Another interesting project around water.

Watershed: Art, Activitsm and Community Engagement is a programme organised by Raoul Deal and Nicolas Lampert looking at Milwaukee and the Great Lakes Basin.  There are three phases spanning 1) community outreach, 2) public interventions, and 3) exhibition.

There is an interesting video about Colleen Ludwig’s piece in the exhibition and the work she has been doing around touching.

Another of the works addresses corporate power/politics and there is an excellent pdf download of info which is embedded into the artwork in the exhibition.

ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.

It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology.

Go to EcoArtScotland

MAMMUT MAGAZINE #4 :: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

WORKING TITLE: Solastalgia

What happens when the climate changes around you but you are still in the same location?

The fourth issue of Mammut Magazine will investigate the effects of climate change on the human psyche, focusing on a new definition of sadness called “solastalgia.” Coined by Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, it refers to a form of homesickness felt while still at home, particularly as it refers to the perceived change in one’s home environment caused by climate change. A parallel of sorts to nostalgia, solastalgia was created by combining the Latin words solacium, meaning comfort, and algia, meaning pain.

Albrecht created the term in 2003 after interviewing scores of Australians, many of whom noted that they felt a deep sense of loss as the landscape changed around them and familiar plants and animals were gone. “They no longer feel like they know the place they’ve lived for decades,” Albrecht said in a 2007 Wired interview.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Mammut Magazine is looking for essays and artwork that:

>>> deals with, affirms or denies the idea of solastalgia

>>> investigates how we define our sense of belonging through our environment

>>> confronts how we are (or will be) affected individually and collectively by these changes.

We welcome contributions from all fields, while keeping in mind the magazine’s general focus on art and the environment.

The fourth issue of Mammut is being guest edited by Ian Garrett, the executive director of The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts. http://www.sustainablepractice.org

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

IMPORTANT DATES

>>> Proposal deadline: January 15, 2010

Please send a short outline of your project and/or images to mammutmag@gmail.com

>>> If chosen, the final submission deadline will be March 1, 2010

>>> Anticipated release date: late April / Early May 2010

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

For more about Mammut Magazine, please visit http://www.mammutmagazine.org

More about the project at the ecoartspace blog and xaviercortada.com.

Go to Eco Art Blog

Elegant Earthstar…

Today I am giddy with the found poetry of the names of endangered British species. A member of the Arts & Ecology ning has posted news of an imaginative new artwork by the Ultimate Holding Company collective in Manchester. extInked starts on November 19 November 12 as an exhibition of drawings of 100 endangered species from the UK. From November 26 tattooists start to ink those drawings onto the skin of 100 volunteers. Each illustrated person then becomes an “ambassador” for the threatened species their body plays host to. The exhibition has been arranged with the support of the Marine Conservation Society, Buglife – the Invertebrate Conservation Trust and the People’s Trust for Endangered Species.

The announcement of the exhibition came with the full list of the 100 species that the artwork was focussing on:

Scarlet Malachite Beetle

Noctule…

We tattoo our skin with the names of our loved ones. This artwork seems to question how much we love these declining species. ExtInct makes me think of the project the writer and journalist Caspar Henderson has been working on, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings –The Anthropocene extinction, human imagination, and what comes next. In his explanation for the project he comes out with a brilliant phrase which has stuck in my head ever since I first read it:

Most real creatures that we think we know embody wonders we have hardly dreamt of.

Read more about extInked., (includes the full list of 100 species.)

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

The aim of this workshop is to develop a collective artwork via the internet that will reflect on the transformations in the landscape caused by climate change. This work will be presented in an exhibition that will be mounted in 2010.

The online workshop is directed by Lluís Sabadell Artiga, an artist, curator and designer specialising in themes of Art and Ecology and in the use of virtual resources to realise collective creative projects via the Net.

This workshop falls within the project Pyranees: Art and ecology in the 21st century, which aims to use contemporary artistic language to disseminate current scientific knowledge on the changes that are starting to be evident in the landscape as a result of human activity, as well as discussing the sense and function that art can bring to our knowledge of nature and society in the 21st century.

The project Pyranees: Art and ecology in the 21st century is divided into two phases:

Phase 1: Scientific seminar: Evolution of the landscape, climate change and art (theory and practical) with the participation of the scientists: Jaume Terradas, Albert Pèlachs, Francisco Lloret, Jesús Camarero, Iolanda Filella.

Phase 2: Work period in residence with the artists: Edgar Dos Santos and Montse Vendrell (Catalonia), Carl Hurtin and Suzanne Husky (Midgia-Pirineus), Christel Balez (Languedoc-Roussillon) and Online Workshop
Pyranees: Art and ecology in the 21st century is a project organised by the Centre d’Art i Natura de Farrera in collaboration with Caza d’Oro and Accueil et Découverte du Conflent – «Les Isards».

Programme and organisational details

This virtual workshop is aimed at any interested person who, regardless of his/her field of work, wishes to become involved in a shared online creative process revolving around art and ecology. People from all disciplines are encouraged to participate in order to cross-fertilise knowledge and create a transdisciplinary collaboration. Artists, architects, designers, scientists, philosophers, naturalists, historians, naturalists, farmers…

http://www.pirineusartiecologia.org/

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

Artist-in-residence at UCL’s Environment Institute Martin John Callanan has completed his artwork A Planetary Order, a terrestrial globe showing clouds around the planet from one single moment in time. Working with satellite data provided by the Institute, he’s created a 3D representation of the data to portray this thin mantle of water vapour that shields the earth. This delicate, pale globe will be on public display soon at the institute’s Pearson Building. Callanan says, via email:

A Planetary Order is a terrestrial globe showing clouds from one single moment in time, thereby subtly highlighting the fragility and interdependence of the Earth’s environmental systems.”

The Globe was digitally manufactured (SLS) in a single piece measuring 300mm diameter with clouds scaled to 1-12 km above the Earth’s surface. Landforms are absent from the model, but cloud formations will give glues to the continents located below.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0906/09062303
http://greyisgood.eu/globe/

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

This is A.T.R.E.E.M (Automated Tree-Rental for Emission Encaging Machine) by Nitipak Samsen, a student at the Design Interactions course at the RCA in London. Samsen’s artwork is a satire on the notion of carbon credits: by measuring the girth of the tree, this meter purports to measure carbon the tree is capturing over its lifetime. “Carbon credit brings the ‘convenience’ back to the ‘inconvenient truth’,” announces Samsen, enthusiastically on his website.

See also Francesca Galeazzi’s artwork about justifying carbon offsetting.

Thanks to Groundswellblog.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

Afterwards I spoke to Amy Balkin about her work there:

Amy Balkin | Futuresonic 2009 from RSA Arts & Ecology on Vimeo.

With two more days to go you may still find free slots if you check out Amy Balkin’s website.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

The parliament of reality, a new artwork by Olafur Eliasson consisting of a man-made island, will be opened on May 16. For more information see the RSA Arts & Ecology website.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

Designing artwork from junked objects is nothing new for eco-minded artist Katherine Harvey, and she has thrilled one and all with the stunning pieces of art that promote recycling and environmental conservation. 

via Eco Arts: Plastic Bottle Chandelier – Recycling On A Grand Scale – Ecofriend.

The idea came from a reading that both poets were invited to in New York in 2007. Though they had worked together — John had edited Melanie’s debut collection —  they’d never actually met, so the event would have given them both that chance. Kinsella lives in Australia; Challenger lives in the UK. But both were becoming increasingly uneasy about the idea of artists travelling internationally just to give readings of their own work.

In the end, neither travelled to New York. Instead, they’ve decided to create this collaborative work which comes from their decisions to eschew air travel for such events.

The first poem arrived in my email box yesterday; it’s posted on the site today, initiating the exchange. Take a look. I’m loving the idea of seeing a piece of work like this evolve in my email inbox.

You can link to the poems here tinurl.com/dialoguepoems.

Photo: Roger Bishop

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

What, if any, other artistic interpretations of evolutionary theory, or natural history, have influenced your work?

The I think drawing is definitely a drawing that I’ve been compelled by for quite a long time, partly because of how amazingly well it describes a moment of conception. It’s like the idea is happening in front of you when you look at that drawing. In drawing there’s an exchange between thought and the mark that you make, the drawing becomes a trace of that moment. So I think that drawing is so exciting, partly because it’s also very simple. The thing that compels me about Darwin’s evolutionary theory is that you have a really simple answer to a very big, complex question. A lot of the artworks that I feel are strongest (and I strive to do this in my own work) are incredibly simple in essence, but may have many complex readings that can be projected onto them. A dumb art work is one that you can usually talk about the longest. An artwork that has something very simple at its core then lends itself to constant reflection, and lots of layering can go on.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology