Environmental Change

Join Julie’s Bicycle for Sustaining Creativity

The Sustaining Creativity Lab LIVESTREAM will launch at 10.20am on Wednesday 28th May – stay tuned and follow the event online!

http://www.juliesbicycle.com/Sustaining-Creativity

http://www.juliesbicycle.com/Sustaining-Creativity

View agenda for Sustaining Creativity Lab

We want to understand how the creative community is thinking about the coming decade and what it perceives as the critical drivers for change. We will be making the case that environmental sustainability is a big one, and, with your help, mapping a five to ten year plan.

‘Sustaining Creativity’ is a series of conversations and events exploring environmental challenges, drivers of change, and the opportunities that transformative solutions offer to the creative community.

‘Sustainability’ generally refers to an approach that balances social, financial and environmental considerations. Julie’s Bicycle’s focus is environmental sustainability. While we recognise and seek to reinforce the synergies between social, financial and environmental wellbeing, economic and social development are ultimately contingent on a healthy planet.

Sustaining Creativity will take a holistic approach, intent on shoring up strength and wellbeing over the coming decade. It will consider the likely systemic changes already influencing mainstream thinking and put sustainability at the forefront of creative and cultural innovation.

Sustaining Creativity will:

Discover what the business critical issues are perceived to be from a wide range of representatives from the creative community.

Extend
 ambition about what is possible using real examples.

Identify some key shifts needed to develop a creative infrastructure commensurate with global challenges.

Outline what might be done over the next five to ten years to create optimal conditions for change.

Foster confident decision-making that looks beyond political and funding cycles

Produce a series of events and publications

We are working with partners including the Technology Strategy Board, Sustain RCA, RSA, Volans, Pervasive Media Studios, John Elkington, John Kieffer, John Holden, and Haworth Tompkins Architects exploring the following themes:

Value
Alternative approaches to how we measure and explore value culturally, socially and financially

Digital
Thinking about how digital connectivity and data can influence our approach to environmental change

Circularity
Developing design methodologies and partnerships to increase circular use of resources and materials within the sector and more widely

Governance

How do these key issues affect Boards and Senior Leaders in the arts?

Watch videos from the Sustaining Creativity launch event in November 2013 byclicking here.

We will be holding a conference on Wednesday 28th May 2014 to present some of the early findings from our survey, and to engage the sector in a further debate about what the next steps should be. For more information about the day, click here.

Read the Where Science Meets Art publication here

http://www.juliesbicycle.com/Sustaining-Creativity

Culture’s role in environmental change

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

The British newspaper The Guardian asks: What have the cultural and creative industries got to do with climate change?

guardian-culture-network

“Climate change is not just about the climate – it will have huge knock-on effects on human rights, economics, democracy, equality and social and civil justice landscapes.The cultural and creative industries already make work that reflects implicitly and explicitly on these issues listed above. We already stir the imaginations, minds, emotions, spirits and souls of audiences on these subjects. So why is environmental sustainability the topic so often missing from the list? The window for averting climate change is narrow. If we want to choose our own path, not have one forced upon us, we need to take responsibility and act now. We must have the courage to programme much more work about environmental issues…”

Guardian Culture Professionals Network – 15 July 2013:
Culture’s role in environmental change The live and digital work of the cultural and creative industries is key to a low carbon transition and future, says Hannah Rudman

Guardian Culture Professionals Network’s Facebook page

Newsletter from The Guardian Culture Professionals Network
Date: 16 July 2013
Subject: Culture’s role in environmental change | Sustainability should be at the heart of our artistic vision 

What have arts and culture got to do with climate change?

“As a sector we are a powerful collective imagination and a trusted voice” – so starts consultant Hannah Rudman in her piece for us on the role the culture sector must play in making positive environmental change. “We must tell stories of hope and warning about what the future holds.”

There’s no doubt about the capability of the arts to create life-changing experiences — and life will change quite significantly if we don’t look after our planet.

The facts and figures might speak for themselves, but the arts can make them speak louder. “Our disruptive, audacious thinking can get people engaged,” adds Hannah. “Our stories about ecological sustainability and greener living will be essential to preparing us all for a new ecosystem. Statistics cannot motivate us in the same way stories can.”

