Monthly Archives: March 2011

Hydromemories: Call for examples of artists working with water

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Hydromemories is seeking to build up an archive of artists working with water.  The site already contains a number of interesting examples, to which one might add:

Betsy Damon, Keepers of the Waters,

Liz Ogilvie’s Bodies of Water amongst other works,

Anne Bevan’s Source amongst other works,

Common Ground’s Confluence and other projects,

Helix Arts’ Quaking Houses seen&unseen project,

as well as the Harrisons’, David Haley, Aviva Rahmani and a trawl through Greenmuseum’s archives…

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

Tehran Times : Capitalism is destroying the ecosystem: Ahmadinejad

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

For those of us living with western news media who’s narrative of Iran is terrorism and nuclear armament, this article provides a different perspective.  Who do you believe?

Wetlands are a key component of the matrix of biodiversity, often massively impacted on by industrial production, and also the key focus of many ecological remediation/ restoration projects, and of key ecoart projects internationally (e.g. the Harrisons’ Sava River work, Betsy Damon’s Keepers of the Waters projects, Aviva Rahmani’s Ghostnets project, Shai Zakai’s projects in Israel, PLATFORM’s Remember Saro-Wiwa campaign for social and environmental justice raising questions of responsibility for the desolation of the Niger Delta, etc.

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

Life Cycle Assessment

This post comes to you from the EcoMuseum

Recently the eco-museum had the opportunity to attend a 2 day LCA course at RMIT University to learn about some of the complexities involved in the process of assessing the life cycle of materials and products.
One thing is unquestionable – you need expertise and experience to conduct LCAs, and most museum professionals would baulk at the mere suggestion they do this. Whilst it was important to find out that there are hundreds of thousands of choices and scenarios involved in finding out the true impact of a product or material, the true value of the RMIT course came with the revelation of how LCA can be applied to the development and design of exhibitions and large scale public events.
Currently I’m in the process of developing a simple exhibition eco-design tool which can give an accurate indication of materials and product impact before developed design and construction takes place. To this end I’m currently liaising with RMIT in how best individual product and material LCAs can be incorporated into the tool for quick comparisons when designers and project teams are commencing the process of moving from concept to design development.
Stay tuned for more updates soon.

the EcoMuseum, is a project of Carole Hammond, Exhibition Manager and museum professional: combining the complex ideologies of aesthetics, culture, objects, entertainment…and environment.

Go to the EcoMuseum

Tim Morton

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Tim Morton, Author of Ecology Without Nature and The Ecological Thought, maintains a blog on eco-criticism.  Recent posts have focused on drama including thoughts about plays, and drama as an ecological form.

He also podcasts an evolving lecture Hyperobjects, and has excellent links to other writers on eco-criticism.

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

‘Marbh Chrios – DeadZones’: Softday’s Lovely Weather climate art project in Ireland

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Margaret Mc Laughlin, fine artist, has attended and written about an innovative sound work that was performed in Mooney’s boatyard, Killybegs, Co. Donegal, Ireland, on the 16th of October 2010. The work was part of the Donegal County Council’s Lovely Weather Art and Climate Change Public Art Programme (2009-10) . The project was co-curated by the Regional Culture Centre’s John Cunningham and Leonardo’s Annick Bureaud.  The sound performance pieces were based around the topic of ‘dead zones’, which are areas in the ocean in which aquatic life has been dramatically reduced. Artists Sean Taylor and Micheal Fernstrom, the Softday partnership, have extensively researched this subject.  As part of Leonardo/OLATS and Donegal Co. Council Lovely Weather Artist’s Residency, ‘Softday’ interpreted the sound of ‘dead zones’ into a tangible form for local audiences in a variety of sound forms.  Disturbingly there are 20 contested deadzones around Ireland, two of which are in Donegal bay and Killybegs harbour. The number of dead zones are increasing worldwide.

Read more at http://ecoartnotebook.com/?p=1624

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

Slouching Towards Yucca Mountain, a video installation by Eve Andr̩e Laram̩e РUnited States Artists РGreat art forms here

A cast of nineteen fictional characters explore the post-Atomic Age West in this video installation, Slouching Towards Yucca Mountain. Funds in the amount of $9,500 are sought for video editing, completion of an installation and creation of an artist book/exhibition catalog.

The project explores issues and ironies surrounding the problem of radioactive waste disposal in the United States. The non-linear narrative of Slouching Towards Yucca Mountain involves time travelers who discover these tunnels and question the use and misuse of the so-called “empty wastelands” of the American West.

Using tropes and clich̩s of the Western film and science fiction film genres, a subtext of environmental expos̩ unfolds in a suspenseful talk: part fact, part fiction. It is set in an ambiguous time period Рunstuck in time Рpartially 19th, 20th and 21st Century.

The project reveals American values and beliefs about nature, conquest, ownership and the use of land, and environmental justice issues. It does so with a mixture of creativity, humor, and dead seriousness.

I want to draw attention to issues of sustainability, renewable vs. non-renewable energy, waste disposition, geological time, and “cowboy extractionary economics.”

With your support I will produce twenty 1-3 minute long video loops: one for each character plus an introduction. The video loops will be incorporated into a series of video sculptures within a room-sized installation.

During a residency at the Goldwell Museum 15 miles from Yucca Mountain, thousands of still phtogrpahs and hours of video footage were shot in Death Valley, CA and the ghost towns of Rhyolite and Goldpoint, NV. During the preliminary project development I worked with former students and emerging artists, Courtney “scrap” Wrenn, Chelsea Noggle, Michel Tallichet, Mia Ardito, Emily Montoya and Benji Geary.

As an interdisciplinary artist who has worked at the confluence of art, science and nature for over twenty years, I feel a responsibility to examine environmental issues and ecological problems through my research and work. This is where my aesthetics and pedagogic ethics merge; I want my work to contribute to future generations.

In 2002 the U.S. government began developing Yucca Mountain as a deep geological repository for high-level radioactive waste. Due to geological faults, and climate uncertainties, the project was terminated; however a maze of excavated tunnels exist beneath the mountain. The U.S. currently has no master plan for permanent disposal of radioactive waste; it is in temporary storage at hundreds of sites across the country. This environmental problem has hardest hit the indigenous peoples of the Western desert lands. I want to raise public awareness, involve communities and initiate discussions through my work.

via Slouching Towards Yucca Mountain, a video installation by Eve Andr̩e Laram̩e РUnited States Artists РGreat art forms here.

Announcing the Artists for 2011 Art Project « Cheng-Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Project

Thank you to all the 120 artists from 47 different countries who sent in a proposal for the 2011 Cheng Long art project.  It was difficult to select just 5 from so many good proposals.  Here is the list of the artists selected to participate in the 2011 project “Children and Artists Dream of Greener Wetlands:”

Rumen Dimitrov – Bulgaria
Firman Djamil – Indonesia
Karen Macher Nesta – Peru
Julie Chou – Taiwan
Hsin-yu Huang – Taiwan

These artists will come to Cheng Long village for the installation period, April 8 – May 2, to create their site-specific environmental sculpture installations; the opening weekend for the exhibition is set for April 30 and May 1.  You can follow the artists’ progress on this Blog.  I will be posting more about each artist and what they are planning to create in Cheng Long.

I look forward to meeting all of the selected artists and welcoming them to Cheng Long, Taiwan.  Thanks again to all of those who entered, and we hope you will consider sending another proposal next year when we have a different theme and need different artists.

via Announcing the Artists for 2011 Art Project « Cheng-Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Project.

Teaneck Creek – Artists’ Projects

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Lynn Hull, Migration Mileposts, 2004

Rick Mills, Professor of Printmaking at Long Island University, is also artist in residence at the Teaneck Creek Conservancy and through this has developed a programme of art and education.  He has involved a range of artists with environmental/ecological practices, as well as work with children and young people in local schools. Using resources of the site, both natural and man-made (a significant amount of concrete from roadworks was at some point dumped in the Conservancy) the site now demonstrates their motto: Where nature, history and art come full circle.

Works address the specificity of the local (Ariane Burgess’ Turtle Peace Labyrinth) as well as the larger landscape of migration (Lynn Hull’s graphic work highlighting the origins and destinations of birds migrating through Teaneck Creek).  They reference other artists working in natural contexts (Mills homage to Ian Hamilton Finlay), as well as the issues of sustainability (Eduardo Rabel’s mural project). 

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