Encouraging people to get creative and share visions of a changing Scotland in the run-up to COP26.
In the run-up to the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, Glasgow, 31st October-12th November 2021 (COP26), the National Galleries of Scotland and National Library of Scotland are inviting visitors to respond creatively to works from the national collections to visualise how Scotland has been and will continue to be impacted by the climate and ecological emergency, unless decisive action is taken.
Teams in both organisations have collaborated to select objects and artworks that depict five landscapes across Scotland. Each represents a key theme of climate change we are experiencing in Scotland as well as globally. These include sea level rise, biodiversity, land use and agriculture, low carbon energy production and transport. All areas selected are already being impacted by a multitude of interwoven climate change factors, affecting communities and environments.
The eyes of the world will turn to Scotland as COP26 comes to Glasgow in November 2021. We are asking visitors to get creative and share their vision of a changing Scotland.
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 and Scottish 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.
I think that there needs to be greater capacity within the art sector for research to action. When I say that the art sector itself needs to be driving policy. We need to have the tools, the understanding, the training, the connections to truly impact policy and one thing that Mass Culture is really focused on at the moment is how do we first engage the sector in what are the research priorities and what needs to be investigated together and what that process looks like, but then how do you then take that research create it so that it drives change.
robin sokoloski, conscient podcast, june 29, 2021, toronto
Robin Sokoloski (she/her) is very active in the Canadian arts and culture sector. Currently, she is the Director of Organizational Development of Mass Culture – Mobilisation culturelle, Robin is working with academics, funders and arts practitioners to support a thriving arts community by mobilizing the creation, amplification and community informed analysis of research. For 10+ years, Robin was the Executive Director of Playwrights Guild of Canada (PGC). During her time there she launched the Canadian Play Outlet (a bookstore dedicated entirely to Canadian Plays), fostered a growing national awards program for playwrights, the Tom Hendry Awards, and led major changes within the organization. Robin remains committed to Canada’s arts and culture scene by volunteering for various arts organizations as a way of staying connected to the local arts community and ensuring public access to artistic experiences.
I first met Robin Sokoloski at a national arts service organization meeting in Ottawa and as a representative of Mass Culture. As of April 2021, we worked together on the coordinating committee of the Sectoral Climate Arts Leadership for the Emergency (SCALE).
Two quotes caught my attention during our conversation:
Creative Solution Making
I’m very curious to see what the arts can do to convene us as a society around particular areas of challenges and interests that we’re all feeling and needing to face. I think it’s about bringing the art into a frame where we could potentially provide a greater sense of creative solution making instead of how we are sometimes viewed, which is art on walls or on stages. I think there’s much more potential than that to engage the arts in society.
Organizational Structures
We do have the power as human beings to change human systems and so I think I’m very curious of working with people who are like-minded and who want to operate differently. I often use the organizational structure as an example of that because it is, as we all know is not a perfect model. We complain about it often and yet we always default to it. How can we come together, organize and, and bring ideas to life in different ways by changing that current system, make it more equitable, make it more inclusive, find ways of bringing people in and not necessarily having them commit, but have them come touch and go when they need to and I feel as though there’ll be a more range of ideas brought to the table and just a more enriching experience and being able to bring solutions into reality by thinking of how our structures are set up and how we could do those things differently.
As I have done in all episodes in season 2 so far, I have integrated excerpts from soundscape compositions and quotations drawn from e19 reality, as well as moments of silence and new soundscape recordings, in this episode.
I would like to thank Robin for taking the time to speak with me, for sharing her deep knowledge of cultural policy, her passion for research, her spirit of generosity and her ability to walk her talk on organizational change.
The conscient podcast / balado conscient is a series of conversations about art, conscience and the ecological crisis. This podcast is bilingual (in either English or French). The language of the guest determines the language of the podcast. Episode notes are translated but not individual interviews.
I started the conscient project in 2020 as a personal learning journey and knowledge sharing exercise. It has been rewarding, and sometimes surprising.
The term ‘conscient’ is defined as ‘being aware of one’s surroundings, thoughts and motivations’. My touchstone for the podcast is episode 1, e01 terrified, based on an essay I wrote in May 2019, where I share my anxiety about the climate crisis and my belief that arts and culture can play a critical role in raising public awareness about environmental issues. The conscient podcast / balado conscient follows up on my http://simplesoundscapes.ca (2016–2019) project: 175, 3-minute audio and video field recordings that explore mindful listening.
Season 1 (May to October 2020) explored how the arts contribute to environmental awareness and action. I produced 3 episodes in French and 15 in English. The episodes cover a wide range of content, including activism, impact measurement, gaming, arts funding, cross-sectoral collaborations, social justice, artistic practices, etc. Episodes 8 to 17 were recorded while I was at the Creative Climate Leadership USA course in Arizona in March 2020 (led by Julie’s Bicycle). Episode 18 is a compilation of highlights from these conversations.
Season 2 (March 2021 – ) explores the concept of reality and is about accepting reality, working through ecological grief and charting a path forward. The first episode of season 2 (e19 reality) mixes quotations from 28 authors with field recordings from simplesoundscapes and from my 1998 soundscape composition, Au dernier vivant les biens. One of my findings from this episode is that ‘I now see, and more importantly, I now feel in my bones, ‘the state of things as they actually exist’, without social filters or unsustainable stories blocking the way’. e19 reality touches upon 7 topics: our perception of reality, the possibility of human extinction, ecological anxiety and ecological grief, hope, arts, storytelling and the wisdom of indigenous cultures. The rest of season 2 features interviews with thought leaders about their responses and reactions to e19 reality.
my professional services
I’ve been retired from the Canada Council for the Arts since September 15, 2020 where I served as a senior strategic advisor in arts granting (2016-2020) and manager of the Inter-Arts Office (1999-2015). My focus in (quasi) retirement is environmental issues within my area of expertise in arts and culture, in particular in acoustic ecology. I’m open to become involved in projects that align with my values and that move forward environmental concerns. Feel free to email me for a conversation : claude@conscient.ca
acknowledgement of eco-responsibility
I acknowledge that the production of the conscient podcast / balado conscient produces carbon. I try to minimize this carbon footprint by being as efficient as possible, including using GreenGeeks as my web server and acquiring carbon offsets for my equipment and travel activities from BullFrog Power and Less.
a word about privilege and bias
While recording episode 19 ‘reality’, I heard elements of ‘privilege’ in my voice that I had not noticed before. It sounded a bit like ‘ecological mansplaining’. I realize that, in spite of good intentions, I need to work my way through issues of privilege (of all kinds) and unconscious bias the way I did through ecological anxiety and grief during the fall of 2020. My re-education is ongoing.
The VACMA: Edinburgh 2021/22 funding scheme for visual artsts/craft makers is now open.
The City of Edinburgh Council, in partnership with Creative Scotland, offer funding opportunities to visual artists / craft makers who can demonstrate a commitment to developing their creative practice and are living or working or maintaining a studio space within Edinburgh.
Funds available In place of the usual VACMA awards, this year fixed bursaries are available in recognition of the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on individual artists and makers. The scheme acknowledges the limitations placed on individual practices and the opportunities that are currently available. The VACMA scheme offers two levels of bursaries and you should apply for the one that best suits your situation.
Artist/maker bursaries of £750
Early career bursaries of £500 (For applicants that have less than five years’ experience outside of education/training, graduated in 2016 or later, or that have not studied art formally but have been practising as an artist for up to five years)
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 and Scottish 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.
Call for visual artists to work on climate action windows for Paisley.
Renfrewshire Leisure in collaboration with Paisley First are seeking to commission three visual artists to work with Paisley local shops and businesses to create stunning LED lit window designs highlighting the climate action issues significant to Renfrewshire during COP26 (1st-12th November 2021).
The artists will work collaboratively with local shops and businesses in the Paisley First District to develop window installations that push boundaries of experimentation to capture distinctive narratives on climate issues specific to Renfrewshire.
The work can use mixed art forms to explore contemporary themes around how we respond to climate adaptation, and what actions we can take at an individual or collective level to make change. We are looking for high-quality imaginative window installations that have contemporary vision, uniqueness and positive progressive thinking on climate action and social change.
A fixed fee is available to each artist for the development, support and delivery of a collection of windows during October 2021. Use of eco-managed materials is also an important element and a materials budget will support the work.
This project is presented by Place Partnership at Renfrewshire Leisure in collaboration with Paisley First and funded by Creative Scotland, Renfrewshire Council and delivered in partnership with Renfrewshire Leisure as part of Future Paisley.
“Future Paisley is the radical and wide-ranging programme of economic, social and physical regeneration using the town’s unique and internationally-significant cultural and heritage story to transform its future.â€
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 and Scottish 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.
