Financial Times

An Orange County Almanac, and other essays

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Cultura21, in association with WOLFoundation, has the pleasure to announce its 7th Volume in the Cultura21 eBooks series on Culture and Sustainability: edited by J. Zammit-Lucia

We need new ways of thinking about issues that affect how we interact with our environment. The authors whose work is collected here make some powerful calls for change. Some make them emotionally and metaphorically; others make them rationally and logically; but all make them passionately.

 ”These essays are fresh, unconstrained and thought-provoking. They bring new, sometimes quirky perspectives to the environmental debate.” David Pilling. Asia Editor, Financial Times

“There’s no single “right” answer to the challenges that we face in the world today. The assembly of citizens gathered in this volume takes strength from its dynamic polyvocality: its attention to more perspectives – and therefore, its access to more possible approaches – than any conventional environmental text could offer.” Randy Malamud, Professor and Chair of English, Georgia State University

 Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia is an artist, author and independent scholar and commentator. A self-proclaimed ‘intersectionist’, he works at the intersection of disciplines “which is where the action happens.” He is President of WOLFoundation.org, a Member of the Dean’s Advisory Board for the College of Arts and Sciences at Florida International University, has served as Special Advisor to the Director General at IUCN, is a Board Member for the African Rainforest Conservancy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Click here to download the free PDF version of the eBook.

Visit your Amazon Kindle eBooks online store, to purchase a Kindle version of this eBook…

This post is also available in: German

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.

The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:

– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)

Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21

Go to Cultura21

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10 ways of looking at Radical Nature

The critics pass judgement on  Radical Nature, at the Barbican and elsewhere:

PERCEPTIVELY Hari Kunzru The Guardian: Nature is in crisis… It’s not even really beautiful any more. It’s a problem, a remnant, something that needs to be conserved and argued for. The chances of being romantically overwhelmed are slim.

PROVOCATIVELY Regine Debatty We make money not art. As long as these artworks do not step out of museums and galleries most people hardly ever visit … , I fear that the impact of their work might be somewhat limited.

NEGATIVELY Edwin Heathcote, Financial Times: The show just doesn’t hang together. “Museums,” said Smithson, “are tombs, and it looks like everything is turning into a museum.” Forty years on, we’re still in the museum.

POSITIVELY Madeleine Bunting in The Guardian: On every side, artists are putting their shoulder to the wheel, trying to prompt the revolution in values and attitudes required to deal with environmental crisis.

ARTISTS SHOULD STICK TO ART-ISHLY Rachel Campell-Johnston, The Times. It’s all very worthy and often delightful… But do artists contribute anything practical?

THOUGHTFULLY Skye Sherwin in The Guardian: Francesco Manacorda, identifies… a dangerous dualism concerning how we think about nature and culture:.. but while many artists here lament the rift or attempt to close the gap, only a few explore its potential…

DEFEATEDLY Christopher Werth: Newsweek: That somewhat defeated tone pervades much of the newer work, which reveals little of the excitement[… ] found in the campaigns of Beuys and Ukeles. Perhaps that’s only natural after 40 years of environmental art, when for most of that time, so few have paid attention to the message.

ENTHUSIASTICALLY Throughstones blog: The Radical Nature project is an extremely important landmark exhibition, and groundbreaking in the degree to which it reaches out to the public and integrates with real life as it is lived. It will for sure have a far-reaching influence for many years to come.

OBTUSELY Rowan Moore The Evening Standard: Saving the planet is more to do with the Chinese changing the way they build power stations, or Americans changing the way they make cars, than anything an artist can do.

LOOK AT US, WE’RE CYNICAL AND ENVIRONMENTALISTS-ARE-ALL -FASCISTS ANYWAY-ISHLY Anorak.co.uk on the Tree Radical parade through central London: One man has painted his face and others are raising their arms in the air, in the manner of Moseley’s mob. The driver tells us that these are the Green Shirts not the fascist Black Shirts. Old Mr A says “same difference”.

Some are thoughtful, some are downright enthusiastic; some seem distinctly rattled, too.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology