New Ways

Investigating the Aesthetics of Ecological Design and Eco-scenography with Dr Wallace Heim and Tanja Beer at WSD2013

Sustainability-Tanja-Beerweb1Thurs 12 Sept 16.30 – 18.00

The Willow Theatre

What are the aesthetics of sustainable design? New ways are needed of appreciating ecologically valid design that can incorporate the artistic dimensions with the material effects. This presentation will explore the application of ecological design in the Performing Arts as it creates new sensibilities, new dramaturgies and new forms of experience throughout a range of theatre productions. These aesthetics expand on existing design critiques and offer ways to consider the relations between the content of what is performed to the ecological and artistic dimensions of stage design. Starting with a philosophical perspective, this session will talk through examples with focus on the emerging paradigm of ‘eco-scenography’ – a movement that seeks to integrate ecological principles into all stages of scenographic thinking and production. Taking a holistic approach to materials and resources, this approach asks “can we create designs that enrich our environment and community, as well as our audience?”

The presentation includes a live and interactive showing of Tanja Beer’s “STRUNG”, an eco-scenographic investigation that merges the boundaries between performer and designer, installation and costume, site and material.

Open to all.

Price: £6

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Key contributors

Dr Wallace Heim - http://www.wallaceheim.com

Tanja Beer - http://www.tanjabeer.com/

Eco Design and Sustainable Production Practice with Sholeh Johnston / Julie’s Bicycle at WSD2013

Sustainability-Julies-Bicyle-2webThurs 12 Sept 14.30 – 16.00

The Willow Theatre

Drawing on practical examples and research into sustainable production practice, Sholeh Johnston from pioneering group Julie’s Bicycle will discuss how designers and makers are developing new ways of working, using new materials and technologies, and engaging their supply chain to green their work.

Sholeh will be joined by expert speakers to explore what “eco design” means in practical terms, as well as the wider role of designers and makers in shaping a more sustainable performing arts sector.

Open to all.

Price: £6

BUY TICKETS 

Key contributors

Sholeh Johnston; Arts Programme Manager; Julie’s Bicycle - http://www.juliesbicycle.com

Donyale Werle - http://www.donyalewerle.com/

Tanja Beer - http://www.tanjabeer.com/

 

A Greener Fringe for Edinburgh: The CSPA and Creative Carbon Scotland team up with the List on Major Award

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Applications are now opened for consideration for the 2013 Fringe Sustainable Production Award, designed to reward sustainable practice in the production of an Edinburgh Festival Fringe show. Productions are invited to engage their audiences with sustainability, take responsibility for their environmental impacts, and think big about how the arts can help to grow a sustainable world. Entries are invited from companies until 18 August, with shortlists announced on 5, 12 & 19 August and the final award being made on Friday 23 August in a ceremony at Fringe Central.

“We believe artists and cultural organisations are uniquely placed to address the challenges brought on by climate change through the art they produce,” says Gemma Lawrence from Creative Carbon Scotland,”The audiences they speak to and the way in which they operate. This major award celebrates action being taken by artists and companies to use the form, content and framing of their work to engage with climate change during the Festival Fringe.”

This year, for the first time, a review of every shortlisted production will be published in The List and The List will also cover the shortlisting events. The winner will receive a special feature and coverage in the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts’ Quarterly Magazine.

The Fringe Sustainable Production Award celebrates the best in environmentalism on the Edinburgh Fringe, and highlights the different exciting approaches Fringe productions are taking to sustainability. We’re inviting all Fringe productions – whether they’ve just started thinking about recycling or whether they’ve been bike-powering venues for years – to apply for this high profile award, and to tell us the new ideas and new ways they have for engaging with sustainability