And for more stories on sustainability in the arts, read these from director of Julie’s Bicycle, Alison Tickell: why sustainability should be at the heart of our collective artistic vision; and

why reporting data will give the arts confidence to act.

Matthew Caines | Journalist | matthew.caines@guardian.co.uk

What’s new this week

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.

Go toThis post comes to you from Culture|Futures

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From Sarah Moon: Tauris to Premiere in NYC… and you can help.

Friend of the CSPA, playwright Sarah Moon, has reached us with a letter about the next steps for her piece, Tauris, which will premiere in New York City This June:

Erin and Bryan

Dear Friends,

I’m excited to let you know that my play TAURIS, an adaptation of Euripides Iphegenia at Tauris, on evironmental themes, will be premiering  at New York’s Planet Connections Festivity in June. We’ve put together a great team that includes Director Jenny Fersch, Composer/musician Daniel Emond, Actors Erin Layton, Bryan Burton, Matt Jacques and Laura Delhauer.

We are raising funds now to support the full production of the play. We need the support of people like you who know the creators behind the project and can either donate or help us spread the word. You can find out more about the production, watch our video and donate here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1310353082/tauris-in-planet-connections-theatre-festivity.

For those who contributed to the staged reading at the Wild Project in March, without which this production would not be happening, thank you so much. I want you to know that your support is allowing this play to reach the next step and me to achieve a dream I’ve been working toward for about ten years.

The Play: An adaptation of Euripides’ Iphegenia at Tauris, this epic musical adventure engages its audience in questions both personal and social: cultural attitudes toward environmental change, the complicated relationship between personal drive and public usefulness, and the conflict that arises when ideology gets in the way of love. Incorporating contemporary environmental concerns like mountaintop removal coal mining and the tension between fossil fuel companies and the EPA, Tauris asks audiences to consider how we transcend old enmities to find a way forward for society as a whole.

If you can attend!

Performance Dates:

Saturday 6/1/13 – 4:00pm

Monday 6/3/13 – 4:00pm

Thursday 6/6/13 – 4:30pm

Sunday 6/9/13 – 12:30pm

Wednesday 6/12/13 – 6:30pm

Thursday 6/13/13 – 8:30pm

Visithttp://planetconnections.org/tauris/ to purchase tickets

Thank you for whatever support you can provide, be it $5 or $50 or $500, or helping spread the word to people excited about new plays, original composition, and/or socially and environmentally conscious art. Please help us make this first full realization of TAURIS a success!

All Best, Sarah

Key Issues Guide on Indigenous knowledge and climate change

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Indigenous communities have long been recognised as being particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to the close connection between their livelihoods, culture, spirituality and social systems and their environment. At the same time, however, this deep and long-established relationship with the natural environment affords many indigenous peoples with knowledge that they have long used to adapt to environmental change, and are now using to respond to the impacts of climate change.

The potential of indigenous knowledge for informing observations of, and responses to climate change is an area of growing interest. The United Nations University published a compendium, available online, which presents a wide-ranging overview of more than 400 projects, case studies and research activities specifically related to climate change and Indigenous Peoples (IP).

That  publication, as well as other resources, can be  found on the website of the Institute of Development Studies at University of Sussex (UK): Click here

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

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

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

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

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

Go to Cultura21

The Theatres Trust Conference 12: Delivering Sustainable Theatres

The Theatres Trust, The National Advisory Public Body for Theatres, has launched its sixth annual conference, ‘Delivering Sustainable Theatres’ -the challenge of achieving the triple bottom line.

Taking place on 12 June 2012 at Stratford Circus in London, next to the Olympic Parkin East London, the Conference will explore how theatre buildings are managing their building’s resources and addressing their future sustainability.

With its timing scheduled to take place the day before the ABTT Theatre Show, Conference attendees and sponsors will be able to take advantage of these co-located events, and network with the UK’s theatre sector as they congregate in London.

The 2012 Theatres Trust Conference will address the question of‘ Delivering Sustainable Theatres’looking athow theatres are addressingthe sustainability agenda in theserapidly changing times, and how they are providing a catalyst for social and economic recovery in the communities they serve. Conference speakers, sponsors and delegates will explore how UKtheatres arecoveringthe cornerstones of sustainability and merging green building principles whilst offering unique cultural experiences.The Conference will look at how theatre design, engineering, IT infrastructure and the use of space is changing to help navigate economic pressures, provide space for hospitality and social activity, and meet the challenges of environmental change.

With rising costs of buildings management, cuts to public subsidy and a massive change in the public ownership of theatres-what does it mean to be a sustainable theatre?Is the first rule of sustainability simply to stay in business? And significantly, what of the role of the theatre in sustaining our cultural and spiritual lives?

Four years on from when The Theatres Trust Conference addressed how theatres could become ‘greener’, it is time to explore what has been achieved in terms of sustainable development given the challenges of rising energy costs, tougher building regulations, and even more difficult economic times. A key feature of Conference 12 will be the case studies from the 48 London theatres on The Theatres Trust ERDF funded ECOVENUE project.

Mhora Samuel, Director of The Theatres Trust said, “With theatres facing challenging times ahead, our conference next year will be a really important event for anyone trying to maximise the value oftheir theatre building through redesign or adaptation. As a sector we’ve come so far since our Building Sustainable Theatres Conference in 2008 and I’m delighted that we’ll be looking at some of the success stories since that time. What we clearly and urgently need to do now is establish how we take the three pillars of sustainable development -economic, social and environmental -and relate these to a theatre’s ability to sell a unique cultural experience and make sure our theatre buildings have the capacity to deliver what’s needed for today, and into the future. I’m delighted that we are offering a platform to address this topical issue head on in 2012.”

During the day, up to 250 delegates, sponsors and speakers will debate the subjects raised and in the evening, participants will have the chance to informally unwind at the Conference Reception, drawing together both ABTT exhibitors and ‘Delivering Sustainable Theatres’contributors, sponsors, delegates, and invited guests.

‘Delivering Sustainable Theatres’, presented by The Theatres Trustwill providea high profile platform for companies and individuals in the theatre community to support the better protection of theatresanddemonstrate the industry’s commitment to the sustainable development and cultural influence of theatre in our society today, and into the future.

Values and Climate Change Behaviours Conference

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Schwartz’s Value Circumplex

The Scottish Government’s conference on values and behaviours focused on the ways psychology could inform work to address climate change.  Prof Tim Kasser, Knox College, Illinois; Dr Anat Bardi, Royal Holloway, University of London and Prof Greg Maio, University of Cardiff, introduced current thinking in psychology of values.  For those interested in this approach, check out www.valuesandframes.org and in particular the Common Cause Handbook.

The argument being made in the offices of the Scottish Government last week was fundamentally against neo-liberal capitalism.  Saving the planet requires engaging (in Tim Kasser’s language) people’s ‘intrinsic’ values such as universalism and benevolence, as opposed to their ‘extrinsic’ values such as power and achievement.  Interesting suggestions were made such as banning advertising from public space and banning advertising aimed at children, given that we are apparently on average subjected to 1600 ‘adverts’ per day.

The panel sessions were more diverse and included papers on ‘Collapse’ in a North Atlantic Context, Andrew Dugmore, University of Edinburgh; and Faith Traditions and Sustainability: ‘Moving Mountains’?, Ian Christie, University of Surrey.  Dugmore’s analysis of Viking society and resilience to environmental change across the North Atlantic was fascinating, as was Christie’s work on engaging religious groups with issues of sustainability.

Across the day, whilst the psychological analysis portrays itself as having all the answers, it does offer some important insights, such as the way that values are connected.  Often different ’causes’ are seen to be in competition with each other, but from a psychological perspective, what is important is whether they are addressing a common set of values.  This suggested that environmental organisations could usefully form alliances with organisations in other sectors and focus on emphasising common values.

But the link between values and behaviours is not simple.  Although cognitive dissonance was not specifically mentioned, there was considerable discussion, and both Christie’s and Dugmore’s presentations offered nuanced readings.  Christie was at pains to emphasise that engaging faith groups, although potentially very effective, was not without risks.  Dugmore’s analysis of the collapse of Viking society in Greenland indicated that they had successfully adapted to one environmental change (the mini ice age), but the adaptations had infact trapped them (in tighter hierarchies and patterns of behaviour), reducing their ability to address a second phase of change.  Christie also highlighted the importance of ‘wilful’ individuals, saying that faith groups that engage with issues of sustainability usually do so through the leadership of specific individuals, rather than group decisions.

In the plenary some discussion focused on the relationship between the current economic crisis and broader environmental change issues.  It was suggested that, whilst economic crisis often results in greater concentration on extrinsic values, reflection on the crisis actually promotes longer term thinking and focus on intrinsic values.  It would have been interesting to hear more about mindfulness.

Finally the theologian in the room asked whether the language of ‘intrinsic’ values actually had a root in Aristotelian virtues: virtuous behaviour is our best bet to address climate change.  There’s a thought!

 

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

New metaphors for sustainability: my sweet pea

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

In a recent series of seminars on site-based performance and environmental change, our Ashden Directory co-editor Wallace Heim met Alison Parfitt, of the Wildland Research Institute, and writer on conservation. Here, Alison considers her sweet pea as a metaphor in our series New metaphors for sustainability.

Sustainability. After the Rio Earth Summit 1992, I was impassioned about this challenging aspiration, with head and heart. Many of us struggled over complicated diagrams, wanting to encompass everything. We talked about ecological systems and the need for the sacred and spiritual, the connectedness of all. We explored social and environmental justice and quality and equality – with diversity. Models and metaphors came and went, bees in a beehive.

Now I see this challenge of understanding the potential and power of sustainability in a more intimate way. And I suspect that the full and inspiring notion of sustainability (sometimes understood but often not) is showing a way, a direction for the human species to evolve, if we can.

As I write this there is a sweet pea, picked this morning, beside me. A soft fresh fragrance. This flower is creamy pale with a purple, or even nearing indigo, fine edging on the petals. It looks and feels precise, very clear yet fragile. It moves in the air coming through the door. The flower is here today but gone tomorrow, the plant goes on and I shall gather seed. It is everyday and uniquely precious.

I accept that my sweet pea is not really a helpful metaphor for sustainability but for today, now, it enlightens me and reminds me of my relationship within all else. And how I could be more human. And that’s where my quest to understand has got to. I suspect it will move on again, soon.

 

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

The editors are Robert Butler and Wallace Heim. The associate editor is Kellie Gutman. The editorial adviser is Patricia Morison.

Robert Butler’s most recent publication is The Alchemist Exposed (Oberon 2006). From 1995-2000 he was drama critic of the Independent on Sunday. See www.robertbutler.info

Wallace Heim has written on social practice art and the work of PLATFORM, Basia Irland and Shelley Sacks. Her doctorate in philosophy investigated nature and performance. Her previous career was as a set designer for theatre and television/film.

Kellie Gutman worked with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture for twenty years, producing video programmes and slide presentations for both the Aga Khan Foundation and the Award for Architecture.

Patricia Morison is an executive officer of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, a group of grant-making trusts of which the Ashden Trust is one.

Go to The Ashden Directory

Values of Environmental Writing

This post comes to you from Cultura21

The Values of Environmental Writing Research Network raises levels of critical academic exchange and public debate about the possible relations between reading habits and preferences, levels of environmental literacy, and wider patterns of pro-environment behavioural and lifestyle change.

Network activities take place between September 2010 and June 2011, centring on three ‘Conversations on Environmental Change’ that use Creative Environmental Writing to investigate precisely:

  • what communities and individuals value
  • why they value it
  • how they value it
  • how values are defined, identified and transmitted

The Network Convenors are based in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, and the School of Critical Studies (English Literature), University of Glasgow.

Read more at http://www.valuesofenvironmentalwriting.co.uk

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

Values of Environmental Writing – Welcome

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

There are at least three research networks looking at environmental and cultural issues currently meeting in programmes of workshops.

CORE, the research network on Creative Research and the Environment, was launched last week in the Art Space Nature rooms at Edinburgh College of Art.  This network spans fine art and landscape architecture and is linked with a larger research project on Antarctic Earth Sciences. Post on launch.

Reflecting on Environmental Change through Site Based Performance held its second meeting in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago.  Post of notes from that meeting.

Values of Environmental Writing Research Network takes its cue from Robert Macfarlane’s 2009 comment, “Many of the new activists are young, and a significant number are recent graduates, emerging from universities across Britain and moving immediately into environmental action.  It would be fascinating to know what literary works have shaped the message and medium of their politics…”

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