Jonathan Jones

Jonathan Jones faces the empty museum

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones on the sixth extinction:
“Human activity endangers entire species, yet human culture is profoundly rooted in nature. The loss of a species is also a loss of the images, stories, symbols and wonders that we live by – to call it a cultural loss may sound too cerebral: what we lose when we lose animals is the very meaning of life…The range of animals and plants threatened by the sixth extinction is such that it menaces the foundations of culture as well as the diversity of nature. We are part of nature and it has always fed our imaginations. We face the bare walls of an empty museum, a gallery of the dead.”

 

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ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

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Public art: Jaume Pensa’s big Dream

Michaela Crimmin: “I have just been to the launch of the extraordinary – the wonderful – new work by Jaume Plensa outside Runcorn in Cheshire, part of Channel 4’s Big Art Project.This has been commissioned by a group of ex-miners wanting to commemorate the heritage of their previous industry; but with a positive rather than a nostalgic take. The artist and the miners worked with curator Laurie Peake and you could visibly see art expert, artist and local people thoroughly enjoying joining together to create something marvellous. “

For news of a panel debate here at the RSA around topics raised by this public commissioning initiative, featuring Grayson Perry, Munira Mirza, Andrew Shoben and Jonathan Jones, and hosted by Jon Snow see the main Arts & Ecology site.

Photo of Dream by Jaume Plensa courtesy of Channel 4

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology