org.

What future and what missions for UNESCO by 2020

The contribution of culture to sustainable development was also the central theme of the lecture recently organised by the French non-profit association Group for Studies and Research on Globalisations, GERM, and held by Biserka Cvjeticanin (Culturelink/IRMO) under the title Quel avenir et quelles missions pour l’UNESCO à horizon 2020? in Toulouse, France, on 27 March 2013.

The specific role of culture in development processes is that culture transcends the sectorial divisions and the very sectorial approach, facilitating communication between various realms/categories of human creativity, as well as between different societies, countries, groups and individuals. The interdependence of cultures as developmental interdependence represents a pluralism of values and relations between cultures.

The lectures may be downloaded from the website of Group for Studies and Research on Globalisations: mondialisations.org.
Source: Culturelink Newsletter No. 078 / March 2013

Brazil: Seminar on Culture and Sustainable Development

Cathy Fitzgerald — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 21:46:33 +0000

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

Within the framework of the Joint Programme ‘EU-Brazil Sector Dialogues’, the Ministries of Culture and Planning, Budget and Management will hold a seminar on Culture and Sustainable Development, which will take place from 21 to 23 May 2013, in Brasilia, Brazil.

The seminar aims to strengthen the role of culture as a catalyst for global governance as well as to promote the importance of culture for sustainable development, exploring the three axes of this concept — social, economic and environmental.

The event will have three discussion tables, which will debate the contribution of culture to each of these three axes. These tables will be composed by distinguished guests from the European Union and Brazil, with recognized experience in the academic field, in public administration or in cultural production. At the closing session, there will be a moment to reflect on the relevance of culture as a fourth pillar of sustainable development, and how cultural cooperation between the EU and Brazil can strengthen the culture in global governance.

In order to enhance the quality of this dialogue, Olaf Gerlach-Hansen of Culture|Futures has been invited to take part in this seminar as a speaker who will address the theme ‘Culture and Environment’.

Programme description
The development of any culture arises from the constant interaction between the environment and human needs. As cultural identity and social stability may be strongly influenced by environmental conditions, cultural factors may influence consumption behaviors and attitudes related to environmental management. Therefore, culture and cultural diversity are key pieces for attitude changes towards environmental values.

On issues ranging from the erosion of biodiversity to climate change, cultural diversity has an important role to play in the way it addresses the current ecological challenges and ensure the future of sustainable environmental. In order to face the current ecological challenges, primarily technical and scientific responses are usually sought. However, the recognition that cultural practices are intimately linked to environmental integrity has been greater than ever.

There is an interdependence between biological diversity and cultural diversity, although is of little knowledge in what degree they relate. It goes far beyond what is commonly perceived in common sense. The reciprocity between both elements is clear: many cultural practices come, in its existence and expression, from certain specific elements of biodiversity. In a similar way, important sets of biological diversity are developed, maintained and administered by specific cultural groups, whose cultural aspects are the core of this special management practices.

The way of life of the majority of indigenous people embodies biodiversity. The cultural and religious beliefs, and spiritual values of these traditional societies, often have the effect of preventing predatory exploitation of resources and ensure the viability of the ecosystems on which they depend on.

The traditional indigenous practices of management and use of environmental resources, including construction techniques, represent a more sustainable way of land use, consumption and production, and also contribute to food security and access to water. These practices are based on a knowledge developed after centuries of adaptation. Therefore the concept of sustainable use of biological diversity — which is one of the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity — is inherent in the indigenous and traditional society’s value systems.

Eradicating ecocide to make sustainability legal

Cathy Fitzgerald — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:46:32 +0000

This post comes to you from An Arts and Ecology Notebook

This weekend I will be presenting a motion at the 2013 Irish National Green Party convention on ecocide; the post below explains why I’m trying to get the term ‘ecocide’ into the Irish political and public domains. If you are interested in measures against fracking and other environmental destruction, a law of ecocide and nature-based rights are developing in response. Please feel free to share this post.

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Could an ecocide law prevent environmental destruction?

One of the key concepts and terms in my PhD work ‘Seeing and Tending the Forest: beyond ecocide toward deep sustainability‘ is – ‘ecocide’.

‘Ecocide’ is a term I kept coming across in my research and reading. In fact I first used ecocide almost without thinking. To me it so well conveyed the exponential accelerating ecological suicide that is occurring globally. Particularly the horrifying rate of destruction since World War II, that some are calling ‘The Great Acceleration’, that characterises our now globalised, extract-at-all costs, industrial growth society.

However, one of the fundamental principles in undertaking doctoral level research is that you fully define all terms and concepts. I had some years ago been alerted by one of my blog followers that I should look at the work of UK legal barrister, Polly Higgins. Polly Higgins’ work in organising high profile mock legal trials against corporate ecocide, her award-winning books on ‘eradicating ecocide’, her well received ecocide talks has developed quickly in recent years to become an international campaign; to have corporate ecocide recognised in international law as the missing 5th international crime against peace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EuxYzQ65H4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPUmN88htCo

What is ecocide?

In March 2010 Polly Higgins proposed to the United Nations that Ecocide be the 5th international Crime Against Peace. This is the definition she proposed:

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

Her website www.eradicatingecocide.com is a comprehensive resource for the history and current research into ecocide legal developments. It is also the site for the growing global campaigns to raise awareness of how we can all become involved in outlawing ecocide (taking part in the AVAAZ, Wish20 Eradicating Ecocide and if you live in Europe the endecocide.eu online petitions are a good place to start, you can also follow and share the posts from the Ecocide is a Crime Facebook Page too).

How can a law against ecocide work?

Polly Higgins and Thomas Linzey, a leading lawyer working in the US (quoted above), and growing numbers of leading international legal people and researchers, are arguing that in much the same way that slavery and disenfranchisement against women were perpetuated by seeing other races and women ‘as property’, that changing laws to overturn the erroneous idea that natural ecosystems be regarded as property, will powerfully and legally shift corporations away from committing crimes of ecocide.

This is not to underestimate that this is complex area (leading legal experts in universities, particularly some University of London legal researchers, are working hard to address all the many legal details on this issue) and I have only briefly highlighted the key point here. Yet this key point, to extend a legal, enforceable ‘duty of care’ to ecosystems would be a paradigm shift for humanity, and the corporate world in particular.

Corporations are legally mandated to produce profits; this law would fundamentally change corporations actions and enforce eco-social responsibility and accountability. This will in turn legalise long term sustainability for the earth’s life giving ecosystems.

Ecocide legal frameworks already exist and has been enforced

Ecocide has since been recognised legally from the Vietnam war onwards, and some legal redress for victims of ecocide has and is occurring.

Oddly unsettling in my reading about ecocide, is that I found the term is exactly the same age as me.

I say this as the term evolved in the late 1960s from recognising the criminality behind the long term destruction and poisoning of the forest and food ecosystems in the Vietnam war with industrial chemical herbicide agents such as Agent Orange (Monsanto/Dow Chemicals and other companies produced Agent Orange and an arsenal of other poisonous ‘rainbow agents’) used by the US military. Agent Orange in particular was noted for its disastrous long term residual poisoning of ecosystems and human populations with dioxins – lethal cancer and birth defect causing compounds, and other persistent effects of which health professionals and scientists are still realising and dealing with).

Ecocide law works: this is the card I have that gives me access to specialists doctors as my late father served and was fatally affected by the slow violence of Monsanto/Dow companies Agent Orange in the Vietnam war

Ecocide since Vietnam is legally recognised in war situations

As I’ve mentioned before in a previous post, this affected my family as my late father was a New Zealand Vietnam veteran. It was through the hard work of the NZ Vietnam Veterans associations and the then Labour Government under former Prime Minister Helen Clark, that a Memorandum of Understanding sought acknowledgement, compensation and redress to the children of NZ Vietnam veterans by the ecocide caused by these long lasting poisonous herbicides. My sisters and I are now on a official NZ Vietnam Veteran’s Children’s Register (my NZ Vietnam Veteran’s Children’s card is pictured here) that gives some support to descendants affected by cancers/diseases attributed to Agent Orange and the millions of tons of poisonous herbicides sprayed across Vietnam and other parts of Asia in the 20 000+ US military air raids (see notes at end of article for more details on this NZ landmark case).

On a personal note, my father, a very quiet man, could never speak easily of America or its culture again and the destruction he witnessed to a beautiful country and the peoples of Vietnam. I grew up knowing him interested in these things; reading the paper, vegetable growing, his love of the wild forested West Coast of the South Island of NZ, horse racing and Labour Party politics. He often bribed us as children (with chocolate) to deliver Labour Party political leaflets in our local area and he would have been so moved that it was the Labour Party that worked hard to bring some compensation to his engineer army colleagues and their surviving families (NZ sent 3,980 mainly non-combatant, engineer troops, to serve in the Vietnam war).

Nature-based rights development

Landmark nature-rights book, first published in 1972; now in 3rd edition, 2010, Oxford Uni. Press, USA

While the NZ military situation above is an example of legal retrospective redress for gross war-time ecocide, developments since the 1960s to bring the crime of ecocide into non-military situations have evolved slowly. Surprisingly there was much talk and legal efforts in bringing ecocide forward as a crime in non-war situations in the early 1970s due to the huge public awareness of the situation in Vietnam (many scientists signed an international petition to try and stop Agent Orange use during the Vietnam war) and the publication of Rachel Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring book alerted many to the long term environmental problems of pesticide/herbicide compounds. However such legal measures for non-war situations were stopped by several nations (see the eradicatingecocide.com website for more details). Even so, legal minds have for some decades further examined the idea of extending a legal duty of care to the non-human world, such as in the work and landmark book by US law lecturer and researcher, Christopher Stone, who wrote in 1972 Should Trees have Standing? – law, morality and the environment.

In recent years I have also noticed some nations in South America are leading the way for the ‘rights of nature’ to be legally recognised in their countries’ constitutional framework (for e.g Ecuador). Often such legislation is evolving with lawyers working with indigenous peoples, peoples who have not forgotten their nature-centred worldviews that respects all life, fundamentally ensuring long term sustainability for all species. Also in South America, one of the most important cases against corporate ecocide is ongoing, the multinational petrochemical Chevron is facing $18 billion in redress to thousands of indigenous peoples whose livelihoods and waters were affected by Chevron’s disregard of the gross and poisonous pollution it was creating (see Amazonwatch.org for details of this case – Chevron has engaged 64 law firms trying to overturn this decision!).

An online book of my great Grandmother’s 1890s paintings of the New Zealand Whanganui River. A river ecosystem that since 2012 is now one of the first in the world to have achieved legal agreement that ‘recognises the river and all its tributaries as a single entity, Te Awa Tupua, and makes it a legal entity with rights and interests, and the owner of its own river bed.’

And nature-based rights are developing in New Zealand. In fact, I was startled last August, while back in NZ to see that NZ’s third largest river, the Whanganui river, was granted legal standing from long years of work from Maori tribes and other river stakeholders. This river has a particular connection to my mother’s family as our Great Grandmother was an early European settler in the northern reaches of this river (I created a book on her paintings with my mother a few years ago – my great grandmother witnessed and painted both the beauty and the rampant deforestation by early European settlers way back in the 1890s near this river). Also last September I noticed online that the Green Party of England and Wales had invited Polly Higgins to their national convention and the Green Party of England and Wales unanimously adopted a motion to support a motion against ecocide. I made a promise to myself back then that I would at some stage attempt to bring it to the attention to the Irish and New Zealand Green Parties (NZer’s, please feel free to share this post) in a hope it would spread across the political and public domains.

Law against corporate ecocide and nature-based rights could prevent fracking, other ecosystem destruction

Land and water degradation – gas and coal extraction, sewage sludge, factory farms, massive water withdrawals, landfills, and more could be addressed

Over the last few months, I was busy with other aspects of my project but I was fortunate to come across a new book Earth at Risk (Dec, 2012) from leading US author/activist/deep green philosopher Derrick Jensen. In it I read a fascinating interview by Derrick with US lawyer Thomas Linzey. While Polly Higgins has been tackling ecocide law at an international/UN level, I was excited to read Thomas Linzey also describe how modern law often legally enables ecocide and how despite the best of intentions, environmentalism has largely failed. I was even more excited to read how Thomas was working from the ground up, assisting grassroot local communities across the United States, to stop fracking and other forms of pollution or degradation in their areas etc by fundamentally changing the legal framework in regards to their local environments. Thomas Linzey is founder of the Community Environment Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), an organisation which since 1995 has been assisting and educating ordinary concerned citizens in towns and municipalities to fight for new nature/community based rights. In recent months, its been great to see on the eradicatingecocide.com website, both Polly’s and Thomas’s new legal ideas and work are beginning to influence local and international law. On the CELDF website you can also see how rights based successes are spreading across the US, with some communities having success in preventing fracking in their localities.

Here is a short video trailer from an upcoming documentary film from Thomas Linzey on the work that the CELDF organisation is undertaking (note, you’ll see the NZ Whanganui River rights case briefly highlighted in this trailer too). Thomas’ groundbreaking plenary 30 min speech from a US Bioneers conference is also worth listening to, see here) .

If you are involved in local politics, concerned about fracking or other types of environmental destruction, I would also recommend you watch the more detailed video below by Thomas on how this area of legal reform is developing swiftly across many US states.

Higgins and Linzey’s work acknowledges that ecocide is a crime and a move to install nature/community based rights are important and urgent. In my own writings I point out that ecocide isn’t just happening in the Arctic or the Amazon, that the slow violence of ecocide, in our culture and local environments, threads its way through our everyday lives. To me, short rotation monoculture tree plantations are a form of ecocide, leading to eventual soil fertility collapse and limiting severely resilient ecosytems from developing; the very opposite of an ecosystem thriving sustainably in the long term. My work will continue to show alternatives to industrial forestry. Perhaps one day I might even fight for legal standing for the small forest in which I live, a living community that supports me and which I am interdependently connected to.

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I will be proposing that the following motion will be adopted by the Irish Green Party on 13 April 2013. My thanks to Carlow Law lecturer John Tully, former Green Minster for Equality, Mary White, Cllr Malcolm Noonan, Dr. Paul O’Brien, Martin Lyttle, Dr. Rhys Jones, Alan Price, Duncan Russell, Nicola Brown, John Hogan and others for enthusiastically supporting my proposing this motion.

Do take a minute to sign and share the petitions, click on the links above or the AVAAZ and also the End Ecocide in Europe (if you live in Europe) logos at the bottom of this page. If a million Europeans sign the End Ecocide in Europe it helps enforce an EU wide directive against corporate ecocide (170 000+ have signed so far).

Please feel free to share this post and comments are always welcome. Thanks for reading. (Please add the #ecocide hastag if you are reposting this article)

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Notes on redress for Vietnam veterans and their children in NZ

In December 2006, the New Zealand Government, the Ex-Vietnam Services Association (EVSA) and the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association (RNZRSA) agreed to, and signed, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) following the recommendations of the Joint Working Group, designated with advocacy for Veteran’s concerns.^[7] The MoU provides formal acknowledgement of the toxic environment New Zealand Vietnam Veterans faced during their service abroad in Vietnam, and the after-effects of that toxin since the service men and women returned to New Zealand. The MoU also makes available various forms of support, to both New Zealand Vietnam Veterans and their families.^[8] New Zealand writer and historian, Deborah Challinor, includes a new chapter in her second edition release of Grey Ghosts: New Zealand Vietnam Veterans Talk About Their War that discusses the handling of the New Zealand Vietnam Veterans’ claims, including the Reeves, McLeod and Health Committee reports, and the reconciliation/welcome parade on Queen’s Birthday Weekend, 2008, also known as ‘Tribute 08′.^[9]

From 1962 until 1987, the 2,4,5T herbicide was manufactured at an Ivon Watkins-Dow plant in Paritutu, New Plymouth which was then shipped to U.S. military bases in South East Asia.^[10]^[11]^[12] There have been continuing claims that the suburb of Paritutu has also been polluted.^[13]^[14]

See more at Veteran’s Affairs (VANZ) Website for NZ veterans and their children’s welfare

NEW RIJKSMUSEUM ILLUMINATED WITH PHILIPS LED LIGHTING

Ian Garrett — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 21:48:24 +0000

Shining new light on old masters

The world famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam re-opened on April 13^th, offering the public access to some of the world’s most famous paintings including Rembrandt’s The Night Watch. The €375 million renovation project, which took ten years to complete, includes the world’s most advanced LED lighting system in a museum. Created by Philips, the system was designed to closely mimic the colour rendition of natural daylight, allowing visitors to see details of masterpieces that were previously not visible.

Using 750,000 LEDs and lighting over 7,500 artefacts across 9,500m2 of gallery space, Philips worked closely with the museum staff, the museum’s architects Wilmotte & Associés and Cruz y Ortiz to create a modern solution to the challenge of museum lighting: how to present the works of art in the best light possible whilst conserving and protecting them for future generations.

The result uses the latest LED technology from Philips to offer an overall effect similar to natural daylight. Moving away from the heavy amber tint that is characteristic of conventional museum lighting, Philips has used light with a neutral white tone that offers a greater range of colour visibility, giving an effect that is similar to viewing the painting in ‘high definition’. It meets international standards for art conservation and also emits no ultraviolet light and hardly any infrared light.

“We are very proud of working with the Rijksmuseum on this innovative and monumental renovation,” said Rogier van der Heide, Chief Design Officer and Vice President at Philips Lighting. “The lighting solution is the result of a unique collaborative effort with the Rijksmuseum and the architects, using Philips’ knowledge of the art and science of illumination to achieve a quality of light that truly brings out the detail of each masterpiece.”

