Nourishment

The Celebrated Trees of Nashville: Ecological Performance Action

On November 1st, Plantable (made up Meghan Moe Beitiks, Bronwyn Preece and Lisa Woynarski) performed an ecological action on the streets and state capitol of Nashville, Tennessee. As part of the American Society of Theatre Research (ASTR) conference, the performance began with a procession through the streets of downtown Nashville. Carrying large red buckets full of red wiggler worms, the performance proceeded to the grounds of the State Capitol where we surrounded a tree and “planted” the worms at the base. Red wiggler worms are prized for their fertilisation qualities and their ability to enrich the soil, providing nourishment for the tree. In conversation with State Capitol maintenance staff, we learned of previous, but not current, usage of RoundUp on these trees – necessitating further remediation, and equally not jeopardizing the life of the worms. Amidst curious looks and questions from onlookers, the performance sought to bring the research questions of the ASTR Ecology and Performance Working Session to a form of praxis, asking what the intersection of an ecologically positive action, performance and intervention would look like.

See video of the performance action here:

EARTH PERFECT? Nature, Utopia, and the Garden

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Symposium and exhibitions, June 6-9, 2013

“Since time immemorial, gardens have been key in humanity’s quest to define an ideal relation to nature. Gardens have been sources of nourishment for the body and the soul, they have been symbols of wealth and power, they have served as barriers against the wild, and much more. EARTH PERFECT? Nature, Utopia, and the Garden is a four-day symposium designed for an academic audience, garden professionals, and a general public interested in the importance and meaning of gardens.”

 Event Locations

  • The University of Delaware
  • Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania
  • Winterthur Estate Gardens, Delaware
  • Chanticleer Garden, Pennsylvania
  • The Mount Cuba Center, Delaware

 Events Include

Themed garden tours and exhibitions, as well as lectures, workshops, and academic paper sessions focusing on topics such as wellness and the garden, environment and society, historic preservation and land use, green textiles, CSAs, the garden in the visual arts, the garden in literature, the meaning and function of domestic and public gardens, architecture and the garden, the spiritual associations of gardens, gardening the planet in the face of ecological decline, political aspects of gardening, and economies of the garden.

 Featured Speakers Include:

  • Jane Knight, landscape architect of The Eden Project, Cornwall, UK
  • Stephen Forbes, Executive Director of the Adelaide Botanic Garden, South Australia
  • Emma Marris, author of Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World
  • Margaret Morton, photographer and co-author of Transitory Gardens, Uprooted Lives
  • Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens
  • McKay Jenkins, author of What’s Gotten Into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World

 Call for Papers :

Abstracts and proposals for papers and panels due Dec. 15, 2012

This interdisciplinary event focuses on the importance and meaning of gardens in the past, present, and the future, and that from a wide range of perspectives, including, but not limited to the following disciplines: art, art history, architecture, anthropology, agriculture, philosophy, literature, history, horticulture, botany, landscape architecture, garden design, nutrition, and law, as well as earth and life sciences.

For instructions regarding submission of paper abstracts as well as proposals for panels or roundtable discussions, visit: http://www.udel.edu/ihrc/conference/earthperfect/call-for-papers.html

 For More Event Information

See the symposium website for more details regarding venues, programming, lodging, and registration: http://www.udel.edu/earthperfect

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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SEEDS|Earthdance 2010 – NOURISHMENT: A crop’s environment

SEEDS|Earthdance is a unique festival dedicated to Somatic Experiments in Earth, Dance, + Science. We are very excited about the festival in its third year, 2010 – this summer will be quite an adventure! I hope you can join us for a workshop, for the whole event, for the research projects, or the public events. Please come and be a part of this experiment in interdisciplinary arts and ecology. Get in touch if you have any questions, or go right to the site and sign up.

Thank you

Olive Bieringa, SEEDS co-curator

The theme of this year’s 10-day long SEEDS festival is NOURISHMENT: A crop’s environment—including soil, topography, and climate—imparts a characteristic taste and flavor and must be taken into consideration in cultivation. With care, through interaction we hope to create an ultra-lush, enriching, and regenerative culture in which to grow our art.

Come for a performance or a film, a workshop, a jam, or the whole festival!

You are also invited to sign up for workshops, for the whole festival, for research projects, in addition to evening  performances, discussions, jams, and films as well as the Saturday Community Day as part of your participation.

SEEDS workshops:

  • Diego Piñon/Butoh Ritual Mexicano Dance<
  • Benoît Lachambre/Extending the Comfort Zone<
  • K.J. Holmes/Weathering<
  • & PineCones <(an overnight event)
  • Pedro Alejandro/Soft Body/Soft Terrain, Open Artist’s Projec<
  • Dave Jacke/Eden Arising: Ecological Design as a Spiritual Practice<
  • Plus performances, an ECO jam, disucssions, films, artists-in-residence, green m-Art, and more.

WWW.EARTHDANCE.NET/seeds