The deadline for all strands is Thursday 22 March 2013.
There are several strands:
Open Call for Ideas – ideas for artworks that connect aspects of land, sustainability, energy, coast, rural living, Biosphere, Dark Skies, climate change, ecosystem services, transport, etc. and are relevant or connected to Dumfries and Galloway.  These could be small or large ideas.  Proposals are invited from any discipline.
Ten ideas will be selected to receive small grants towards their development. Â They will be included in the Environmental Art Festival in some form (depending on the stage of development).
Commissions – temporary installations for the duration of the festival (30 August to 2 September 2013) addressing the theme of “energy and the landâ€.  There is a budget of £5,000 for each commission.  Commissions can be across a wide range of media including visual art, sound, film, digital media, text based or combinations.  The Environmental Art Festival is looking to demonstrate cutting edge art practices engaged with ecology, nature or land art which is moving, meaningful and dynamic.  The
Venues, Places, Organisations – Wide Open is interested in hearing from Venues, Places or Organisations with existing or planned activity that fits with the themes of the Environmental Art Festival.
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
Northumberlandia, Charles Jencks, 2012 (photo provided by Banks Group)
Matt Ridley is the author of a number of books on the subjects of evolution, genetics and society, and has been variously a scientist, journalist and businessman.  There was an article in Saturday’s Times and the full version is on Matt Ridley’s website.  It’s worth reading.
His family leased land to a mining operation in the North East of England and have sponsored Charles Jencks to create Northumberlandia, the latest of Jencks’ earthworks.
When the Banks Group approached my family to dig out coal from under farmland we own, creating 150 local jobs, they also came with an imaginative suggestion. Instead of waiting ten years to put the rock back and restore the surface to woods and fields, which is the normal practice, why not put some of the rock to one side to make a new landscape feature that people can use long before the mine is restored?
Ridley makes an argument around energy and land.  It’s an economic argument about fossil fuels and land use.
The replacement of muscle power, burning carbohydrates, with fossil power, burning hydrocarbons, has been one of the great liberators of history.
Unfortunately the argument doesn’t look to the future.  It is true that fossil fuels have transformed society, but that’s the transformation of the industrial revolution.  The current transformation is focused on renewable energy and the need to massively reduce our footprint.
And in terms of art practices, this is not innovative, just large.  Cutting edge art practices look to integrate the future into the landscape, not just shape it aesthetically.  Whether it’s AMD&ART addressing Acid Mine Drainage, or the Land Art Generator Initiative bringing together at scale renewable energy and art, or any of a number of other artists working on energy and land futures (see greenmuseum.org for examples), Northumberlandia misses a trick and a big one.  The creation of new public space is important, but the use of that process to exemplify new futures is vital.
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.
Art and Design Academy, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK
http://www.ArtsinSociety.com/Conference
We are pleased to announce the Call-for-Papers for the Seventh International Conference on the Arts in Society. The conference and its companion journal provide a scholarly platform for discussions of the arts and art practices, enabling an interdisciplinary conversation on the role of the arts in society. They are intended as a place for critical engagement, examination and experimentation of ideas that connect the arts to their contexts in the world – in studios and classrooms, in galleries and museums, on stage, on the streets and in communities.
In addition to an impressive line-up of international plenary speakers, the conference will also include paper presentations, roundtable discussions, workshop and interactive presentations, poster or exhibit sessions, and colloquia submitted by practitioners, teachers and researchers. Please refer to the Call-for-Papers for proposal submission guidelines and descriptions of sessions. Presenters may also choose to submit written papers for publication in the fully refereed International Journal of the Arts in Society. If you are unable to attend the conference in person, virtual registrations are also available which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication in this fully refereed academic journal.
The host city of Liverpool celebrated its 800th birthday in 2007 and, throughout its history, has stood at the center of many of the world’s trades, inventions, and cultural innovations. As a world port city, Liverpool boasts a diverse population, drawing from its many peoples, cultures, and religions, and in celebration of this history, Liverpool was named a European Capital of Culture in 2008.
As an important cultural center, Liverpool is known for its contributions to music, visual arts, literature, and performing arts. The city houses more galleries and national museums than any other city in the UK outside of London, including the Tate Liverpool, the FACT Centre, the Walker Art Gallery, the Bluecoat, and of course, the international Liverpool Biennial art festival. In addition, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Liverpool Shakespeare Festival, Matthew Street Festival, and the Empire, Everyman, Liverpool Playhouse, Neptune, Royal Court and Unity theaters are all found in this colorful city.
Whether you are a virtual or in-person presenter at this conference, we also encourage you to present on the Arts in Society YouTube Playlist. Please select the Online Sessions link on the conference website for further details. Additionally, please join our online conversation by subscribing to our monthly email newsletter and subscribing to our Facebook, RSS, or Twitter feeds at http://www.artsinsociety.com/ .
The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 17 January 2011. Future deadlines will be announced on the conference website after this date. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the conference, including an online proposal submission form, may be found on the conference website at http://www.ArtsinSociety.com/Conference .
 Cultivation Field is a Postgrad exhibition and symposium at the University of Reading (thanks to RANE for circulating) deadline for abstracts 29 July – exhibition and symposium end September 2011.
The premise for this Symposium and accompanying Exhibition is that cultivation is leading to new art practices deserving of critical inquiry and articulation. Whether in the garden or allotment, the soup kitchen or the road, on wasteland or the tower block, or wherever there are cracks in the system, cultivation provokes questions about human being’s relation to and encounter with the earth and its growth systems and operations. The purpose of this Symposium and Exhibition is to encourage discursive exchange and productive encounter between art practitioners and researchers within the cultivation field.  more…
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.
The International Conference on the Arts in Society and the International Journal of the Arts in Society provide a scholarly platform for discussions of the arts and art practices, enabling an interdisciplinary conversation on the role of the arts in society. They are intended as a place for critical engagement, examination and experimentation of ideas that connect the arts to their contexts in the world – in studios and classrooms, in galleries and museums, on stage, on the streets and in communities.
The 2011 conference will explore the intersection between Art + Science, held in conjunction with the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) 2011-2012 Topic of the Year – “ArteFacts. Knowledge is Art – Art is Knowledge”. Presented by BBAW, the 2011-2012 Topic of the Year aims to reassess the relationship between art and science. For more information on the BBAW Topic of the Year, please see: http://ArtsinSociety.com/Conference-2011/Program/ .
This year’s conference includes the following plenary speakers:
Suzanne Anker, Visual Artist and Theorist; Chair, Fine Arts Department, School of Visual Arts, New York City, USA
Nina Czegledy, Media Artist, Curator and Writer; Senior Fellow, KMDI, University of Toronto; Associate Adjunct Professor, Concordia University, Montreal; Senior Research Fellow, Hungarian University of Fine Arts, Budapest
Erika Fischer-Lichte, Institute for Theatre Studies, Freie Universitat Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Dieter Mersch, Media and Art Philosophy, Universitat Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
Victoria Vesna, Media Artist, Researcher, Collaborator, University of California, Los Angeles; New School for Design, New York City, USA
Gunter M. Ziegler, Matheon Professor, Freie UniversitäBerlin, Berlin, Germany
In addition, the conference will also include numerous paper, workshop and colloquium presentations by practitioners, teachers and researchers. We invite you to respond to the conference Call-for-Papers. Presenters may choose to submit written papers for publication in The International Journal of the Arts in Society. If you are unable to attend the conference in person, virtual registrations are also available, which allow you to submit a paper for refereeing and possible publication in the journal.
Whether you are a virtual or in-person presenter at this conference, we also encourage you to present on the Arts in Society YouTube Playlist. Please select the Online Sessions link on the conference website for further details. Additionally, please join our online conversation by subscribing to our monthly email newsletter and subscribing to our Facebook, RSS, or Twitter feeds at http://www.ArtsinSociety.com/ .
The deadline for the next round in the call for papers (a title and short abstract) is 22 March 2011. Future deadlines will be announced on the conference website after this date. Proposals are reviewed within two weeks of submission. Full details of the conference, including an online proposal submission form, may be found on the conference website at http://www.ArtsinSociety.com/Conference/ .
If you are not able to join us in Berlin for the 2011 Arts Conference, we are pleased to announce that the 2012 Arts Conference will be held next July at the Liverpool Art and Design Academy, Liverpool, UK.
Make a contribution, air your most profound lessons (or the things you rant about).
The questions raised by art and ecology, the issues of culture in a time of environmental crisis, don’t always impact on mainstream public art practices.
The public invitation to contribute to a new series of books, entitled Hints and Tips, is a chance to provoke people to think about ecology, systems, sustainability, inhabitation and dwelling, as well as the role and value of artists, designers and other creative practitioners alongside project managers, contractors, committees, inhabitants, tenants and communities.
For instance, surely all the inhabitants are important, not just the human ones?
Hints and Tips is being developed in the context of a long term residency with Glasgow Housing Association being undertaken by Peter McCaughey and Ben Spencer. They have approached PAR+RS to collaborate on the development of these publications. For more information and to make your contribution: Hints and Tips · Reflections · PAR+RS.
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.
An excellent article on ARTPULSE By Christiane Paul
Sustainability has become the new “social networkingâ€-at least it seems to have superseded the latter as the catchword du jour. An increasing number of conferences, think tanks, art exhibitions and publications have been devoted to the subject over the past few years and have reached critical mass. Sustainability has moved from its original, mostly ecological context to a larger cultural one. One might argue that a focus on sustainability is the next logical step after the rise of social networking enabled by the user-generated content of Web 2.0 sites-such as blogs, Wikis, MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr: networking itself is intrinsic to digital technologies, which allow for multiple forms of connectivity, while sustaining networks (of culture, productivity etc.) presents more of a challenge.
Sustainability and Contemporary Art: Hard Realities and the New Materiality Central European University Budapest
2-6pm 26 March 2009
Janek Simon, Niszczarka
Since the last symposium on Sustainability and Contemporary Art held at CEU in February 2008, which took as its subject the Operaist dilemma of ‘Exit or Activism?’ and examined Paulo Virno’s idea of ‘exit’ as the ultimate form of resistance, the world has witnessed an intensifying fight for resources under the Arctic, the rocketing of food and oil prices, the Russian gas crisis, and the systemic failure of international financial institutions. These ‘hard realities’ have caused a switch from concerns of immaterial labour to recognition of the ‘new materiality’ of current circumstances.
This recent turn has been addressed by theorist Slavoj Žižek, who notes that while in the last decades it was ‘trendy to talk about the dominant role of intellectual labour in our post-industrial societies, today materiality appears in an almost vengeful way in all its aspects, from a future struggle for ever-diminishing resources (food, water, energy, minerals) to the degradation of the environment.’ The 2009 edition of Sustainability and Contemporary Art therefore brings together artists, theorists and environmental activists to investigate the implications of ‘hard realities’ and ‘new materiality’ for political action, artistic theory and practice, and sustainable living in the 21st century.
SPEAKERS
Marina Grzinić, Sustainability and Capital
Marina Grzinić is a philosopher, artist and theoretician. She is Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Institute of Fine Arts, Post Conceptual Art Practices and a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy in Ljubljana. She is a founder of Reartikulacija (Ljubljana) and recently published the book Re-Politicizing art, Theory, Representation and New Media Technology.
Tamás St.Auby, The Subsistence Level Standard Project 1984 W.
Tamás St.Auby was born in 1944 and lives in Budapest. In 1968 he founded IPUT (International Parallel Union of Telecommunications). He was censored for his artistic radicalism, promotion of art strikes and questioning of ideology and forced to leave Hungary in the mid-1970s. Since returning from Geneva in 1991, St.Auby has lectured at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts.
Tadzio Müller, It’s economic growth, stupid! On climate change, mad-eyed moderates and realistic radicals
Tadzio Müller lives in Berlin, where he is active, after many years of being a counterglobalist summit-groupie, in the emerging climate action movement. Having escaped the clutches of (academic) wage labour, he is currently writing a report about ‘green capitalism’ for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and otherwise doing odd translation jobs. He is also an editor of Turbulence – Ideas for Movement
Janek Simon, How to Make a Digital Handwatch at Home
Janek Simon was born in 1977. Studied sociology and psychology at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow. His artistic activity began around 2001. He is author of interactive installations, videos, objects. Simon takes inspiration from computer games, Internet and the archive (in its multiple meanings).
Sebastjan Leban, Silent Weapon of Extermination
Sebastjan Leban is an artist and theoretician from Ljubljana. His artistic practice involves the collaboration with Stas Kleindienst, the group Trie and the group Reartikulacija. He is one of the editors of the journal Reartikulacija and has exhibited in numerous national and international exhibitions, participated in many symposiums and lectures and published texts in several different publications.
Alina Asavei, A Sustainable Aesthetics: Contextual and Ethical Beauty
Alina Asavei is from Romania and currently she is a PhD candidate in Aesthetics (Department of Philosophy, Central European University, Budapest). She works principally in the areas of social philosophy, cultural studies, art and disability, the politics of aesthetics, forms of artistic engagement during and after totalitarian regimes. She published articles in the domain of Art History, Aesthetics and Social and Cultural History.
Alan Watt, Sustainability in the Face of Hard Reality
Alan Watt is a lecturer in environmental philosophy and the development of environmental thought at the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at Central European University.
Maja and Reuben Fowkes The Environmental Impact of Contemporary Art
Maja and Reuben Fowkes are curators and art historians who deal with issues of memory, ecology and translocal exchange. They have curated and written extensively on the issue of contemporary art and sustainability.
The programme of the Symposium on Sustainability and Contemporary Art is devised by Maja and Reuben Fowkes (Translocal.org) and co-organised with the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy and the Centre for Arts and Culture at Central European University.
For further information and booking details please see the project website:
Art can help build the capacity and facilitate adaptation needed at COP15;
SOS Gulf to Gulf is a virtual model for the role of art in creating resilience
Protestors world wide see COP15 as a conflict between money and legalisms. This press conference asserts that is why art needs to be at the table, “ [supporting] [assisting] [enabling] all developing country Parties, particularly the most vulnerable, in undertaking adaptation measures.†Art is how people express their experiences. Millions of artists have another approach to environmental issues.
Artists can help COP15 communicate between parties
The media can convey how art can enable adaptation and implement climate justice
Contemporary and indigenous art practices provide relatively low-cost, uncontentious models for adaptation and mitigation that can contribute to long term cooperation and capacity building. Art is a vehicle to express what words and numbers can’t.
When we take “aspirational goals†seriously for the Least Developed Countries (LDC), we see that the arts in each culture and between cultures are a means to express aspiration, sustain it’s people, bridge communication gaps and be a container for important historical information, including indigenous environmental knowledge. Art is the glue holding societies and cultures together, under stress, means to intimately connect people.
In the 21rst century, art can create ways for technology transfer and developmentto translate and protect bodies of cultural knowledge, because artists are innovative.
Ecological art is a recognized practice that embraces an ecological ethic in both its content and form/materials, embracing collaborative opportunities.
SOS Gulf to Gulf is an example of how an ecological art practice can help
SOS Gulf to Gulf developed in virtual collaboration to reduce carbon emissions
Artist Aviva Rahmani and scientist Dr. Jim White, director of the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), University of Colorado at Boulder, initiated a cross-disciplinary virtual collaboration, addressing the international global warming crisis in gulf regions.
The story reveals parallels between Bangladesh, the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Maine, the Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf connecting water, war, pirates, fisheries, education and migrations.
SOS Gulf to Gulf was inspired by the Trigger Point Theory of environmental restoration developed by Rahmani
Presentation Credits: dialog is between artists Aviva Rahmani and Peter Buotte, curator Tricia Watts, Ecoartspace, Marda Kirn, director EcoArts Connection, Dr. Jim White, INSTAAR, Dr. Ed Maibach, George Mason University, Dr. Eugene Turner, Louisiana State University, Dr. Michele Dionne, director of Research at the Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve, Wells Maine and Tuku Ahmed, a New York City taxi cab driver and immigrant from Bangladesh.
If COP15 and the UNFCCC desire just allocation of resources to deal with climate change. Why then, has art, which has so much to contribute to that goal, been absent from all discussions of adaptability?
Artists are available to help with adaptation. In additional to indigenous cultural groups, over 200 educational and cultural institutions internationally have courses or entire programs devoted to ecological art The vast pool of resources for COP15 implementation can be seen at: http://www.ecoartnetwork.org/, http://www.greenmuseum.org/, http://www.ecoartspace.org/, http://www.sfeap.org/, http://www.ashdendirectory.org.uk,
Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention on its seventh session, held in Bangkok from 28 September to 9 October 2009, and Barcelona from 2 to 6 November 2009; chosen because it bears equally on human needs for ethics and culture.
Key words and phrases:
build capacity and facilitate adaptation, Ecological art, adaptation and mitigation, aspirational goals, technology transfer and development, Resilience, Vulnerability, “[the level of adaptation][adaptation needs]â€, “[framework] [programme]â€
Key document text that illlustrates why art can become a partner:
pg 54: “Adaptation is a challenge shared by all countries; …. in order to reduce vulnerability, minimize loss and damage and build the resilience of ecological and social systems and economic sectors to present and future adverse effects of climate change [and the impact of the implementation of response measures]. (reference content of non-paper no.41 (5 November 2009)â€
pp 61: “identifying sources of adaptation;
(b) Strengthening, consolidating and enhancing the sharing of information, knowledge, experience and good practices, at local, national, regional and international levels, consistent with relevant international agreements, through creating forums where different public and private stakeholders can discuss concrete challenges;â€
Additional considerations
Gender issues relate to questions of art and culture. Disproportionately, artisans in indigenous cultures are often women. Their practices often preserve the, “[land use, land-use change and forestry sector]â€; (and represent how to) p. 92 “respect the knowledge and rights of indigenous peoples[, including their free, prior and informed consent,] Deforestation is often a consequence of the cultural disruption that displaces gender roles.
Art and humanities foster creativity through out all sectors of society. In transition periods, creative problem-solving is as essential to survival as financial or regulatory support.
The costs of sustaining cultural communities in relation to other ecological costs is not only minimal but has historically transferred wealth, in a variety of forms back into an economy. This will help cultures in transition maintain identity and independence, a response to the need to, “develop low-emission [high growth sustainable] development strategies.â€
Films by Aviva Rahmani with discussion afterwards will be viewed at 5: PM December 16: Farumgade 4-6, 2200 Kbh N (Nørrebro) http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=203108274870#/pages/FIT-freie-internationale-tankstelle/60219692736?ref=ts (via shareaholic)
 Cultivation Field