World’s most advanced lighting solution in a museum of fine art

The new LED lighting illuminates artworks that date back to the Middle Ages. In total, the lighting illuminates 7,500 artworks spanning several centuries. Philips’ lighting solution consists of ¾ of a million LEDs, including 3,800 LED spots, more than 1.8 kilometers of LED lighting the ceiling and an advanced LED lighting control system via a mobile application for museum employees to use.

Philips’ LEDs light the museums public spaces including the shop, the atriums and the restaurant, as well as the outdoor area and building façade. Philips worked with the Rijksgebouwendienst (the Government Buildings Agency part of the Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations, the owner of the building) to realize plans for the outdoor lighting.

The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts

Maya Lin: Here and There

Apr 26, 2013 – Jun 22, 2013, at Pace Gallery, in New York (USA)

Artists, Art Communities and Creative Initiatives in the Urban Spaces of Russia and Europe

Open Interdisciplinary Seminar series “Scientific Environment”, 6th meeting of the 2013 spring session

May 14th 2013, Faculty of Sociology, St. Petersburg State University (Russia), ul. Smolnogo 1/3, entrance 9, room 229, 18:00

Speakers:

New Directions in Social Ecology: From Climate Action to Housing Justice

WHYLD

Uranium Film Festival starts soon in Rio de Janeiro

Paddling Theater on the Minnesota River

Theater in canoes as part of the Minnesota River History Weekend &Minnesota State Water Trails 50th Anniversary

Exhibition: Trouble the Water

Legion Arts, 1103 Third Street SE Cedar Rapids, IA (USA), May 3 – June 16 2013

Call for participants: Case Pyhäjoki – Artistic reflections on nuclear influence

Proposals for creative art+science, participatory and open environmental education in the Gulf of Finland / Baltic Sea Region

PROPOSALS FOR CREATIVE ART+SCIENCE, PARTICIPATORY, AND OPEN ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION IN GULF OF FINLAND / BALTIC SEA REGION

Internaturalism

Collective exhibition, 8 May – 29 September 2013, and international symposium, 8 May, at PAV (Via Giordano Bruno 31, Torino, Italy)

The exhibition

The Symposium

Collins & Goto at the Edinburgh Art Festival

Call for Applications: Default 13

Art, Cities and Regeneration. Asia – Europe. Masterclass in residence – Lecce, Italy, 17th -26th September 2013

Organisers

Seminar on how to manage more sustainable cultural centres

9–14 September 2013

Arts for a safe climate – in Australia

Newsletter from Climarte – Arts for a Safe Climate

Su Grierson’s correspondence from Fukushima Province collected

Call to Artists – GREEN ART PARADE

SCHEDULE

CSPA Quarterly: Issue 10

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE PRINT OR DIGITAL EDITION

Art, Environment, Sustainability – Call for articles

For an upcoming issue of Antennae

JALAN JATI (TEAK ROAD)

On show at the John Hope Gallery Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (UK) until July 7th 2013

Fish Story Talk and Artmaking Workshop in Memphis, TN (USA)

A pre-opening event for Memphis Social, at Crosstown Arts – Organizer: Aviva Rahmani, ecological artist

Address: 427 N Watkins St, Memphis, TN 38138 (USA) – Date: Monday, May 6, from 6 pm to 7:30 pm

Call for abstracts: Ecology In Practice – Creative Conservation Symposium

5th World Conference on Ecological Restoration in Madison, Wisconsin, USA October 6-11, 2013

Art and biodiversity: sustainable art ?

Admission criteria for articles

Mierle Laderman Ukeles at Grazer Kunstverein

The Fargo Project: Jackie Brookner at TEDxFargo City 2.0

Green Mobility Guide for the Performing Arts

Conference in Indonesia: ‘The Power of Culture as Catalyst in Sustainable Development’

Congress in China: ‘Culture: Key to Sustainable Development’

What future and what missions for UNESCO by 2020

Brazil: Seminar on Culture and Sustainable Development

Eradicating ecocide to make sustainability legal

Could an ecocide law prevent environmental destruction?

What is ecocide?

How can a law against ecocide work?

Ecocide legal frameworks already exist and has been enforced

Ecocide since Vietnam is legally recognised in war situations

Nature-based rights development

Law against corporate ecocide and nature-based rights could prevent fracking, other ecosystem destruction

Related and recent articles on ecocide

NEW RIJKSMUSEUM ILLUMINATED WITH PHILIPS LED LIGHTING