Monthly Archives: March 2010

ART AND SUSTAINABILITY – New summer school program in English

ART AND SUSTAINABILITY – new Summer School program in English within the International Weimar Summer Courses from 27 June – 10 July 2010.

From Goethe and Schiller through the Bauhaus to Social Sculpture. Forum for Creative Action: The Shaping of a Humane World as an Aesthetic Challenge

This 12 day `theory-practice´ program runs annually in the summer. It actively engages participants in an introductory exploration of social sculpture and aesthetic questions relevant to the shaping of an ecological and socially just future. It looks back to Goethe, Schiller, the Bauhaus and Joseph Beuys and forward to developing new forms of social sculpture / connective practive appropriate to the challenges of the 21st century.

The program is led by artist Shelley Sacks, head of the Social Sculpture Research Unit at Oxford Brookes University, and Dr. Hildegard Kurt from and. Institute for Art, Culture and Sustainability in Berlin.

Enrolment closes on 30 April 2010. Please enrol as soon as possible. Places are limited.

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Dr. Hildegard Kurt
und. Institut für Kunst, Kultur und Zukunftsfähigkeit e.V. (und.Institut)
(and. Institute for Art, Culture and Sustainability)
Leitung Büro Berlin / Head Berlin Office
Koburger Str. 3
D – 10825 Berlin
Tel. +49 (0) 30 782 74 12
Fax + 49 (0) 30 78 71 26 95
www.und-institut.de
www.hildegard-kurt.de
www.wachsende-skulptur-lueneburg.de

WESTAF releases cultural policy symposium transcriptions

WESTAF, the Western States Arts Federation, is pleased to announce the release of transcriptions from two sessions of the most recent WESTAF cultural policy symposium, Engaging the Now: Arguments, Research, and New Environments for the Arts, which was held October 15-17, 2009, in Aspen, Colorado.  The sessions, titled Messaging I: Constructing the Argument, and Messaging II: Arts and Culture Redefined, are now available online at:http://www.westaf.org/publications.php. The sessions include presentations and discussion about argumentation theory as it relates to the arts, considerations of ways to construct public-sector-focused messaging about the arts, and strategies for making the case for public art funding. Speakers include experts in the fields of communication theory, public policy, advocacy, messaging, economics, and popular culture. 

A previous release from this symposium, a podcast of Steven Tepper’s presentation during the Where Are the Young People (If They’re Not at the Symphony)? Shifting Gears in a New Era of Audience Participation and Engagement session, is also available. In the presentation, Tepper shares his perspective on the participation of young people in the arts and new patterns of arts participation by the public. His remarks are  available in .MP3 audio format at http://www.westaf.org/tepper.mp3.

Complete electronic and printed proceedings will be published and available this summer. Additional excerpts will be released as they are prepared.  To receive notification of the availability of future proceedings, please email Erin Bassity, WESTAF’s director of marketing and communications, at erin.bassity@westaf.org.

About WESTAF: WESTAF’s mission is to strengthen the financial, organizational, and policy infrastructure of the arts in the West.  Utilizing technology, advocacy, grantmaking and other services, we encourage the creative development and preservation of the arts regionally and through a national network of customers and alliances. Based in Denver, Colorado, WESTAF is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts; the state arts agencies of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming; private and corporate foundations; and individuals.

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Shannon E. Daut
Deputy Director

WESTAF
1743 Wazee St. Ste. 300
Denver, CO 80202
T 303.629.1166
F 303.629.9717
www.westaf.org

On houses that fall into the sea

Earlier this week the papers were full of stories of Ridgemont House in Devon – a house bought for £150,000 by auction, only to see its garden plummet down towards Oddicombe Beach.

The story brought together the national obsession with house prices with the fact of increasing coastal erosion due to climate change. Artist Kane Cunningham is jealous of the Devon housebuyer. He is actually waiting for his house to fall into the sea:

Landscape artist Kane Cunningham has used his credit card to buy a house that is about to fall into the sea. A bungalow at Knipe Point in Scarborough, North Yorkshire – near the scene of the infamous Holbeck Hotel cliff collapse 16 years ago has been condemned after a fresh landslip. Cunningham states:

‘I’ve bought a house that will be the next one to fall over the cliff. It feels like I have no choice. I’m going to rig the house with cameras and film the last sunrise before nature claims its bounty’.

‘It’s the perfect site-specific installation – a stark reminder of lost dreams, financial disaster and threatening sea levels. It’s global recession and global warming encapsulated. This little house is feet away from the edge of the cliff – it can go at any moment. The idea is to create an artwork on a scale never been seen before in North Yorkshire and to stimulate within the imagination of the public the idea that this house falling into the sea can become a work of art. If the aim of art is to stimulate discussion and debate on issues, then surely this will get people talking.’

His idea’s a little like Bettinna Furnee’s Lines of Defence, except this time with a real house involved. It’s an interesting thought; if you’re trying to make people act on climate, maybe you need to make the message as domestic as possible, like an English bungalow falling into the sea…

Maybe

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology