Rane

Soil Culture Forum

This post comes to you from Cultura21

2-5 July 2014

“A Nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

Using the arts to revitalise our relationship with a resource we take for granted.

Over four days at Falmouth University’s Woodlane campus in July this year, the RANE research group in collaboration with The Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World (CCANW) invite you to join the Soil Culture Forum.

Soil is a material on which – even in the age of the internet – the whole of civilization depends. Along with clean air and fresh water, it is one of the fundamental components that support life on this planet. Without a healthy layer of soil, life and human society as we know it would not be able to function. Along with most of Earth’s natural resources soil can be considered finite; it is non-renewable on a human time scale.

Despite our knowledge of this fact, mankind continues to misuse and abuse this fundamental matrix of life. Climate change and pollution, erosion and desertification are all having a devastating impact. Although the word ‘culture’ has its metaphorical roots in the improvement of soil, we have lost that fundamental connection, and healthy soil is disappearing fast.

Inspiring people through art and literature on environmental issues can do what conventional advocacy often struggles to do: kindle the imagination, open minds to creative possibilities and engage communities. The Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World (CCANW), in collaboration with Falmouth University’s RANE (Research in Art, Nature and Environment) research group and MA Art & Environment; and other national and international partnerships, is delivering a programme of events during 2013 – 2016. These exhibitions, residencies, workshops and socially engaged activities, which include the Soil Culture Forum, will re-examine the cultural and environmental importance of soil and the underlying issues.

For information about the Artist Residencies and Touring Exhibition please go to www.ccanw.co.uk.

More Information on SoilCulture

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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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Podcast of Paul Kingsnorth from RANE

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Paul Kingsnorth of the Dark Mountain project will be at Carrying the Fire 20-22nd April in Biggar.  For those interested, he also recently spoke at RANE in Falmouth and they just put up a podcast.

“And so we find ourselves, all of us together, poised trembling on the edge of a change so massive that we have no way of gauging it. None of us knows where to look, but all of us know not to look down. Secretly, we all think we are doomed: even the politicians think this; even the environmentalists. Some of us deal with it by going shopping. Some deal with it by hoping it is true. Some give up in despair. Some work frantically to try and fend off the coming storm. Our question is: what would happen if we looked down? Would it be as bad as we imagine? What might we see? Could it even be good for us?”

Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto, Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine, 2009

Non-fiction author, poet and novelist, Paul Kingsnorth is one of the UK’s most original – and controversial – writers on the environment. His first book, One No, Many Yeses (2003), explored the rise of the global resistance movement. In 2008, his polemic travelogue Real England: The Battle against the Bland was described in the Independent as “a watershed study, a crucially important book”. In 2009, Paul co-founded the Dark Mountain Project, a global network that aims “to bring together writers and artists, thinkers and doers, to assault the established citadels of literature and thought, and to begin to redraw the maps by which we navigate the places and times in which we find ourselves”. Paul is also a former editor of the Ecologist magazine and a frequent contributor to national newspapers.

 

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

The Home and the World – On Being at Home

This post comes to you from Cultura21

From the 19th to the 21st of June 2012 a creative summit for artists and other thinkers will take place at Dartington Hall Estate in south Devon/England.
The summit will focus on the question if the alienation of humankind from the natural world has effected his condition and psyche and if there is a general loss of knowledge about the interdependence of all living things.

The leading questions are:

  • What does it mean to be at home in the world? What does home mean to us?
  • How can we be more aware of our ‘inhabited place’ in the world?
  • Why do we all too often fail to understand the impact we have on the world around us?
  • It’s been more than fifteen years since Gablik suggested that art can re-enchant our connection to the world – how have we responded?

Artists and thinkers are invited to submit proposals. The organizers search for a broad mix of challenging ideas and submissions for the three days of the summit. These ideas should investigate, how we live in the world; how we find our place – our home – and how we use creativity and the arts to ask questions, present problems, and offer up solutions, homages, and celebrations.
Submissions with innovative, participatory, performative and/or interactive formats will be favoured. Since most of the sessions are live streamed on the internet, applicants may work  this into their proposal.

The hosts of the summit are Aune Head Arts and The Arts at Dartington. It is part of the ‘Artful Ecologies’ series of conferences organised by RANE at University College Falmouth.
The deadline for submissions is the 24th of February 2012.

For further information about the submission details see www.thehomeandtheworld.info
The Call for Proposals as well as the print flyer can be downloaded there, too.

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

Research in Art, Nature and Environment (RANE) Lectures

University of Falmouth

The RANE ‘Comprehending Nature’ Lecture Series for 2009 will include:

Andrej Zdravic 
9 March
Slovenian film and sound artist Andrej Zdravic has lived and worked across the US and Europe. Inspired by music and nature, he has created over 30 independent films focusing on the energies and spiritual aspects of natural phenomena. This screening of his film ‘Riverglass’ will be followed by a question and answer session.

Linda Weintraub 
20 April
Linda Weintraub is a curator, educator, artist, and author of several popular books about contemporary art. She is currently writing the fourth book in her eco-art series that is titled Avant-Guardians: Textlets in Art and Ecology. This series is designed to highlight and accelerate the integration of environmental principles throughout university art pedagogy.

Entry to the events is free, but you need to reserve a place.

www.rane-research.org

 Go to the Ashden Directory