Monthly Archives: August 2013

Daniel Bye’s How to Occupy an Oil Rig receives 2013 Award for Sustainable Production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe #edfringe

Daniel Bye receives the 2013 award for Sustainable Production from Creative Carbon Scotland's Ben Twist.

Daniel Bye receives the 2013 award for Sustainable Production from Creative Carbon Scotland’s Ben Twist.

Creative Carbon Scotland and the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, in partnership with the List, presented Bye with Award at Fringe Central on August 23rd.

In a ceremony in the concourse at Fringe Central on Friday, August 23rd at 4:00 pm, Ben Twist of Creative Carbon Scotland awarded Daniel Bye the 2013 Award for Sustainable Production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe after presentation by Ian Garrett of the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and Sholeh Johnston of Julie’s Bicycle. This was the fourth year of the award’s presentation. Applicants and fringe participants alike enjoyed complimentary beverages and snacks with support from Vegware, producers of compostable food containers.

The Sustainable Production Award is an annual celebration of performance that’s working for an environmentally sustainable world. Open to all Fringe Festival productions by application, the award assesses all aspects of a production’s sustainability, from design to content. This award ceremony recognizes the best in this year’s sustainable productions, alongside inspiring presentations from Creative Carbon Scotland, the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, and Julie’s Bicycle. The Sustainable Production Award is presented this year in partnership with The List, which is reviewing all shortlist shows and promoting the awards events.

The award is determined by the submission of a questionnaire about how the show was produced, and how environmental and sustainable themes were considered along the way. Assessors selected a short list of 23 productions, which appeared in the weekly editions of The List. These 23 shows were reviewed based on their questionnaires and the assessment team voted for the production which most aligned with the priorities of the award. Five finalists–Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer, The Garden, and Garden O’ Delight, How to Occupy An Oil Rig, Sacred Earth–were identified as outstanding entries before the winner was selected last week.

How to Occupy an Oil Rig was selected due to its conscientious production and themes related to sustainability in our present world. In their assessment  the reviewer for the show said,”It tells stories of journeys through environmental activism engagingly, wittily, movingly… It’s all about sustainability, and is making very bold points about the scale of the problem and the necessity of radical solutions.” Also praised by the press, the Financial Times said that How to Occupy an Oil Rig was, “The real thing. Clever, engaging and important.” The Guardian said it is, “Fantastic work. Invigorating and playful. Both beautiful, and wants to change the world.” Accepting the award, Bye said “It’s great for the work to be recognized for its impact outside of the theatre itself, in the wider world.”

“Even more so than we want someone to score perfectly on the questionnaire we use to evaluate shows, we want theater artists to look at the questions and think about how it helps to guide their thinking about sustainability in the their art. There may be questions asked in ways they hadn’t thought, and we hope they ask these questions of their next project and the project after that,” adds CSPA Director Ian Garrett.

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. 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 Theatre, Diverseworks Artspace, Indy Convergence, York University, LA Stage Alliance and others.

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

More Info

Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts: https://www.sustainablepractice.org  

Creative Carbon Scotland: http://www.creativecarbonscotland.com/

CSPA Fringe Initiatives: https://www.sustainablepractice.org/programs/fringe/

2013 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Questionnaire: http://bit.ly/cspafringe13

The List’s Edinburgh Coverage: http://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk

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

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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/

 

Superhero Clubhouse in Denmark and NYC: Don’t Be Sad, Flying Ace! & Field Trip: A Climate Cabaret

Don’t be Sad, Flying Ace

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Perched on the roof of his small house, armed only with a typewriter and a rare imagination, a dog attempts to adapt after a calamitous storm that left him stranded and floating far away from home.  Inspired by Charles Shultz’ iconic beagle and incorporating leading climate science, Don’t Be Sad, Flying Ace! is a multi-disciplinary duet exploring how people respond in the face of extreme climatic events.

Created by Jeremy Pickard, Simón Adinia Hanukai and Jonathan Camuzeaux in collaboration with scientists from Columbia University and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

September 4-6 at the world-renowned Odin Teatret in Holstebro, Denmark

Oct/Nov in NYC, as part of Marfa Dialogues NY

Field Trip: A Climate Cabaret

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A musical adventure celebrating the value of collaboration and revealing science as a creative and intrepid process. Set in a wilderness camp where seven seven extraordinary women of climate science have gathered to share ideas, Field Trip features original songs, dance and poetry that together offer a uniquely hopeful view of our changing world.

