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Slow Wing

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Slow Wing Owl, with permission Ilka BlueSlow Wing Owl, with permission Ilka Blue

Ilka Blue in Australia asked for this to be shared,

Slow Wing – an Australian satellite workshop of the Uncivilisation UK Festival

Byron Bay, 17th & 18th August 2013

Latorica in collaboration with The Dark Mountain Project present Slow Wing, a weekend workshop of storytelling from the deep.

Led by transdisciplinary artists Ilka Blue & Cherise Asmah, this will be an intense exploration of cultural and biological extinction as we search for ways to belong and adapt to a changing world. The workshop involves 2 full days of storytelling, walking, writing, deep ecology & creative practices that will conjure old & new stories of dying, death, belonging, place and mythologies of this land.

Slow Wing is free of charge but places are limited to 25 and will be offered through a registration process. For a registration form or enquiries please email ilka@thelasttree.net More details www.latorica.net

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

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Creative strategies of sustainability” for cultural workers, sept. 9th – 14th 2013, Berlin

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A week of debate and action around the theme “Culture and sustainability”, and more specifically about “Creative strategies of sustainability for European art centres”.

This week programme for cultural operators proposes a common reflection and a time of intense experiences sharing around the potential “strategies of sustainability”. The seminar will be composed by six full-days of activities including workshops, lectures, exploring sustainable places and projects in Berlin, initiation about straw bale building, artistic expression, and social interaction.

For 20 cultural workers the costs for travel and accommodation will be covered. Please send an email to csos@ufafabrik.de and you will get the application form. The deadline for applications will be the 14th of june 2013.

This seminar is a production of the ufaFabrik Berlin in the frame of Engine Room Europe:

“Engine Room Europe is a three-year programme (April 2011-May 2014) of activities dedicated to independent cultural workers and their creative processes. It is initiated by Trans Europe Halles (TEH) and co-ordinated by Melkweg (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) in association with 10 co-organizing TEH members. More information: www.teh.net

CSOS 13 Invitation

CSOS 13 application

csos invitation info

Update on the Creation of the LA STAGE Space

20130412232851-2013-4-12-PhotosmallerWe wanted to give you an update here at the end of our second week of the LA STAGE Space campaign! Thanks to the over 130 of you who’ve stepped up to make this happen, we are 95% of the way to our initial $25,000 goal!

We’re pushing over the next few days to hit the $25,000 mark, and then the campaign will continue to accomplish our stretch goal to build out some other aspects of the space and to have a STRIKE TRUCK that can make transporting the shared materials easier between theatres and the Warehouse.

Please continue to tell your friends, family and colleagues about the campaign. The most valuable thing you can do at this point is to think of one other person who you know would love this idea and who could make a donation, and email or call them directly to encourage them to join you. That direct request helps tell them that you really mean it and really care about this, and that makes all the difference!

As a fun other note – here’s a photo from the warehouse today, showing some scenic racks we had built this week, and some of the items that are already in, just waiting for shelves to be inventoried!

Let’s Share!

Su Grierson’s email of 19 February 2013

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Thanks to Aeneas Wilder, a Scottish artist living further North in Japan, Su Grierson has been able to give us a sense of the changes to the landscape further up the coast.  Once again she asked me to emphasise that she is only able to report what she is told and sees herself, and cannot verify anything.

One of the most impressive aspects of Japanese society is the degree of tolerance, support and respect that is shown both to foreigners and within their own community.  Partly this is a necessity in such a heavily populated country and also because of the practice of sharing their home with many generations of a family – as one person said ‘we don’t have much option, we just have to get along’. But it does go deeper than this with many traditional small actions of respect happening as an expected etiquette in daily life. While these can sometimes seem hierarchical and onerous to us they actually reinforce respect and usually have an inbuilt level of equality.