You are invited to submit any coral or coral-related items to an exhibition at Summerhall
As part of her upcoming exhibition ‘Our Unfathomable Depths’ at Summerhall in Edinburgh, artist Jodi Le Bigre would like to display any coral – or coral-related – items that we have in our homes so that we can explore why we have them, what we feel about them, and what it says about our relationships with our environment.
If you are interested in taking part, please submit any coral – or coral-related – item you have in your home, along with a short description of the item(s). Your item(s) will be displayed as part of the exhibition and then returned to you.
A group discussion will also be organised during the exhibition, either in person or online, where we can discuss these items, their histories, and the way that our stories relate to the broader history of coral.
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 and Scottish 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.
One of the larger crises we face right now is actually a crisis of failure of imagination and one of the biggest things we can do in artistic practice is to nurture imagination. It is what we do. It’s our job. We know how to do that. We know how to trade in uncertainty and complexity. We understand the content inside a silence, it’s unlocking and speaking to ways of knowing and being and doing that when you start to try to talk about them in words, it is really challenging because it ends up sounding like bumper stickers, like ‘Music Builds Bridges’. I have a big problem with universalizing discourses in the arts, as concealing structures of imperialism and colonialism.
dr. tanya kalmanovitch, conscient podcast, june 3, 2021, new york city
Dr. Tanya Kalmanovitch is a Canadian violist, ethnomusicologist, and author known for her breadth of inquiry and restless sense of adventure (our conversation confirms this!) who lives in Brooklyn, NY. Tanya’s uncommonly diverse interests converge, among others, in the fields of improvisation, social entrepreneurship, and social action with projects that explore the provocative cultural geography of locations around the world. Tanya’s career has become a broad platform for artistry and many forms of advocacy. For example, she was drawn to ethnomusicology as a way to explore the ways in which music can speak to the world’s biggest problems and earned her doctorate at the University of Alberta. She is currently developing and touring the Tar Sands Songbook, a documentary theatre play that tells the stories of people whose lives been shaped by living near oil development and its effects.
Here are some quotes from our conversation that caught my attention:
On grief
Normal life in North America does not leave us room for grief. We do not know how to handle grief. We don’t know what to do with it. We push it away. We channel it, we contain it, we compartmentalize it. We ignore it. We believe that it’s something that has an end, that it’s linear or there are stages. We believe it’s something we can get through. Whereas I’ve come to think a lot about the idea of living with loss, living with indeterminacy, living with uncertainty, as a way of awakening to the radical sort of care and love for ourselves, for our fellow living creatures for the life on the planet. I think about how to transform a performance space or a classroom or any other environment into a community of care. How can I create the conditions by which people can bear to be present to what they have lost, to name and to know what we have lost and from there to grieve, to heal and to act in the fullest awareness of loss? Seeing love and loss as intimately intertwined.
On storytelling
My idea is that there’s a performance, which is sort of my offering, but then there’s also a series of participatory workshops where community members can sound their own stories about where we’ve come from, how they’re living today and the future in which they wish to live, what their needs are, what their griefs are. So here, I’m thinking about using oral history and storytelling as a practice that promotes ways of knowing, doing and healing … with storytelling as a sort of a participatory and circulatory mechanism that promotes healing. I have so much to learn from indigenous storytelling practices.
On nature as music
We are all every one of us musicians. When you choose what song you wake up to on your alarm or use music to set a mood. You sing a catchy phrase to yourself or you sing a child asleep: you’re making musical acts. Then extend that a little bit beyond that anthropocentric lens and hear a bird as a musician, a creek as a musician and that puts us into that intimate relationship with the environment again.
On Alberta
I guess this is plea for people to not think about oil sands issues as being Alberta issues, but as those being everyone everywhere issues, and not just because of the ecological ethical consequences of the contamination of the aquifer, what might happen if 1.4 trillion liters of toxic process water, if the ponds holding those rupture, what might happen next…That the story will still be there, that land and the people, the animals and the plants, all those relationships will still be imperilled, right? So to remember, first of all, that it’s not just an Alberta thing and that the story doesn’t end just because Teck pulled it’s Frontier mining proposal in February, 2020. The story always goes on. I want to honour the particular and the power of place and at the same time I want to uplift the idea that we all belong to that place.
As I have done in all episodes in season 2 so far, I have integrated excerpts from soundscape compositions and quotations drawn from e19 reality, as well as moments of silence and new field recordings, in this episode.
I would like to thank Tanya for taking the time to speak with me and for sharing her deep knowledge of music and arts education, her passion for music, her love of her home province of Alberta and her sharp, lucid and strategic mind.
The conscient podcast / balado conscient is a series of conversations about art, conscience and the ecological crisis. This podcast is bilingual (in either English or French). The language of the guest determines the language of the podcast. Episode notes are translated but not individual interviews.
I started the conscient project in 2020 as a personal learning journey and knowledge sharing exercise. It has been rewarding, and sometimes surprising.
The term ‘conscient’ is defined as ‘being aware of one’s surroundings, thoughts and motivations’. My touchstone for the podcast is episode 1, e01 terrified, based on an essay I wrote in May 2019, where I share my anxiety about the climate crisis and my belief that arts and culture can play a critical role in raising public awareness about environmental issues. The conscient podcast / balado conscient follows up on my http://simplesoundscapes.ca (2016–2019) project: 175, 3-minute audio and video field recordings that explore mindful listening.
Season 1 (May to October 2020) explored how the arts contribute to environmental awareness and action. I produced 3 episodes in French and 15 in English. The episodes cover a wide range of content, including activism, impact measurement, gaming, arts funding, cross-sectoral collaborations, social justice, artistic practices, etc. Episodes 8 to 17 were recorded while I was at the Creative Climate Leadership USA course in Arizona in March 2020 (led by Julie’s Bicycle). Episode 18 is a compilation of highlights from these conversations.
Season 2 (March 2021 – ) explores the concept of reality and is about accepting reality, working through ecological grief and charting a path forward. The first episode of season 2 (e19 reality) mixes quotations from 28 authors with field recordings from simplesoundscapes and from my 1998 soundscape composition, Au dernier vivant les biens. One of my findings from this episode is that ‘I now see, and more importantly, I now feel in my bones, ‘the state of things as they actually exist’, without social filters or unsustainable stories blocking the way’. e19 reality touches upon 7 topics: our perception of reality, the possibility of human extinction, ecological anxiety and ecological grief, hope, arts, storytelling and the wisdom of indigenous cultures. The rest of season 2 features interviews with thought leaders about their responses and reactions to e19 reality.
my professional services
I’ve been retired from the Canada Council for the Arts since September 15, 2020 where I served as a senior strategic advisor in arts granting (2016-2020) and manager of the Inter-Arts Office (1999-2015). My focus in (quasi) retirement is environmental issues within my area of expertise in arts and culture, in particular in acoustic ecology. I’m open to become involved in projects that align with my values and that move forward environmental concerns. Feel free to email me for a conversation : claude@conscient.ca
acknowledgement of eco-responsibility
I acknowledge that the production of the conscient podcast / balado conscient produces carbon. I try to minimize this carbon footprint by being as efficient as possible, including using GreenGeeks as my web server and acquiring carbon offsets for my equipment and travel activities from BullFrog Power and Less.
a word about privilege and bias
While recording episode 19 ‘reality’, I heard elements of ‘privilege’ in my voice that I had not noticed before. It sounded a bit like ‘ecological mansplaining’. I realize that, in spite of good intentions, I need to work my way through issues of privilege (of all kinds) and unconscious bias the way I did through ecological anxiety and grief during the fall of 2020. My re-education is ongoing.
In Argyll, Cove Park and ACT have announced a whole series of events and activitiestaking place across the coming months, including creative workshops, climate cafes, school events, a new film commission, and the community planting of a ‘micro-rainforest’ on the Cove Park site.
They are excited to be hosting The People’s Palace of Possibility with The Bare Projectand Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity. The People’s Palace of Possibility will recruit Palace Citizens, made up of young people and local groups, to challenge the prevailing consensus on land and climate justice through radical acts of imagination. They will also be launching a podcast of discussions and artist radio broadcasts and a travelling community cinema across Caithness and Sutherland.
For more updates on the Caithness and East Sutherland Beacon, visit the Timespan or Lyth Arts Centre websites or social media.
The Land For Those Who Work It logo.
Fife Beacon
The Leven programme, ONFife and Levenmouth Academy have been pleased to welcome two visitors to the Fife Beacon in recent months.
First, from ‘human swan’ Sacha Dench, who is flying an electric paramotor all around Britain to raise awareness about the impacts of climate change and potential of fossil fuel free transport.Â
Second, representatives from the Fife Beacon met with Scottish culture minister Jenny Gilruth for a walk along a disused former industrial site by the river Leven, which they are hoping to regenerate into an outdoor community space.Â
A photo taken during minister Jenny Gilruth’s visit. Photography: Alastair More, ONFife.
Inverclyde Beacon
The Inverclyde Beacon have been working together on a wide range of plans. They held a workshop with artist Eve Mosher, crafting dissolvable paper boats loaded with marine seeds, which were floated out into the Clyde to support the replenishment of the ecosystem.
A range of future events and activities are due to be announced very soon, visit the Beacon Arts Centre website and social media for updates.
Participants in the workshop with Eve Mosher held at Beacon Arts Centre.
Midlothian Beacon
In Midlothian, the National Mining Museum and British Geological Survey have launched a brand new STEM climate change workshop for primary schools, which combines science with art for a free and interactive event. Future plans include an exhibition ‘Climate Change: The Carbon Cycle’ and the participatory creation of a clay sculpture.
The Outer Hebrides Climate Beacon hit the ground running with creative community mapping workshops held in Uist. The mapping project uses maps of localities to obtain information about climate change impacts as experienced by community residents. It has been piloted at the Hebrides International Film Festival and in remote communities in Uist by utilising the Western Isles Libraries Mobile Library.
The Message In a Bottle project, headed by Taigh Chearsabhagh museum and arts centre, is also being launched. This is a participatory multi-media art project inviting people across the world, especially those in island and coastal communities, and especially young people and families, to create messages in bottles to be delivered to COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, November 2021. You can find out more about how to get involved on their website.
Left: participants in a mapping workshop. Right: an image of the map with annotations added by participants.
Tayside Beacon
In Tayside, representatives of arts organisations, museums, universities, climate activists, local organisers, council employees across the Tayside region came together as part of a series of design thinking workshops. They used the process to share ideas and take the first steps in putting together an ambitious plan for climate crisis focused activity over the next year. More on these plans will be announced very soon.
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 and Scottish 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.
WWF joins forces with Artwise Curators to launch Art For Your World and combat the climate crisis.
The art world has the power to influence, galvanise and make a real difference. Through Art For Your World we want to harness this power and bring together the creativity and generosity of the cultural sector to stand in solidarity and help take hold of the future of our planet.
Art For Your World is a series of actions taking place this autumn in the context of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) taking place 1-12 November in Glasgow. A wide call to artists, collectors, galleries, museums and arts organisations to make a meaningful connection between art and the environment, in order to support the ground-breaking work being carried out by WWF, one of the world’s largest conservation organisations. The activities include a charitable auction at Sotheby’s of several outstanding works of art, the sale of exclusive new prints by three leading contemporary artists and arts organisations all over the world speaking out for action against climate change.
The funds raised by Art For Your World will be used to support key areas of WWF’s work that contribute to combatting dangerous climate change, such as:
halting deforestation
supporting communities
conserving and restoring trees and forests
replanting seagrass meadows
protecting endangered species
promoting sustainable lifestyles.
If you are an artist or arts organisation and want to align with the campaign, please visit the project website www.artforyourworld.com.
Art For Your world is an Artwise Curators initiative.
(Top photo: Abstract painting featuring a tiger called ‘Fierceness in scarcity’, limited edition print by Chila Kumari Singh Burman for Art For Your World)
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 and Scottish 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.
Collectively, we are unconscious. We try to talk about ecological consciousness. If there is a collective psyche, which I believe there is, I do think there is a kind of collective mind, but it is a mind that is unconscious, that is not capable of seeing itself, of reflecting and therefore not capable of meditating, not capable of transforming itself, and therefore subject to its fears and its impulses. I am quite pessimistic about this, in the sense that ecological grief, all grief and all fear is repressed at the moment. There are activists shouting in the wilderness, screaming, and people are listening, but in a fog. It is not enough to bring about collective action. Therefore, our grieving is far from being done, collectively.
dr. danielle boutet, conscient podcast, june 24, 2021, rimouski
Danielle Boutet, Ph.D., is a researcher in arts practice. After completing a doctorate on the epistemological dimensions of the creative process in art, she is interested in the artistic experience: that is, the experience of the artist in relation to creation, and what are the meanings of this experience in the whole of human experience. She approaches this question from a phenomenological and autoethnological point of view – in particular via the narratives of practice. As a specialist in intermediality and interdisciplinarity in the arts, and more specifically in the creative process in these new artistic fields, part of her research focuses on a set of skills and notions common to all the arts, a sort of non-disciplinary or infra-disciplinary background, allowing artists to apply the knowledge and know-how of their medium of origin to new mediums and new artistic practices. In a transdisciplinary perspective, it considers art as a form of knowledge in its own right among other forms of knowledge, and postulates its complementarity in any knowledge of reality, alongside science, philosophy and the great hermeneutics such as psychoanalysis, spiritualities, and others. She also studies new artistic practices, notably relational art, art in community and activist art.
I have known Danielle Boutet since 1999 when I started my career at the Canada Council for the Arts. Over the years, she has had a great influence on my evolution in this sector. Here is a post she wrote in 2016 that summarizes our collaborations at the Council: From Interdisciplinarity to Non-disciplinarity. I was thrilled to re-engage in a dialogue about art with Danielle on this podcast. Always engaging and thoughtful, we had a great exchange. These two quotes caught my attention in particular:
Changing our relationship to nature
We need to change our relationship to nature, our way of relating to others, and it’s not the generalizing science that’s going to tell us, it’s this kind of science of the singular and the experience of each person. For me, it is really a great field of innovation, of research and I see that the artists are going in this direction. You and I have been watching the changes in the art world since the 1990s. I see it through the artists who talk about it more and more and integrate their reflection in their approach.Â
How art can help humans evolve
I hear a lot of people calling for artists to intervene and of artists also saying that something must be done, etc. I think that art is not a good vehicle for activism. I’m really sorry for all the people who are interested in this. I don’t want to shock anyone, but sometimes it can risk falling into propaganda or ideology or a kind of facility that I am sorry about, in the sense that I think art can do so much more than that and go so much deeper than that. Art can help humans to evolve. It is at this level that I think that we can really have action, but I think that we have always had this action, and it is a question of doing it over and over and over again.
I thank Danielle for taking the time to exchange with me and share her worldview, her deep thinking on art and her spirit of openness and exploration.
The conscient podcast / balado conscient is a series of conversations about art, conscience and the ecological crisis. This podcast is bilingual (in either English or French). The language of the guest determines the language of the podcast. Episode notes are translated but not individual interviews.
I started the conscient project in 2020 as a personal learning journey and knowledge sharing exercise. It has been rewarding, and sometimes surprising.
The term ‘conscient’ is defined as ‘being aware of one’s surroundings, thoughts and motivations’. My touchstone for the podcast is episode 1, e01 terrified, based on an essay I wrote in May 2019, where I share my anxiety about the climate crisis and my belief that arts and culture can play a critical role in raising public awareness about environmental issues. The conscient podcast / balado conscient follows up on my http://simplesoundscapes.ca (2016–2019) project: 175, 3-minute audio and video field recordings that explore mindful listening.
Season 1 (May to October 2020) explored how the arts contribute to environmental awareness and action. I produced 3 episodes in French and 15 in English. The episodes cover a wide range of content, including activism, impact measurement, gaming, arts funding, cross-sectoral collaborations, social justice, artistic practices, etc. Episodes 8 to 17 were recorded while I was at the Creative Climate Leadership USA course in Arizona in March 2020 (led by Julie’s Bicycle). Episode 18 is a compilation of highlights from these conversations.
Season 2 (March 2021 – ) explores the concept of reality and is about accepting reality, working through ecological grief and charting a path forward. The first episode of season 2 (e19 reality) mixes quotations from 28 authors with field recordings from simplesoundscapes and from my 1998 soundscape composition, Au dernier vivant les biens. One of my findings from this episode is that ‘I now see, and more importantly, I now feel in my bones, ‘the state of things as they actually exist’, without social filters or unsustainable stories blocking the way’. e19 reality touches upon 7 topics: our perception of reality, the possibility of human extinction, ecological anxiety and ecological grief, hope, arts, storytelling and the wisdom of indigenous cultures. The rest of season 2 features interviews with thought leaders about their responses and reactions to e19 reality.
my professional services
I’ve been retired from the Canada Council for the Arts since September 15, 2020 where I served as a senior strategic advisor in arts granting (2016-2020) and manager of the Inter-Arts Office (1999-2015). My focus in (quasi) retirement is environmental issues within my area of expertise in arts and culture, in particular in acoustic ecology. I’m open to become involved in projects that align with my values and that move forward environmental concerns. Feel free to email me for a conversation : claude@conscient.ca
acknowledgement of eco-responsibility
I acknowledge that the production of the conscient podcast / balado conscient produces carbon. I try to minimize this carbon footprint by being as efficient as possible, including using GreenGeeks as my web server and acquiring carbon offsets for my equipment and travel activities from BullFrog Power and Less.
a word about privilege and bias
While recording episode 19 ‘reality’, I heard elements of ‘privilege’ in my voice that I had not noticed before. It sounded a bit like ‘ecological mansplaining’. I realize that, in spite of good intentions, I need to work my way through issues of privilege (of all kinds) and unconscious bias the way I did through ecological anxiety and grief during the fall of 2020. My re-education is ongoing.
Beth Dary’s sculptures, installations, and drawings have in common deep layers of meaning, imaginative combinations of materials, and subtle delicacy in form and color. Her insatiable curiosity for exploring diverse materials and processes results in a wide array of formal expressions, ranging from ceramics to photography, and fabric to glass. In this interview, she shares some insights into her work, her process of exploration, and talks about her upcoming projects.
You grew up by the sea and the notion of water and patterns in nature seem to play a central role in all of your work. Can you tell me more about it?
Nature has always been an inspiration and is an integral aspect of my work. I was born and raised on Cape Cod, Massachusetts and remember being acutely aware of the power and beauty of the ocean and the coastal environment, even as a child.
I spent many hours walking the shoreline, beach-combing with my mom. On her daily morning walk, she would clean the beach, picking up the trash that washed ashore while I picked up as many interesting objects as I could carry home – beach glass, seedpods, fishing lures, shells, driftwood. Another visceral memory is of the Nor’easters and hurricanes we weathered and the almost ritual routine we had preparing for and riding out these storms. We would board up the house, light the kerosene lamps, and get out our books. When the storms passed, we would walk the neighborhood to survey the damage. This has left a lasting impression on me and has also played a large role in how I view the natural world.
Moving forward to my adult life, I have always lived near the water’s edge – whether on Cape Cod, New York City, on the Mississippi River in Memphis, and New Orleans. As a result, I have continued to bear witness to the awesome forces of nature and climate, including having experienced Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy first hand.
Please tell me about your project Elements of Ambivalence from 2006.
I was living in New Orleans in 2005, where my family and I had settled after two years of traveling. Less than two months after moving into the house we had purchased, we were on the move again, hitting the road with our then four year-old less than 24 hours before Katrina made landfall. Once it became clear that we would not be able to return home for some time, we resettled in New York City. That fall I was a recipient of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Gulf Coast Residency, which was created in response to the many artists who were displaced by the storm. Being able to go back to work with a community of 12 other artists who had also landed in New York after leaving the Gulf Coast was the first major step in recovering personally and professionally.
Elements of Ambivalence, 10’ x 17’ x 4″, fabric, pins, encaustic, 2006.
The “studios,†located in an empty floor of a Lower Manhattan office building, were separated by fabric walls as they were put together quickly to create an instant work space for the artists. It was during this residency that I began the Elements of Ambivalenceseries. I decided to use one of the 10’ x 17’ fabric walls as a canvas to create a large-scale, double-sided drawing; since I didn’t have any materials to work with at the time, this seemed like a good place to start. The drawing was inspired by the circle maps I was seeing in the newspapers to describe the diaspora of the New Orleans population and communities displaced by the hurricane, as well as the mold patterns that formed in people’s water-damaged homes, including ours.
I chose to use florist pins to create the drawing. On one side of the canvas were thousands of reflective black and white round-headed ball pins; the opposite side revealed only the sharp sheath part of the pin. This duality relates to the simultaneous beauty and danger of the natural world. Also included in this body of work were kinetic sculptures made using steel hoops covered with discarded sections of the wall fabric embedded with pins to make individual pieces that hung in the space at eye level.
You do public art as well. Can you tell me about your project Emerge?
In 2006-2007 I returned to New Orleans with my family after spending a year in New York. It was during this time that I created my first public art project in conjunction with Aorta, a guerilla-style artist group dedicated to placing artwork into areas that were heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Emerge was located in New Orleans City Park. The installation consisted of placing hundreds of cast paper pulp “pods†into the landscape of a low-lying wetland on the grounds in the park. For a casual passerby, the distinction between “artistic†and “natural†phenomenon would blur. The sculptural elements of the piece, which were inspired by objects found in nature like a gourd or seed pod, were created using all organic materials and placed in a way that could be imagined as an integral part of the life cycle of the plants in that area. In this way I used “art†to seed something of potential growth for a landscape that was flooded and badly damaged during the storm. Perhaps these sculptures were even collected as a curiosity by a visitor to the park – maybe a child around the same age I was when trailing behind my mother on the beach.
Emerge, sizes varied, cast paper pulp, 2007
The sculptures, many of them unfinished fragments, were part of an earlier body of work that was interrupted by the hurricane, sitting untouched on my studio work table for over a year. The use of elements of a partially completed work connoted a disruption of a work in progress, much the way so many lives were caught in a moment at the time of the storm and dropped elsewhere out of their intended context.
Let’s talk about your glass work. What is the genesis?
In 2007 we returned to New York, where we have lived ever since. Coming out of my experience with Emerge, a friend told me about “Art on the Beach,†a 1970’s era artist movement in Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan on land that was, at that time, a vacant sandy landfill. By 2007, the area had transformed into a dense urban neighborhood where we happened to be living.
Much of my free time was spent along the Battery Park waterfront in the playgrounds with our young son. A favorite spot of mine is the Lily Pool, a duck pond just south of the World Financial Center. Thinking about “Art on the Beach,†and seeing bubbles floating over the pond from the nearby playground where my son was playing, I was inspired to propose Equilibrium as a public art installation made up of bubble sculptures that would float in the Lily Pool.
Equilibrium, sizes varied, blown glass, 2008. Photo courtesy of Steve Gross and Susan Daly (L) and Scott Ferguson(R).
The sculptures were immersed in the water, floating amidst the plant and animal life inhabiting the pond during the summer and fall of 2008. My hope for Equilibrium was to add a bit of curiosity and playfulness to the viewer’s day as the sculptures reflected the natural surroundings including the passersby themselves, as well as alluding to the metaphorical bubble that inspired the installation. The “bubble†has taken on many simultaneous meanings for me as I have worked with the form over the years – including air bubbles of CO2 trapped in Arctic ice that track climate change, and biomorphic forms that relate to metastasizing cells.
As it happened, the installation took place in the fall of 2008 during the height of the subprime mortgage collapse and the fall of Lehman Brothers. At that moment, by its location near the heart of the Financial District, the installation took on the added context and meaning of the financial “bubble,†which was much on people’s minds that fall.
Beth Dary at the Lily Pond in Battery Park City in New York City. Photo courtesy of Steve Gross and Susan Daly.
You are working with diverse materials and processes: paper, glass, drawing, sculpture, video, and ceramics. Tell me a bit about your relationship to materials and media.
My 2010 installation Emersion began with a fascination with barnacles that grow in abundance on Cape Cod. I felt this kind of sea life worked as a metaphor for the resilient and adaptable qualities of humans in a time of global warming and rising tides.
I had begun making barnacle sculptures with oil clay and sticking them directly onto the walls, ceiling, and floor of my studio and I agreed to turn them into a full-scale gallery installation. I spent time at a residency developing ideas for how to realize the installation. Some key reading material that I brought with me included Darwin and the Barnacle, which deepened my understanding of how these crustaceans have adapted to changing environments, and On The Water/Palisade Bay, a book that grew out of “Rising Currents†(a show featuring the work of a friend, Marc Tsurumaki, and his firm LTL Architects at the Museum of Modern Art), which proposed architectural projects along the coastal edge of New York City, exploring strategies to adapt to sea level rise. Using the walls of the studio, I developed the idea of creating wall sculptures hanging in an array that would mirror the topography of marine environments where barnacles thrive.
Emersion, 7’ x 31’ x 4″, porcelain, 2010-present. Photo courtesy of Heriard-Cimino Gallery.
After returning home, I had two months to fabricate work with a medium that I had never used. Enlisting the help of an experienced ceramic artist, and a group of my friends, I had small ‘barnacle parties’ in my studio where we created thousands of hand-built barnacle clusters designed to hang in formation on the wall of the project room of the Heriard-Cimino Gallery. Emersion eventually became an immersive installation that filled the gallery, merging and overlapping the contours of New York Harbor and the Mississippi River, exploring the idea that we are connected through global waterways.
(Top image: Emersion (detail), sculptures range in size from 1″ diameter to 10″ x 12″ x 5″. All photos courtesy of the artist unless otherwise indicated.)
This interview is part of a content collaboration between Art Spiel and Artists & Climate Change. It was originally published on Art Spiel on January 8, 2019 as part of an ongoing interview series with contemporary artists.
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Etty Yaniv works on her art, art writing, and curatorial projects in Brooklyn. She has exhibited her immersive installations in museums and galleries, nationally and internationally. Yaniv founded the platform Art Spiel to highlight the work of contemporary artists through art reviews, studio visits, and interviews with artists, curators, and gallerists. Yaniv holds a BA in Psychology and English Literature from Tel Aviv University, a BFA from Parsons School of Design, and an MFA from SUNY Purchase.
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Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.