The award for Sustainable Production on the Fringe was first launched in 2010 at the Hollywood Fringe and Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Previous recipients include:  The Pantry Shelf (Edinburgh 2010), a satirical comedy that takes place in any ordinary pantry shelf, produced by Team M&M at Sweet Grassmarket; Presque Pret a Porter (Hollywood 2010), produced by Dreams by Machine; and Allotment (Edinburgh 2011) by Jules Horne and directed by Kate Nelson, produced by nutshell productions at the Inverleith Allotments in co-production with Assembly. Last year recipients were D is for Dog by Katie Polebaum and the Rogue Artists ensemble, directed by Sean Calweti (Hollywood 2012) and The Man Who Planted Trees (Edinburgh 2012) adapted from Jean Giono’s story by Ailie Cohen, Richard Medrington, Rick Conte and directed by Ailie Cohen, produced by the Edinburgh’s Puppet State Theatre.

Ian Garrett and Miranda Wright founded the CSPA in early 2008 after individually working on each of the programs that now make up the multi-faceted approach to sustainability separately. The organization provides a network of resources to arts organizations, which enables them to be ecologically and economically sustainable while maintaining artistic excellence. Past and Present partnerships have included the University of Oregon, Ashden Directory, Arcola Theater, Diverseworks Artspace, Indy Convergence, York University, LA Stage Alliance and others.

“The purpose of this award is not just to recognize the greenest production. Our objective in offering this award is to ask questions of ourselves, as theater artists, about the greater impact of our work on the world around us. The fringe model provides an ideal platform to introduce these ideas,” says Wright, “The CSPA is not just another ‘go green’ organization. We hope to gather and distribute information that aids in the sustainability of the earth, the sustainability of our communities, and the sustainability of our art.”

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre andScottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

  • Changing their own behaviour;
  • Communicating with their audiences;
  • Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.
  • Engage arts organisations and stakeholders in promoting environmental sustainability;
  • Provide support for arts organisations to be at the forefront of shaping an environmentally sustainable Scotland;
  • Support arts organisations, artists and audiences to be as environmentally sustainably as possible.

Why sustainable practice in the cultural sector?

Like all sectors, the cultural sector faces risks from climate change and the legal, social and economic changes it will bring. Much more than many other sectors, arts and cultural organisations have huge potential to provoke crucial public behaviour change. We believe cultural organisations are uniquely placed to address the challenges brought on by climate change through the art they produce, the audiences they speak to and the way in which they operate themselves.

CONTACT: Ian Garrett – fringe@sustainablepractice.org – US 818-687-6655 – UK 0759 744 1915

MORE INFO:
CSPA Fringe Initiatives: https://www.sustainablepractice.org/programs/fringe/
2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Questionnaire: http://bit.ly/cspafringe13
Creative Carbon Scotland: http://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/

Moveable micro-city to innovate culture of sustainablity

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures
ArtEpi-livet-mellem-bygningPaint a picture of Europe’s sustainable thinking, knowledge and experiences. That is one of the assignments for a ‘green performing city’, Art-Epi, which will be kaunched in Denmark on 18 August 2013. The project aims to find new ways of cultivating innovation and development in the sustainable sphere – socially, scientifically, artistically, culturally, tourist- and business-wise.



An interesting experiment blending arts, architecure and science is taking shape in the centre of the Danish mainland, Jutland: a moveable micro-city of 100 inhabitants, organised around a series of sustainable, environmental and resource-conscious building activities, lectures and workshops.

This year, Art-Epi will roll out a laboratory and a pilot project where sustainable thinking of the future will be stimulated and co-created. The micro-city will rise on the moor of Præstbjerg in Mid-Western Jutland from 18 August til 19 October 2013.

The goal is that Art-Epi, with all its initiatives and ideas, will travel in Europe the next couple of years. After that Art-Epi will return to Denmark and visit Aarhus when the city becomes the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2017, gathering and presenting all the experiences and inspirations from four years of travelling.

The micro-city will function as an ordinary city where 100 people live and work, half of the inhabitants are to have come from outside of Denmark and half from within the country, in a blend of approximately half from the arts world and the other half from the
world of science, creating interdisciplinary networks locally, regionally, nationally and internationally on a platform where music, theater, visual art, beekeeping, science, carpentry and farming can meet and inspire and learn from each other.

The green performing city will have a performance venue, a communal soup-kitchen, and many other facilities enabling it to host events on a daily basis. Visitors are welcomed to walk around on the site and to join the daily activities.
They must bring with them everything they need during their stay, and they should have a focus on sustainability.

Starting up in Jutland, the micro-city will be like an epicentre right in the middle of group of collaborating cities.
Art-Epi is organised by the organisation Kultursamarbejdet i Midt- og Vestjylland – The Cultural Collaboration in Mid-Western Jutland – a collaboration between 57 cultural organisations and seven
municipalities.

“The word Art in Greek means ‘crafts’. Everyone has his or her own ‘craft’ to help create new ways of thinking, acting, producing, concept development and innovate with a focus on sustainability.
By bringing different worlds together in an alternative room, we bring different mindsets together. This gives the opportunity to create new connections, new networks and the opportunity to visit different worlds,” writes t

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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New book from William McDonough: The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance

UpcycleCover_webThe Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance, which William McDonough wrote with Michael Braungart, will be published next month. Four years in the making, the book re-joins the conversation sparked by Cradle to Cradle in 2002.

Cradle to Cradle is a foundation, a fulcrum against which we can lean levers of desirable change. The Upcycle is a collection of stories about amplifying, scaling up and accelerating change, about discovering those leverage points where innovation tips the world not just toward sustainability but beyond. They believe upcycling the quality of our design—seeking purposeful, continuous improvement instead of simply recycling yesterday’s sub-optimal or obsolete ideas—is the force that will raise up a more just, prosperous, fruitful world.

President Bill Clinton haswrote a foreword to the book. Here’s an excerpt—

“The Upcycle is a book about creativity, about thinking big even if we have to act small, and about approaching problems with a bias for action…Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart invite you to think about the future we share; to imagine what could be and how to make it so. We are all in this together, and we’ll need a global commitment to sustainability if we want our children to inherit a world of shared opportunity, shared responsibility, and shared prosperity. Let’s get to work.”

We are living in a moment of reckoning and extraordinary opportunity, a calamitous time when many businesses are seeking new ways to apply their considerable energy and resources to meeting the world’s needs. Agile, responsive businesses, those able to upcycle everything they do, will create more value for more people. They will prosper, and so will the places and people sharing their beneficial presence. Generosity, abundance and the good health of our world will define success.

An Orange County Almanac, and other essays

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Cultura21, in association with WOLFoundation, has the pleasure to announce its 7th Volume in the Cultura21 eBooks series on Culture and Sustainability: edited by J. Zammit-Lucia

We need new ways of thinking about issues that affect how we interact with our environment. The authors whose work is collected here make some powerful calls for change. Some make them emotionally and metaphorically; others make them rationally and logically; but all make them passionately.

 ”These essays are fresh, unconstrained and thought-provoking. They bring new, sometimes quirky perspectives to the environmental debate.” David Pilling. Asia Editor, Financial Times

“There’s no single “right” answer to the challenges that we face in the world today. The assembly of citizens gathered in this volume takes strength from its dynamic polyvocality: its attention to more perspectives – and therefore, its access to more possible approaches – than any conventional environmental text could offer.” Randy Malamud, Professor and Chair of English, Georgia State University

 Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia is an artist, author and independent scholar and commentator. A self-proclaimed ‘intersectionist’, he works at the intersection of disciplines “which is where the action happens.” He is President of WOLFoundation.org, a Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board for the College of Arts and Sciences at Florida International University, has served as Special Advisor to the Director General at IUCN, is a Board Member for the African Rainforest Conservancy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Click here to download the free PDF version of the eBook.

Visit your Amazon Kindle eBooks online store, to purchase a Kindle version of this eBook…

This post is also available in: German

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

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“ID”ographs!