As one of 18 lucky recipients of a grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation/Marfa Dialogues NY*, and in partnership with Columbia University’s Earth Institute/PositiveFeedback, we’ll be presenting a double feature in NYC this fall:

Act I Don’t Be Sad, Flying Ace!

Act II Field Trip: A Climate Cabaret

Sustainability at World Stage Design with Ian Garrett

logo-colorSMLWed 11 Sept 16.30 – 18.00

The Willow Theatre

Ian Garrett, Sustainability Programme Coordinator, Assistant Professor of Ecological Design for Performance (York University, Toronto) and Co-Director of the Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and World Stage Design 2013 Programme Assistant Kevin Smith to discuss how sustainability is being addressed at World Stage Design.

Open to all.

Price: £6

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Key contributors

Ian Garrett - Co-Director CSPA, Assistant Professor of Ecological Design for Performance, York University.

Links:
https://www.sustainablepractice.org

The Man Who Planted Trees (Seminar) at WSD2013

mwplatedWed 11 Sept 15.00 – 16.00

The Willow Theatre

The Man Who Planted Trees was awarded the 2012 CSPA Fringe Festival Award for Sustainable Production and the 2007 Eco Prize for Creativity.

The company will share their experience of creating and touring the show, conscious how lightweight set design, reuse and recycling, low-impact lighting design, backstage chat at countless venues – plus the power of a great story – has helped them to be sustainable not only in environmental terms but also as individuals working together over the last 7 years.

Who should attend?

Open to all interested in sustainability.

Price: £6

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Key contributors

Puppet State Theatre Company - http://www.puppetstate.com

Cape Farewell’s second Sea Change expedition will set sail around Scotland’s Northern Isles

SEA CHANGE 2013: Next week 27 international and Scottish artists and scientists will set sail across Orkney and Shetland to explore climate change impacts, adaptation and resilient behaviours among Scotland’s island communities

On 19th August Cape Farewell’s second Sea Change expedition will set sail around Scotland’s Northern Isles.  27 leading artists and scientists will explore technologies, projects and practices supporting the resilience of Scotland’s island communities, ecologies and cultures. First launched in 2010 Sea Change is a four year programme that brings together artists and scientists to investigate the relationship between people, place and resources and what it means to care for one’s ‘place’ in the context of climate change.  This latest expedition, and the 2011 voyage, will form the basis of a major exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh in November 2013, bringing together for the first time the work of artists and scientists who sailed to the Western and Northern Isles of Scotland as part of Cape Farewell’s Sea Change project.

27 artists and scientists, including the dramatist Bryony Lavery, singers Karine Polwart and Inge Thomson, visual artist Ruth MacLennan, textile artist Deirdre Nelson, photographer Jennifer Wilcox, artist and sculptor John Cumming and the sailor Jo Royle – best known for sailing from America to Australia in a catamaran partly made from plastic bottles – will sail on the 113-year-old community owned Shetland Fifie ‘The Swan’ around Scotland’s most northerly coasts and islands. They will visit on and off shore renewable energy sites on Orkney and Shetland, artisanal and commercial fisheries, Fair Isle’s Bird Observatory, archaeological sites, and local art centres and community projects based on stewardship of the island’s terrestrial and marine ecologies, economies and cultures. To find out more about the expedition visit www.capefarewell.com/2013expedition

Brought together by Cape Farewell, which has been at the forefront of climate change art since 2001, the aim is to investigate the multiple impacts of climate change on the cultures and ecologies of Scotland’s island communities, and their approaches to sustainability, resilience and the concept of ‘faring well’ in times of change.  Islands are significant repositories of the world’s terrestrial and marine biodiversity and home to one tenth of its human population. Their ecosystems are diverse, complex and extremely fragile. Over the last century island biodiversity has been subject to increasing stresses associated with invasive species, resource depletion, pollution and climate change.

The Northern Isles of Scotland are made up of hundreds of miles of spectacular coastline, one of the world’s largest peatlands, important seabird colonies and magnificent landscapes shaped by thousands of years of human interaction with the environment. These outlying ‘bellwether’ islands are vulnerable to extreme weather events and to the economic impacts of the decline of habitats and species vital to local industries and tourism. However, the islands have become pioneers in terms of sustainability programmes, wind, wave and tidal technologies and adaptation projects, and they offer exciting, new approaches to the relationship between place, stewardship and community.

Leading the voyage is Ruth Little, Cape Farewell’s associate director. She said: “Like boats, Scotland’s island communities and ecologies offer palpable and symbolic evidence of the reality of resource constraint; the relationship between needs and limits that is the stuff of climate change.  These islands, with their exposure to natural forces, deep human histories and rich and fragile ecologies, remind us that we face the same challenges across the planet. Together the artists and scientists will explore community projects that strive to deliver economic, social and environmental diversity and resilience. ‘Their journeys will help shape new art-science collaborations, residencies and projects which will culminate in exhibitions and events in 2013 and 2014.”

Speaking about the expedition the sculptor John Cumming said: “Living in the Northern Isles, I have become increasingly aware of the extent to which climate change is impacting on our lives. My art is grounded in this culture, and I feel the need to respond. Sailing northern waters with a group of enquiring and creative people provides an ideal opportunity to observe, reflect and discuss.”

Textile artist Deirdre Nelson said: “I joined the expedition as I am interested in ways that artists and scientists can develop ideas together in order to draw attention to issues concerning the environment, community and climate change.  I am looking forward to exploring the seas and islands around Shetland – this will provide a rich learning experience and new insight into islands I have had a connection with for some time through research into textiles there.”

The boatbuilder Ben Duffin said: “As a traditional boatbuilder working with long term unemployed people in Glasgow with the GalGael Trust I have a strong interest in community development, maritime heritage and social resilience. A chance to explore these themes from the deck of a traditional boat was too good to pass up.”

Artist Ursula Biemann said: “After doing fieldwork in desert zones of northern Africa for several years, this will be the first opportunity for me to head north and do a project at Sea. I would like the ancient land and seascapes to take me back six thousand years when rising sea levels submersed the first settlements along Shetland Island’s shores. This post-glacial period resonates beautifully with today.”

Cape Farewell is a pioneering arts programme set up by artist and photographer David Buckland in 2001.  It works in partnership with scientific and cultural institutions to deliver an innovative programme of public engagement – challenging audiences to think differently  about climate change and the natural systems we inhabit. The organisation has worked with over 140 world-renowned artists, musicians and writers, including Rachel Whiteread, Jarvis Cocker, Ian McEwan, Yann Martel, Sophie Calle, Marcus Brigstocke and Antony Gormley which has resulted in the creation of a broad range of climate focused art and public dialogue. More information about future projects and exhibitions can be found by visiting www.capefarewell.com

Sea Change is a four year programme of research and making across Scotland’s western and northern isles.  It is supported by Creative Scotland, Arts Council England, Compton Foundation, Lighthouse Foundation, the Bromley Trust, Esperamos Films, Edinburgh College of Art and Jon and Nora Lee Sedmak.

Yon Light is Not Daylight, I Know It: Findings from a Sustainability Study with Katie Oman at WSD2013

Lighting_KO-harvey-night1Wed 11 Sept 14.30 – 16.00

Simon Gibson Studio

Stage lighting has been characterised as an intractable problem for sustainability in theatre. Attention has been focused on reducing loads by switching to other sources, even as many high-efficiency technologies remain prohibitively expensive. This has worried lighting designers who rely on tungsten in their work, fearing that addressing energy efficiency may affect the work on-stage.

Findings from the first season-long analysis of stage lighting energy use suggest that these fears are unfounded.

We’ll review the findings and relevant critical issues.

Who should attend?

Open to all: especially lighting designers, technicians, facilities managers.

Price: £6

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Key contributors

Katie Oman - Senior Consultant, Arts Consulting Group

Sustainable Transformation of Global Society – Navigating Ecological Times, Whitechapel Gallery, London

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Friday 30 August, 2013, Navigating Ecological Times, Whitechapel Gallery, London

A study afternoon of presentations and discussion on art practice and sustainability with artists Lise Autogena, Fernando Garcia-Dory and Tamás Kaszás and led by curators by Maja and Reuben Fowkes. This symposium looks at the challenges of living in ecological times and the sense in which the current political, economic and environmental predicament might also offer opportunities for a sustainable transformation of global society. How have artists sought to navigate the dilemmas of living and working in a world system that seems chronically out of touch with ecological realities and can they, through their practice and approach to the world, act as guides during times of crisis?

‘Navigating Ecological Times’ is realised through the River School and supported by the EU Culture Programme. Maja and Reuben Fowkes are art historians and curators whose interests in the field of art and ecology are manifest in their curated exhibitions, symposia and writings, which have explored key ideas and practices around green curating, environmental art history and the sustainability of contemporary art. Their work also focuses on the theory and aesthetics of East European art from the art production of the socialist era to contemporary artistic responses to the transformations brought by globalisation.

 For more information : click here

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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