Different Perspectives

The Foraged Book Project

220583_103475879807133_1603288737_oA collaboration between renowned forager Fergus Drennan and artist James Wood to produce a unique book made entirely from plants foraged from the wild, and to host related public events that will offer participants deeply engaging interactions with the natural world including food making and participating arts.

946358_180869312067789_507489584_n

Together Fergus and James will collaborate on the production of a book. Physically every material used within the book will be foraged and processed by either Fergus or James. The content of the book will include information, recipes, illustrations, tips and hints on foraging and processing materials for food and art equipment. The book will show the wonderful possibilities that lie within the natural landscapessurrounding us. It will get people interested in foraging and will offer different perspectives on derelict urban plots, parks and green spaces – revealing the potential of how these spaces can be used beyond walking spots.

Whilst Fergus and James will develop the book as collaboration, a key part of the project will be to pass on the information and techniques we learn during the research stages of the books production to a wider audience as well as allowing them to participate in a form of sustainable art. To achieve this, we will carry out a number of workshops and wildlife tours that include teaching and performing some of the recipes used within the book whilst keeping a continued focus on some combined Artistic outcomes. For more information on up and coming workshops, exhibitions and tours join our mailing list or watch our twitter and facebook pages as well as the Workshops section of this site.

http://www.theforagedbookproject.co.uk/

Foraged Book on Facebook

Exhibition at Kunstverein Springhornhof

This post comes to you from Cultura21

28 October–16 December, 2012 – Opening: Saturday, 27 October, 5pm; artist talk with Angela Bulloch 6pm

Kunstverein & Stiftung Springhornhof – Tiefe Straße 4, D-29643 Neuenkirchen (Germany)

With: Angela Bulloch, Josephine Meckseper, Shana Moulton, Simon Starling and winners of the Daniel Frese Prize 2012 Fabian Reimann and Niko Wolf

The exhibition The Simple Life opening on Saturday, will present artworks addressing the desire of lifestyles becoming more concerned with sustainability and naturalism as well as resulting dilemmas, from different perspectives.

The role which art plays in this discourse is taken up in different ways by the artists:

Angela Bulloch developed her new wall painting “Let`s Go Paleo!” specifically for this exhibition venue, depicting the supposedly healthy paleolithic diet as an extreme example of longing for naturalness.

Simon Starling, interested in visualizing permanent “re-cyclability” of materials, forms and ideas across space and time, is showing his installation “Carbon(Pedersen)”, which transforms two bikes into “survival kits”. The bike, a classic example of a healthy lifestyle and a natural means of mobility, is becoming more and more fashionable as a lifestyle vehicle.

The realized drafts of the winners of Lüneburg’s Daniel Frese Prize 2012, this year dedicated to the theme “Art and Sustainability/Non-Sustainability”, are also presented at the exhibition. Niko Wolfwith his installation “Museum of Mounds or: The Economy of Oblivion” and Fabian Reimann‘s spatial essay “The Memory of the Stars”.

For more information, click here.

Upcoming Dates:

 

  • Studio visit Niko Wolf in Jesteburg (Harburg)

Sat 17/11/2012, 3 – 5 pm, please register: info [at] kim-art [dot] net

 

  • Presentations, lectures, talks »Sustainable: Art«

with Jeff Derksen (Simon Fraser University Vancouver), Dan Peterman (University of Illinois Chicago), Marjetica Potrc (University of Fine Arts Hamburg), Diego Castro, Fabian Reimann, Katja Staats, Niko Wolf (winners of Daniel Frese Prize Art 2011 and 2012), a.o.

Wed 05/12/2012, 6 pm

Venue: Representation of Lower Saxony at the Federal Government in Berlin, In den Ministergärten 10, D-10117 Berlin

 

  • Workshop »Aporias of Art, Ecology, and Sustainable Development«

with Dan Peterman (University of Illinois Chicago)

Fri 07/12/2012, 2 pm

Venue: Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Campus Hall 25, Scharnhorststrasse 1, D–21335 Lüneburg

 

  • Workshop »Filling the Weak Points«

with Sabine Bitter (Vancouver ), Jeff Derksen (Vancouver), Stefan Römer (Berlin), Helmut Weber (Vienna)

Sat 08/12/2012, 10 am and Sun 09/12/2012, 10 am

Venue: Kunstraum of Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Campus Hall 25, Scharnhorststrasse 1, D–21335 Lüneburg

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

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

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

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

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

Go to Cultura21

Powered by WPeMatico

Call for Proposals – SCORAI

This post comes to you from Cultura21

The Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI) is organizing an international conference on the theme of “The Future of Consumerism and Well-being in a World of Ecological Constraints” on June 12-14, 2013, at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. The conference seeks:

  1. To improve our understanding of the complex driving forces underlying prevalent consumerist lifestyles in the wealthy parts of the globe;
  2. To generate insights about fostering a necessary transition toward alternative ways of pursuing individual and societal well-being in a technological society cognizant of ecological limits;
  3. To build on recent developments to establish a vibrant global research community focused on sustainable consumption.

Proposals are invited for conference sessions, individual papers, and posters based on theoretical and applied research. Especially welcome are interdisciplinary contributions that address consumerism from different perspectives; alternative visions and framings of post-consumerism; and emergent contours of post-consumerist society.

Prospective participants are encouraged to visit http://www.scorai.org for more complete information,including details on the submission of session proposals and paper and poster abstracts. Information is also available on target dates, registration and fees, and accommodations.

The deadline for the submission of session proposals/paper and poster abstracts is October 1, 2012.

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

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

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

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

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

Go to Cultura21

Powered by WPeMatico

AppleThink – Call for Participants

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Creative Camp in Aizpute, Latvia. September 13-15, 2012

AppleThink is a collaboration between The Center for New Media CultureRIXC, Latvian Contemporary Arts Center and Serde from Latvia, as well as Pixelache Helsinki from Finland.

Apples are one of the most harvest-rich, yet under-exploited resources available in Latvia and other post-kolkhoz (collective Soviet farms) countries. The AppleThink event aims to re-approach the ‘habitual’ apples from a variety of different perspectives. The event will bring together an international trans-disciplinary group of participants, who will be sharing their knowledge and experience by approaching apples as a ‘real’ resource of food and energy, as well as as a cultural metaphor for fecundity and wealth.

The AppleThink event will also include presentations and discussions by artists, curators, science researchers, and community activists who will be discussing different survival strategies ranging from the concepts of ‘downshifting’ and ‘withdrawal’, to the approach of ‘resilience’ and a ‘techno-ecologies’ perspective. The camp will end with a local outdoor market together with local farmers, where the artefacts created during the creative camp will be put out for symbolic sale-exhibition.

  • Call for participation: They are inviting participants who are interested in transdisciplinary collaborations, but they also welcome proposals for AppleThink workshops and presentations. Please send your proposals or letter of intent to participate to rixc [at] rixc [dot] lv, and/or rasa [at] rixc [dot] lv (Rasa Smite).  DEADLINE: August 20, 2012

For more information, please visit http://renewable.rixc.lv

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

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

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

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

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

Go to Cultura21

Powered by WPeMatico

ashdenizen: when science meets art … successfully

Kellie Payne has attended numerous ‘art and science’ events, but in this guest blog she argues that last weekend’s day-long symposiumRising To The Climate Challenge: Artists and Scientists Imagine Tomorrow’s World was particularly successful.

The Tate had paired with the Royal Society to present an impressive line-up of speakers, including artists Lucy Orta, Tomás Saraceno and the eminent land artist Agnes Denes. But its success could be attributed to another reason.

Kellie Payne writes:

Rather than framing the question as: ‘how can artists help scientists communicate climate change?’, last Saturday’s symposium Rising To The Climate Challenge took the view that art and science had two very different perspectives to offer and much could come from their collaborations. Art’s role isn’t simply to reformulate and appealingly package the scientific messages; instead it has a more fundamental exploratory and imaginative role. 

The climate science programme largely reflected the Royal Society’s priorities and included, along with the expected division of adaptation and mitigation a third one, geo-engineering. However, oceanographer and earth scientist Corinne Le Quéré , who introduced the topic, revealed that she was stuck with presenting it because none of the other speakers wanted it. Professor Le Quéré gave a well-balanced presentation comparing the various options’ effectiveness (predicted ˚C temperature change) versus the level of risk.

With more controversial options such as the frightening volcanic method, where artificial volcanoes are created in the atmosphere to reflect and reduce solar radiation, she demonstrated that even this was only a temporary fix. The volcanoes would need to continually be created because as soon as they ceased, CO2 levels in the atmosphere would rapidly return to pre-volcanic levels. A less risky option, managing earth radiation through afforestation was shown to be less effective, with a possible decrease in warming projected at only 1ËšC.

Agnes Denes’ land art was incorporated into the topic of geo-engineering because her large-scale works often drastically alter the landscape. In Finland she created Tree Mountain- A Living Time Capsule, building a conical mountain and planting it with 11,000 trees, and planting and harvesting a wheat field in central Manhattan (Wheatfield: A Confrontation). During her slide show, Denes explained that she likes to investigate the paradoxes of human existence: logic, evolution, time, sound, etc. and believes that by shaping and structuring the future we can control our own evolution.

Tomás Saraceno presented with an infectious energy, bursting with novel, if impractical ideas that included his floating ecosystems.  Saraceno makes bold and imaginative attempts to stretch the boundaries of our conceptions of space and gravity with his experimental floating pods. His presentation was paired nicely with Oxford social scientist Steve Rayner’s on adaptation. He focused on cities of the future and the importance of instituting greater flexibility within existing infrastructures in order to cope with future climate events such as extreme flooding. He admires Saraceno’s work, in particular his innovation with new materials, shapes, and possibilities of new patterns of organisation.

Rayner highlighted three typical art/science interactions. The first was demonstrated by a photograph of a diseased liver cell and represented the mode of seeing beauty in the scientific. The second was art’s influence on science (mainly through science fiction such as HG Wells and Jules Verne), the model of artists stimulating scientists with their work leading to new ideas and discourses. The third – which Rayner thought the most compelling – were the interactions between scientists and artists that occur when artists ‘do science through art’. Essentially, where the borders between the two are eliminated and artists employ scientific methodology in their creations, as demonstrated in Saraceno’s work.

The collaboration between scientific institutions and artists was illustrated in a discussion between the Natural History Museum’sRobert Bloomfield and artist Lucy Orta , whose upcoming exhibition at the Jerwood Gallery Perpetual Amazonia is extensively researched using the NHM’s entomology, botany and palaeontology collections. The exhibition will also be informed by Lucy and her partner Jorge’s expedition to the Peru with Cape Farewell in 2009.  Bloomfield specialises in biodiversity and stressed the importance of the interrelations between climate change and biodiversity loss and ecosystem services.

The event was recorded. Podcasts will be available soon on the Tate website.

via ashdenizen: when science meets art … successfully.