Everyday Objects

Artsadmin’s Two Degrees festival

17 – 22 June

Climate, consumerism, community… Two Degrees asks what is broken in our world and what can we do to mend it?

Pages from Two_Degrees2013-brochure

The third Two Degrees festival sits somewhere between art and action offering audiences a chance to take part and think about how we can change our future. Disassemble and reassemble everyday objects in Kate McIntosh’s Worktable, make your own public commitment to help prevent climate change in Davis Freeman’s 7 Promises, or join Platform for a spy thriller, venturing deep into the underbelly of London’s oil economy.

Two_Degrees2013-brochure

Other artists in the festival include Lewis Bassett, Coney, Tom Chivers, Andrea Francke, Kamala Katbamna and others, as well as a day of talks, films and performances presented by Artsadmin and LIFT in association with nef (new economics foundation).

Follow Two Degrees on Twitter | #twodegs2013

Two Degrees is supported by the European Commission Culture Programme as part of Imagine 2020, a wider network of eleven European Theatres and production organisations. Imagine 2020 is producing programmes making explicit connection between artists’ works and climate change.

Resonance104.4fm is broadcast media partner for Two Degrees 2013.

Internaturalism

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.

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

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ECO ART: Plastic Bottle Installation in NYC

ECO ART: Plastic Bottle Installation in NYC

by Olivia Chen

Sometimes it is hard to truly grasp how much waste we create as a society. That’s why NYC-based graphic design agency, MSLK is creating an installation that is an in-your-face visual of the amount of water bottles consumed in the United States. The installation uses 1,500 water bottles, the number of bottles consumed every 1 second — that’s 90,000 bottles per minute Entitled “Watershed,” the piece is meant to inspire its viewers to consider the collective environmental repercussions of drinking bottled water over tap. The installation is showing at the Figment Art Festival, open from June 12-14 on Governor’s Island in New York City. Click through to see a video of the installation’s assembly

Watershed Assembly at MSLK 5/24/09 from MSLK on Vimeo.

Environmental conscious-ness has certainly strengthened in the past few years, but plastic, whether in the form of a bottle, bag or other types of packaging, are still everyday objects in most people’s lives. Furthermore, most people aren’t disposing of plastic responsibly: according to MSLK, 80% of water bottles still end up in the landfill. Not to mention the toxins that exist in plastic. Bad for the earth and bad for your body, there is no excuse Especially in New York City, where the quality of tap water is superior, DRINK TAP

via Inhabitat » ECO ART: Plastic Bottle Installation in NYC.