This post comes to you from Cultura21

“ID”ographs is a drawing activity in which you create your own personally meaningful symbol.

It is a publication of ARTSpring, a China-based curatorial hub that brings art practitioners together with organizations that are searching for new ways of carrying out their activities and connecting with people. IDographs was designed as part of an ongoing workshop series held with a group of university and high-school students in Shanghai.

For more information about ARTSpring programs and publications, please visit art-spring.org

[issuu width=420 height=162 embedBackground=%23000000 backgroundColor=%23222222 documentId=120722143257-c77f98cff962407990fb3391bf0b5659 name=idographs username=artspring tag=art unit=px v=2]

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

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Innovation, The Kaleidoscope Video

This post comes to you from Engage by Design

[iframe http://player.vimeo.com/video/33444327?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff 500 375]

What is the Kaleidoscope Project?

Interviews and conversations with experts on sustainability, design and innovation, reflecting theory and generating actions between a diverse range of disciplines including design [product, fashion, graphic, web, architects and interiors], science, art, activists, business, psychology and academia.

The 5 Kaleidoscope Videos, split into four different values; Balance, Meaning, Innovation and Culture. During each interview we asked how each value is seen and practised today and how they should be practiced in order to move towards a better future. The last video focuses on the tools and skills that we need to get to that better future, acting as a call to arms for designers and professionals about the need for rethink the way we practice our disciplines.

This short film is about Innovation.

 

Engage by Design is a social enterprise developed through the final Master research of Rodrigo Bautista and Zoe Olivia John in sustainability and design. As a consultancy they specialize in strategic interventions that aim to support the transformation of your product or service into a more sustainable one.

Engage by Design’s research arm intends to act as a platform which enables dialogues and actions between a diverse range of disciplines around sustainability and design.

Rodrigo Bautista – Rodrigo is an Industrial Designer and has worked in many different industries including media, products, services and telecommunications. Today his work focuses on strategic interventions and tools to apply sustainability and design instruments within a company.

Zoë Olivia John – Zoë’s background in Fashion & Textiles has lead her into the research and development of better ways to integrate learning about sustainability for Higher Education students and tutors, particularly within the F&T programme. She is interested in finding new ways to readdress our value structure from one of linear economic quantity to one of circular quality.

Go to Engage by Design

Meaning, The Kaleidoscope Project.

This post comes to you from Engage by Design

[iframe http://player.vimeo.com/video/32328257?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0 500 331]

What is the Kaleidoscope Project?

Interviews and conversations with experts on sustainability, design and innovation, reflecting theory and generating actions between a diverse range of disciplines including design [product, fashion, graphic, web, architects and interiors], science, art, activists, business, psychology and academia.

The 5 Kaleidoscope Videos, split into four different values; Balance, Meaning, Innovation and Culture. During each interview we asked how each value is seen and practised today and how they should be practiced in order to move towards a better future. The last video focuses on the tools and skills that we need to get to that better future, acting as a call to arms for designers and professionals about the need for rethink the way we practice our disciplines.

This short film is about Meaning.

 

Engage by Design is a social enterprise developed through the final Master research of Rodrigo Bautista and Zoe Olivia John in sustainability and design. As a consultancy they specialize in strategic interventions that aim to support the transformation of your product or service into a more sustainable one.

Engage by Design’s research arm intends to act as a platform which enables dialogues and actions between a diverse range of disciplines around sustainability and design.

Rodrigo Bautista – Rodrigo is an Industrial Designer and has worked in many different industries including media, products, services and telecommunications. Today his work focuses on strategic interventions and tools to apply sustainability and design instruments within a company.

Zoë Olivia John – Zoë’s background in Fashion & Textiles has lead her into the research and development of better ways to integrate learning about sustainability for Higher Education students and tutors, particularly within the F&T programme. She is interested in finding new ways to readdress our value structure from one of linear economic quantity to one of circular quality.

Go to Engage by Design