Decision making likewise tends to happen through group discussions which allow everyone to speak and seeks a consensus view.  Again to us with our western linear approach which often allows the strongest voice to become powerful, this consensus approach seems to be very time consuming and often ends without an apparent firm decision: it is circular and ongoing allowing for new opinions to come into play.  I can see the benefit of the system even if I find it difficult. However I am hearing from a number of people how it was this system that failed Japan at the time of the disaster in March 2011.  Such an unprecedented series of disastrous events need fast firm leadership and decision making especially when the good systems already in place to cope with normal tsunamis were overwhelmed by the scale of that one. And I am told that the Government of the day just didn’t have the mechanisms to cope.

Following on from this I have had several conversations now and on previous visits to Japan about the Japanese approach to Charity. After the disaster the Government initially declined international aid when they actually desperately needed it. In this society accepting charity is seen as diminishing your own status, and giving charity as placing oneself in a superior position and taking on an elevated status. Some people in Japan were questioned and challenged for wanting to help the refugees. “Why are you doing it,” and, “You are only doing it for you own glory”. What this society does do is support those around them socially and in their own family which is seen as a mutual situation offering no advancement or diminishing of status. We could learn much from that. However it does create a certain tightness in society and a worrying distancing from the concerns and issues of the wider world.

The Temple at Otsuchi.  Photo and permission Aeneas Wilder

The Temple at Otsuchi after the 2011 Tsunami. Photo and permission Aeneas Wilder

The Temple at Otsuchi (today) Photo and permission Su Grierson

The Temple at Otsuchi (February 2013) Photo and permission Su Grierson

Last weekend I was invited to stay at the home of Scottish artist Aeneas Wilder and his Japanese wife Naoko and their children. They live near Hanimaki in Iwate Province, a three hour train journey north from Kitikata and much nearer the east coast. Aeneas kindly drove me through the mountains and out to the coast to visit the many areas decimated by the earthquake and tsunami.

He and his wife were actively involved in helping people in these areas and he has kindly said that I can give you the link to the blog he wrote at that time with many images and a video…

http://www.aeneaswilder.co.uk/writings.html

https://vimeo.com/28523111

He was also keen to revisit the area which still holds horror images and a memory of the smell that he was still needing to come to terms with.

This is a beautiful wooded, mountainous area with many small towns and settlements in all the coves and river mouth areas. The section we visited is repeated for many hundred of miles north and south of here. He told me the story of how only one small town survived undamaged. Many years ago the Mayor of this town had insisted on building the sea defence wall many meters higher than anywhere else had even considered. He was laughed at and his wall was the subject of jokes throughout his lifetime. After March 11 his town was the only one in the area where not a single person died. The very next day the local people began laying flowers on his grave.

Because there was no nuclear problem here it is possible for re-building to commence and a few people are doing so. However the sea defence walls have not even been mended let alone increased in size and one can hardly imagine that mortgages or insurance are possible. The fishery businesses whose warehouses were outside the sea walls anyway are all re-building at great speed. Building contractors in Japan are going to be over employed for many years to come. I have never seen so many diggers at work and doubt that private individuals could get a contractor even if they wanted to.

Near the Temple at Otsuchi after the 2011 Tsunami.  Photo and permission Aeneas Wilder

Near the Temple at Otsuchi after the 2011 Tsunami. Photo and permission Aeneas Wilder

 

Near the Temple at Otsuchi (February 2013) Photo and permission Su Grierson

Near the Temple at Otsuchi (February 2013) Photo and permission Su Grierson

There are still huge mounds of debris at the wharf sides. There is no obvious sorting operation so I think they are being slowly loaded onto ships either for dumping or sorting elsewhere. I haven’t found out about that so far.

Refugee Housing 2013.  Photo and permission Su Grierson

Refugee Housing (February 2013). Photo and permission Su Grierson

This area has a large number of refugee houses with people staying close to their localities, but it will surely be very many years before they are able to re-settle in their old locations. Also the stories about Government compensation for these non-nuclear refugees suggests that they will have very inadequate funds. I hear the stories but don’t know the facts.

Tsunamis have always been taken very seriously in this whole area with weekly rehearsals and hundreds of well marked high ground shelters designated. But many of these were also inundated this time with others escaping the tide by feet. In one area the tsunami went 8 km up a river valley which no-one had forseen. There was a 15 minute warning this time and most people reacted correctly. Without that the loss of life would have been catastrophic. Who knows why some people did not leave their houses? Would we leave if we had a bed ridden old person in the house? If our house had always been safe in the past? In some cases perhaps 15 minutes was just not enough time. Hospitals certainly did not have enough time to evacuate bed-ridden patients.

There are, as we might imagine, many stories of tragedy – the man who was safe but went to see if his wife was OK and was caught by the unexpected third tide. But also of survival – I am told the story that one lady recounted – when she felt the tremors a few days beforehand she had drilled her children that if the siren sounded, no matter what anyone else was doing, they must run up the hill to their school. As it happened they were at the school anyway when the tsunami came. She, on the other hand, was driving back on the motorway from another area and as she reached her town she and all the other cars were swept off the road and into the raging soup of debris. As her car was sinking the windscreen was hit and broken by a concrete electricity pole. She undid her seat belt and pushed out through the hole. She was instantly swept up into the racing debris, but eventually managed to climb onto a floating wardrobe. As she was swept in towards the hillside she tried to scramble up onto a wall but couldn’t because of the thick mud. Some people saw her and ran back to help and after several attempts managed to grab her and drag her up. In a totally dazed state she ran up the hill where she found her children safe. A few days later she went back to see if her car was still there and was met by security officers who told her that she was mistaken, her car couldn’t possibly be there because everyone in those cars had died, they had just finished removing the bodies. She was the only survivor. She reputedly told this story in a completely un-emotional way. She understood it was just one story among many.

Food contamination is another issue I have tried to ask about. Generally the first Government caesium testing figures were not trusted as most people seem to consider that Government is too tightly allied to big business who might be exerting pressure to falsify the figures. However there were many independent tests made in Japan and in other countries around the world which have indicated that with a few early exceptions which were dealt with, the levels pose no serious risk. This has produced two kinds of response. There are those who make a point of buying local food to support the beleaguered farmers and those who buy from the furthest away sources as possible, trusting foreign food above Japanese. Generally though I haven’t seen any particular paranoia about radiation anywhere locally. Life just goes on as normal – but without the tourists whom they so desperately need.

Images from the Residency can be found on three Facebook pages:

http://www.facebook.com/facingnorthjapan

http://www.facebook.com/SeishinNoKitae (spirit of north)

www.facebook.com/sugrierson

The Kitakata AIR artist residency is sponsored by The Japan Foundation and the IORI club

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

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Showman Fabricators Celebrates Donyale Werle’s Tony win for Peter and the Starcatcher

Tony Awards After Donyale Werle’s win for best Scenic Design for a play at the Tony Awards last night, Showman Fabricators, who worked to bring the show to Broadway, sent an email to congratulate Donyale Werle on her Tony Award for Best Scenic Design of a Play for ‘Peter and the Starcatcher’. Saying “Building this set was an honor and pleasure.”

Read on from their email this morning…..

BRAVA!! to Tony Award winning Set Designer Donyale Werle for her work on ‘Peter and the Star Catcher’.


Best Scenic Design of a Play was 1 of 5 Tony Awards ‘Peter’ won last night. Donyale is very conscience about the environmental impact of  her designs and material choices. We could not have been more proud to have built this show for her. Congratulations to Donyale as well as David Benken, Technical Supervisor and Patrick Eviston, Production Carpenter.  And Donyale, thanks for the shout out during your gracious acceptance speech!

Set Designer Donyale Werle at Showman Fabricators

Donyale Playbill

Playbill came to Showman and took a tour through the sustainability-conscience design and fabrication process of ‘Peter’ with Donyale Werle.  For more information about the show, visit Peter and the Starcatcher.

Highlights of ‘Peter and the Starcatcher’


Click the video to view some of the highlights of ‘Peter and the Starcatcher’.  Also visit the Showman and ‘Peter and the Starcatcher’ facebook pages for additional video’s and information.

View our profile on LinkedInLike us on Facebook Showman Fabricators
www.showfab.com
47-22 Pearson Place
Long Island City, New York 11101

 

Call for Proposals: Temporary Public Art in NW Pasadena, $1,000 honoraria

The Armory Center for the Arts is seeking proposals from Southern Californian artists and architects for a temporary site-specific Land/Environmental art installation or structure in a vacant lot in Northwest Pasadena.

Proposals are due via email by May 15th. Winner will be notified by May 31st. Winning project will be installed in June and run from July – December, 2010.

A $1,000 honorarium will be provided to the selected artist/architect to cover expenses related to the creation of the work.

Download complete details and application requirements at:

Click to access transplanter_public_art_cfp.pdf

laculturenet : Message: Call for Proposals: Temporary Public Art in NW Pasadena, $1,000 honoraria.

A High Desert Test Sites Lecture & Workshop Series



Saturday May 1st-Sunday May 2nd 2010

2-Day Workshop in Joshua Tree, 12 students, $120 fee

The New Everyday Live is an endeavor designed to both stimulate conversation and catalyze action by considering overlap between contemporary art and craft, sustainable living, survival skills, ecology and earth science, and cultural variation. Each participant in The New Everyday Life will leave with a new set of skills and inspirations, after intimately experiencing the Mojave desert’s unique context for life and living.

Only a few spots left as of 4/21. Email info.hdts@gmail.com

For more information go to:
http://www.highdeserttestsites.com

Go to EcoLOGIC LA

Matthias Merkel Hess of Eco Art Blog has a New Project, looking for your help!

I haven’t been posting on the Eco Art Blog recently; as I’ve said before, others are doing a better job at that than I have the time for. Also, the end of grad school has piled on a lot of time-consuming activities, like mounting a thesis show.

But I am happy to announce a new project I’m working on at the 18th Streets Arts Center in Santa Monica, California. It’s called Fine Art 626-394-3963, and I’m inviting you to call or email me to talk about art and what you want from artists and the institutions that show art work.

The project really needs your participation, so I hope you’ll call or email. For more, visit the project blog at fineart6263943963.blogspot.com.

Go to Eco Art Blog

Can literary fiction ever do climate? Part 2

… and, as if  to continue that very thought above in the post about Ian McEwan, Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine have just announced Dark Mountain Festival Uncivilisation 2010, from May 28 to 30. In an email, Paul says:

It is deliberately staged to clash with the opening weekend of the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival: as civilised literature’s establishment grandees gather in Hay, we will muster an opposing army at the other end of Offa’s Dyke, for a very different kind of cultural weekend.

Uncivilisation 2010 will be held in Llangollen “at the other end of Offa’s Dyke” among the  “dark mountains of Wales” and will include contributions from Alastair McIntosh, George Monbiot, Tom Hodgkinson, Melanie Challenger, Glyn Hughes and Jay Griffiths. There will also be music and workshops from Vinay Gupta (Institute for Collapsonomics), Briony Greenhill (The Blended Lifestyle), Anthony McCann (Beyond the Commons).

On the surface the ideas proposed by the Dark Mountain Project is very much the opposite of the RSA’s own worldview. They are broadly pessimistic, inviting us to imagine collapse and to look it in the eye, scoffing at ideas of sustainability.

The festival’s webpage says:

UNCIVILISATION is a festival for anyone who’s sick of pretending that we can make our current way of living “sustainable”, that we can take control of the planet’s reeling systems, that “one more push” will do it. It’s time to acknowledge that “saving the planet” is a bad joke. We are entering an age of massive disruption and the task is to live through it as best we can and to look after each other as we make the transition to the unknown world ahead.

But what’s positive about the project is that it is bent on finding new ways to reimagine our present and future, believing that writers and artists can and should be taking on the riskier task of creating the narratives that are currently so absent in our culture. I suspect that behind the darkness of their mountains lurks a glimmer of light.

Tickets are available here:
http://www.eventelephant.com/uncivilisation

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology