community partners

Time of the Clock, Time of Encounter

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

If practitioners of environmental and ecological arts have become expert in the critique of spatial politics and practices, should they also be able to develop and use critiques of time?

ecoartscotland is a partner in an AHRC funded workshop programme entitled Time of the Clock, Time of Encounter. This forms part of a cluster of research projects focused on the theme ‘Connected Communities’.

The ‘Time of the Clock, Time of Encounter’ project has been put together by:

ecoartscotland, Woodend Barn, Encounter Arts and Holmewood School are community partners.

The aim of the project is to destabilise assumptions about temporality and to activate alternatives. The group believe that the arts and humanities have particular forms of knowledge around temporality that are of potential use to communities (e.g. those directly involved as well as in the wider sense).

There are some key experiences related particularly to the arts which are known, but perhaps not activated as tools of critique, such as ‘nunc stans’ (the experience of time standing still), ‘flow’ time when the process takes over all sense of time. But we should also note Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison’s use of ‘the urgency of the moment’, that sense of a particular time when culture is maleable, when new stories of futures can be imagined. In contrast Elaine Scarry’s discussion of pain and the loss of any sense of time is also relevant.

Perhaps one of the key cultural projects which focused on temporality was Futurism, and we now have its corollary, the Slow movement.

Amy Lipton recently posted a question to the ecoartnetwork asking artists to highlight projects which are open to the public during June 2012. Her intention was to make this information available to the Outreach Officer at the Environmental Protection Agency for inclusion in a calendar associated with the White House Initiative ‘Great Outdoors Month’.

The question is of course driven by ‘The Time of the Clock’ (or at least the calendar), but the example provokes reflection on temporality in relation to ecoart projects.

We might offer a number of other questions which might relate to clock/calendar as well as encounter:

How long did the project take?

What experience of time does the work encourage in the minds of those involved?

Ecoart projects tend to assume the wider agency of other species and systems – what is their relationship with temporality?

Did any of the artists in any way attempt to use creative strategies to affect community sense of temporality?

Are these projects ever ‘closed’ in other than a practical sense of visiting them?

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

Cornerstone Theater Company – ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE RESIDENCY

FLOW

Written by JULIE HÉBERT

Directed by JULIETTE CARRILLO

May 28 – June 21, 2009

The Los Angeles River has a long and documented history thanks to river historians and Hollywood films. But, how do we begin to unravel LA residents’ relationship to a river most of us have only glimpsed from our car windows? Playwright Julie Hebért begins to explore the mysteries and hot spots along the river, including adjacent communities like Frogtown and people working to reclaim the waterway and its benefits. Conversations with scientists, advocates, river lovers, politicians, Native Americans, artists, and residents along the banks of this great paved natural resource will all inform this play. What spaces are vital along the river today? What does the future hold for the ecosystems that exist within it? And, what will happen when Angelinos finally get out of their cars and step into the riverbed?

Community partners for this project include:
Farmlab
Friends of the Los Angeles River
South Asian Network

via Cornerstone Theater Company – ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE RESIDENCY.

Call for Visual Artist/MacArthur Park

Call for Visual Artist/MacArthur Park

LA Commons, Mama’s Hot Tamales, CARECEN, and the Miguel Contreras Learning Center are collaborating on a unique project to engage an artist/designer to work with a Core Youth Arts Team (15-25 years old) to design an art installation on the West 7th Street in MacArthur Park.

The Role the Lead Artist/Designer in this project will be:

  1. To participate in story/image gathering process with the group to incorporate within the designs for the installation.
  2. To mentor the Core Youth Arts Team to foster youth in the development of skills in image making and design.
  3. To create the overall visual identity and cohesiveness for the installation project.

Timeline
February – April 2009

Artist Qualifications

  1. Experience in three dimensional visual arts and installation.
  2. Experience working with youth and community.
  3. Familiarity with the MacArthur Park neighborhood

Compensation
$2000 stipend for Lead Artist will be payable in thirds at the beginning, middle and conclusion of the project. In addition, there is a budget for project materials and the youth arts team will receive stipends for their work.

To Apply
Please submit these materials via email by December 8th, 2008

  1. Current resume and contact information
  2. 5-7 Work Samples on disc or via email
  3. Artist statement of why you are interested in this project

Please send or email to:
Beth Peterson
Community Arts Program Director
LA Commons
4343 Leimert Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90008
Phone: 323-620-6822
Email: bpuppetpeterson@hotmail.com 

LA Commons engages communities in the collective creation of art for public spaces that tells their unique stories and serves as the basis for interaction, dialogue and a better understanding of Los Angeles.

A project of Community Partners