Art Architecture

Call for Papers : “Where is our ecological art history?

This post comes to you from Cultura21

AAH_logo_CMYK_-_smallApril 10-12, 2014 : 40th Anniversary, Annual AAH Conference & Bookfair, Royal College of Art, London

Deadline for proposals : November 11th 2013

The discipline of art history has proved itself able to look various crises of culture in the face and open up the discipline to ideological struggles and debates. These debates have involved its own politics as a discipline in response to critical issues. Issues of gender, sexuality, race and social identity have strongly inflected the discipline and have importantly shaped its trajectories and characteristic preoccupations over a number of years, but what of the critical issue of our environment? There are some highly significant works which have discussed art’s and artists’ responses and interventions in the crucial area of ecology, but perhaps less talked about and made visible is art history’s disciplinary response to crises in nature and the environment throughout its history as a discipline.

AAH2014 will represent the richness and diversity of art historical debate across the broadest sweep of time and space. The conference will unite the interests of art history with those of contemporary practice, as well as a wide diversity of visual and material culture, including art, architecture and design. As it is in close collaboration with museums and galleries, most notably the V&A Museum, the RCA aims to offer a conference exploring ‘history in the making’ through engagement with practice, collections and exhibitions.

The aim of this session is to bring this ecological art history to the fore, to uncover, freshly discover and make visible examples of such an ecological art history. The session also offers the opportunity to discuss whether art history’s status as a ‘humanistic’ discipline has in the past hindered its concern for the natural world and the environment other than through strong human cultural paradigms, and consider how the discipline has started to change with further interests in ‘eco-aesthetics’ and other multi-disciplinary or inter-disciplinary approaches to the history of the environment and its critical future : “We feel that this is an extremely prescient moment for the history of art to engage more actively in this cross-disciplinary theme”, explains Andrew Patrizio, Professor of Scottish Visual Culture, School of History of Art, University of Edinburgh.

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

Powered by WPeMatico

Culture|Futures Clubs gets Council of Europe Cultural Event Label 2012

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

Culture|Futures Clubs gets Council of Europe Cultural Event Label 2012. The Council of Europe Cultural Event label recognises exceptional and innovative cultural and artistic projects which address key challenges of today’s European societies and convey strong messages related to the Council of Europe’s mission and values.

“Culture|Futures Club – Organisation of open, cultural and social events for young people and creative professionnels to have discussions and activities on the theme of sustainability and climate change. Representatives of different cultural expressions (theatre, visual art, architecture, film, urban future planning, cuisine, etc) will meet and discuss the issues of sustainability in daily life with a  diverse audience. These events will be organised in Copenhagen in 2012/2013 and intend to expand to other countries in Europe.”

Visit the The Council of Europe Cultural Event Label (CECEL) web page here

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
Go toThis post comes to you from Culture|Futures

Powered by WPeMatico

Call for papers on Art and Freedom of Expression for Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics

www.seismopolite.com

The next issue of Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics will discuss how art can promote freedom of expression.

Contributors from different disciplinary backgrounds are invited to submit articles, reviews or interviews that address this theme through a high variety of possible angles.

Topics may include (but are not restricted to):

  • Forms, causes and consequences of censorship of art in countries and contexts worldwide.
  • Art’s potential to create new prospects in political contexts where the freedom of expression/ Human Rights are violated.
  • Artistic decolonization strategies; art’s potential to challenge and rewrite geopolitical, economic, cultural or historical master narratives, as well as to promote understanding of, and cooperation between peoples whose lives, voices and histories are suppressed/ alienated by such narratives.
  • Minority perspectives in art.
  • Art’s democratic role under global capitalism and neoliberal political geography.
  • Advantages and obstacles pertaining to the globalized scene of contemporary art (and its center-periphery-relationships) in terms of freedom of expression.
  • Art/ architecture/ literature/ film/ music/ theatre or other cultural events which address these topics.

We accept submissions continuously, but to make sure you are considered for the upcoming issue, please send your proposal/ draft, CV and samples of earlier work to submissions@seismopolite.com within July 24, 2012. Completed work will be due August 7, 2012. Commissioned works will be translated into Norwegian and published in a bilingual version.

Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics is a bilingual English and Norwegian quarterly, which investigates the possibilities of artists and art scenes worldwide to reflect and influence their local political situation. Read more about Seismopolite here

Current issue: www.seismopolite.com

Previous issues: www.seismopolite.com/artandpolitics

Contact: submissions@seismopolite.com

DESIGN-AND-BUILD EARTH ARchiTecture RESIDENCY in Ghana

Download Call as PDF

http://www.focusonthearts.org
http://afropoets.tripod.com/eta
E-mail: africoae@gmail.com

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

ARchiTecture Residency: DESIGN-BUILD-AND-LIVE IN PROJECT

Target Group: International

Discipline: All the arts (visual, performing, literary and new genres), Architecture

Duration: 3 to 24 months according to project scope and nature of funding.

Organizing Institution: FOTA Foundation, a registered NGO in Ghana (FOTA is an acronym for “focus on the arts”)

This is a project-based residency opportunity for creative persons in earth architecture, earth art/ land art/ earthworks, engineering, and others who can design-and-build dwellings or non-dwellings out of earth and other materials from the environment.

Working individually or in teams, the participant in the ARchiTecture (art+architecture) Residency Project will live in the village next to our 800-acre Artist Village in development at Maabang in the Ashanti Region of Ghana until the participant completes the project on the 800 acreage and can move in. Project is open to traditional and  modern construction methods, and experimental approaches that are known to work. Submissions in methods such as adobe, cob, compressed earth, rammed earth,  ceramic house, poured/cast earth, papercrete, earthbag, straw-bale, stackwall, earth-shelter, earthship, and other best practices may therefore be in order. Integration of rainwater harvesting, solar and wind energy generation system are indispensable but not obligatory. The lot size and shape are open; you could build it on 120×120 ft plot, an acre, or more. The only criteria that should be met are:

  1. Using earth/ other materials from the environment in part or in whole
  2. Creating a durable non-dwelling or a dwelling of at least three-bed rooms ready to move in
  3. production budget of between €1,000 to €5,000 Euros.

Priority may be given to those who have funding or can secure part-funding to complete their conceived project

For Architecture, in the framework of Fathy (2000), the contemporary participant specialist will be assigned a local master builder and two assistants, or as relative to the
proposed process and structure. In sum, we will collaborate with the international participant to procure her/him the per diem and accommodation, and assistance from
local specialists and interns in constructing the structures in anticipation that cross- cultural interchange and growth in knowledge and skills will be commonplace.
International participants will be responsible for sourcing own return air ticket, insurance,  and other personal costs. One of our supporting area institutions is the School of Fine  Art, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) at Kumasi; so, academic presentations and relevant others are possible.

Individuals or teams wishing to participate in the project should submit formal application to the Artistic Committee; the application should include your work plan, CV/resume, and a sample of completed works or web site to: africoae@gmail.com. The work plan should include at least 3 sketches of the floor plan/ sections/ elevations, budget, and a description of the method/materials, participants, time estimates, etc required to complete the proposed project.

Conceptual basis

The art+architecture project takes in the theoretical frame of the book, Architecture for the Poor: An Experiment in Rural Egypt by a known Egyptian architect, Hassan Fathy. In it, he puts forward that an informed person can, in fact, self-build durable, aesthetic and highly functional buildings without using expensive materials. Along these lines, we are developing a model artist village on some 800 acres in Maabang in the Ahafo Ano North District of the Ashanti Region of Ghana for replication in other parts of Africa. For the locals, it will mean a resolution to the age-old problem for people of artistry- painters, sculptors, actors, dancers, musicians, designers, and others who require low-cost and expanse of space in which to live and work; and for persons in the arts from around the world, it will be a contact point for artist-in-residence for community-based arts projects, cross-cultural conferences and environmental retreats.  Thus, we will next add studios, and a multipurpose complex for conferences and community-based arts mission to these residential cottages, as would be road construction to link parts of the village.

We are equally open to some alternative Housing Development Models that work. One example is the condominium program by which International NGOs with similar goals as ours, can design-and-build their structure at own costs and pay development due of €100 per room/per year, as the grounds are owned by FOTA Foundation. If the local artist/ architect group footed all cost, the group would need to pay development due of 50 GH¢ per room/per year, as the grounds belong to our Foundation. However, we are strict that the completed structure be used solely for the purpose proposed.

Location

Maabang is a rural community in the Ahafo-Ano North District in the north-western part  of Ashanti Region. The area is located between latitude 6˚ 47’N and 7 02’N and longitude 2˚ 26’W and 2˚ 04’W. The District Hospital at Tepa is the major health facility  around the Maabang Traditional Area; there are four smaller health service stations. Like  much of Ghana, few of the roads are tarred. The project acreage is along the main road, Tepa-Goaso Road. About 85% of the working population entails farmers in cassava, yam, maize, and plantain but chiefly in cocoa. There, in the town, is a cocoa research center. Timber is one of the many traditional commodities, as the region is mostly of tropical rainforest. Maabang is in the deciduous savannah transition zone. The mean monthly temperature ranges from 26° (in August) to 30° (in March). Relative humidity is generally high, ranging between 75-80 percent in the Rainy season and 70-72 percent in the dry season. The mean annual rainfall is between 125 cm and 180cm. Nationwide, there are two main seasons, the raining season and dry season. The raining season is from approximately April to October followed by the dry season, which starts in December with the Hamattan wind blowing from the Saharan Desert and ends in March.

Arrival

Board flight from a major international airport to Kokota International Airport (ACC), and then to Sunyani Airport; Maabang is 45 minutes drive from Sunyani.

DEADLINE: Ongoing but apply at least two months in advance

TO APPLY: Candidates should send the following materials to africoae@gmail.com

  1. Formal Proposal (includes budget and work plan)
  2. Bio/resume
  3. Other relevant materials (includes work sample or web site)

For additional information go to: http://afropoets.tripod.com/eta and www.focusonthearts.org

Radical Nature Comes to the Art Gallery : TreeHugger

Radical Nature, Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet is an exhibition that examines how nature has inspired artists and architects. The show takes a historical look at strange and experimental buildings since the 60s that have changed the way we see the world.

via Radical Nature Comes to the Art Gallery : TreeHugger.

APInews: Panel: Art + Land Reclamation, Urban Ecology

The role that art, architecture and design play in land reclamation and urban ecology is topic of an upcoming panel at Parsons the New School for Design in N.Y.C. The panel, set for April 10, 2009, will discuss transdisciplinary fieldwork in art, landscape architecture and industrial reclamation, focusing on the field methods of Land Arts of the American West at Texas Tech and the Incubo Atacama Lab in Chile. Land Arts, directed by Chris Taylor, is a field program that investigates the intersection of geomorphology and human construction beginning with the land and extending through the complex social and ecological processes that produce contemporary landscapes. The Incubo Atacama Lab project began when the curatorial exchange organization Incubo invited Taylor to bring the working methods of Land Arts to Chile. Taylor will participate along with Incubo artists and more.

via APInews: Panel: Art + Land Reclamation, Urban Ecology .