University Of Edinburgh

Opportunity: Enthograms Micro-Residency

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Ethnograms: A micro-residency for artists, designers, programmers and anthropologists

21st-23rd May, 2014, Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh

We welcome applications from artists, designers and programmers to participate in the Ethnograms Micro-Residency; an opportunity to work with a team of anthropologists at the University of Edinburgh to develop new ways of visualising social relationships with diagrams, info-graphics and maps.

Anthropologists Alice Street and Jamie Cross have been working in Papua New Guinea since 2003, exploring the ways in which people mobilise their relationships in order to access healthcare and energy in a place where large-scale, centralised infrastructures such as roads or power-lines are absent. Their current ESRC funded project ‘Off the Grid: Relational Infrastructures for Fragile Futures’ seeks to find new ways of visualising the relational qualities of infrastructure in such off-grid locations by harnessing the simple power of the diagram and bringing it into engagement with new technologies for web-based, interactive infographics and mapping.

Anthropology has a long history of using maps and diagrams to visualise kinship or exchange relationships, but a lack of engagement with the visual and digital arts has meant that the full potential of these visual methodologies has not been realised. Through collaborations with artists, designers and programmers, this exploratory micro-residency aims to develop a new visual form out of the complementary methods, skills, experience and knowledge of social scientists, artists, designers and programmers: the ethno-gram. Artists, designers and programmers will have the opportunity to work closely with the anthropologists and to engage with a large body of ethnographic material from Papua New Guinea.

The micro-residency will culminate in a pop-up exhibition of ‘Ethnograms’ and will feed into a larger scale public exhibition of project outputs in early 2015. Following the residency the University of Edinburgh team are looking to select an artist to collaborate with more closely and to award a £5,000 commission.

The deadline for applications is Tuesday 6th May.

Click here for the application form. Please complete and email to alice.street@ed.ac.uk.

The post Opportunity: Enthograms Micro-Residency appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;

Communicating with their audiences;

Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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Edinburgh Feed the 5000

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Edible Edinburgh

Reposted from Edinburgh City Council / University of Edinburgh – see Edible Edinburgh for more information or download Edible Edinburgh 5 Oct flier 500kB – thanks to David Somervell for alerting us to this,

Please join us on Saturday 5th October in Bristo Square and Potterrow, University of Edinburgh for this Feeding the 5,000 event, with community stalls showcasing local food related action and a discussion about the future of Edinburgh as a sustainable food city.

Community stalls open from 11am in Potterrow, with a free lunch being served outside in Bristo Square from 12pm until 5,000 portions run out or we close at 4pm!

The purpose of this event is to:

Inspire awareness about local food production, food waste and social responsibility.

Engage Edinburgh residents about the proposed strategy to develop Edinburgh as a Sustainable Food City and launch “Edible Edinburgh” – an action group of the re-established Edinburgh Sustainable Development Partnership.

Feeding the 5000 is a campaign launched in 2009 to raise awareness of the amount of food wasted locally, nationally and globally and how we can solve this. Following successful events in London, Paris, Bristol, Manchester and other cities across Europe, we are planning Scotland’s very first Feeding the 5000 event in Edinburgh on Saturday 5th October 2013.

5,000 people will be fed with a delicious free meal created by celebrity chefs and community groups from ingredients that might otherwise have been thrown away. Along with participatory cooking sessions, educational and campaign stalls and more, the two days are sure to be a must for anyone who enjoys good food and cares about food waste.

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.
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Su Grierson’s Intersections

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cbd20ef485c2df479f9d4944622b1c81The survey exhibition Intersections by Su Grierson opens this Sunday 30th June in Perth Concert Hall’s Threshold artspace,

Exhibition runs 30 June – 30 November 2013

Mon-Sat 10am-5pm (until 10pm on performance nights)

Commenting on her new project which features a combination of photography, video and sound installations as well as interactive elements across previously undiscovered art display areas in Perth Concert Hall’s Threshold artspace Su said,

Using combinations of video, sound and image I create installations that draw attention to, question, visually stimulate and propose the issues of my attention.

My hope is that through vision the work can stimulate thought and perhaps new understanding.

The Sunday Brunch opening is free and all are welcome but are asked to email numbers to i.nedkova@horsecross.co.uk

As well as selected earlier artworks which engage with contemporary landscape in non-traditional ways, Intersections features a newly commissioned work for the 22 screen Threshold wave. This new work follows from a 10-week residency in Fukushima Japan where she was able to visit the nuclear, earthquake and tsunami disaster areas and meet with the still dispossessed refugees as well as experience the beautiful snowy mountains of the Province (documentation on ecoartscotland here).

The accompanying book Intersections details Su Grierson’s land related art projects over the last 17 years and unusually includes invited texts from other professionals working in the rural arena, including John Brennan head of the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture at the University of Edinburgh, Paul Kingsnorth writer and poet, Sascha Grierson organic farmer, Tristan Gooley writer, navigator and explorer and Jan Van Boeckel anthropologist, filmmaker and educator.

Rather than following the more usual pattern of using the book to position her work within the arena of contemporary art, Su has chosen to take the opportunity to relate it to the work of other professionals working in the rural environment.

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.
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ESRC-Scottish Government/ Forestry Commission Scotland PhD Studentship

All the Trees (detail), Chris Fremantle, 2010

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Applications are sought from suitably qualified candidates for a joint ESRC-Scottish Government PhD three-year (‘+3′) studentship. The project entitled ‘Designing and Managing Forests for Health’ has been developed in collaboration with the Forestry Commission Scotland and seeks to examine the links between forestry and community health across Scotland.

The successful candidate will be based in the Centre for Research on Environment, Society and Health (CRESH) in the School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh. They will also be active members of the university’s OPENspace Research Centre and the Human Geography Research Group.

Applications will be particularly welcome from candidates with a social science / environmental background (e.g. geography, landscape architecture, sociology, environmental science), and quantitative methods will be emphasised in project and training plans. Applicants must have a Masters degree or equivalent in an appropriate field. A working knowledge in GIS would be advantageous.

Start Date: September 2012

Further details on the project and information on how to apply can be found here.

http://cresh.org.uk/esrc-scottish-government-forestry-commission-scotland-studentship/

The deadline for submission is 27th April 2012. Interviews will take place during May 2012.

Applicants may discuss the project with any member of the supervisory team: Prof. Jamie Pearce (jamie.pearce@ed.ac.uk), Prof. Catharine Ward Thompson (c.ward-thompson@ed.ac.uk) or Dr Niamh Shortt (niamh.shortt@ed.ac.uk).

The first supervisor is Jamie Pearce, Professor of Health Geography, Institute of Geography, School of GeoSciences University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street Edinburgh EH8 9XP

Tel: + 44 131 650 2294

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.
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Values and Climate Change Behaviours Conference

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Schwartz’s Value Circumplex

The Scottish Government’s conference on values and behaviours focused on the ways psychology could inform work to address climate change.  Prof Tim Kasser, Knox College, Illinois; Dr Anat Bardi, Royal Holloway, University of London and Prof Greg Maio, University of Cardiff, introduced current thinking in psychology of values.  For those interested in this approach, check out www.valuesandframes.org and in particular the Common Cause Handbook.

The argument being made in the offices of the Scottish Government last week was fundamentally against neo-liberal capitalism.  Saving the planet requires engaging (in Tim Kasser’s language) people’s ‘intrinsic’ values such as universalism and benevolence, as opposed to their ‘extrinsic’ values such as power and achievement.  Interesting suggestions were made such as banning advertising from public space and banning advertising aimed at children, given that we are apparently on average subjected to 1600 ‘adverts’ per day.

The panel sessions were more diverse and included papers on ‘Collapse’ in a North Atlantic Context, Andrew Dugmore, University of Edinburgh; and Faith Traditions and Sustainability: ‘Moving Mountains’?, Ian Christie, University of Surrey.  Dugmore’s analysis of Viking society and resilience to environmental change across the North Atlantic was fascinating, as was Christie’s work on engaging religious groups with issues of sustainability.

Across the day, whilst the psychological analysis portrays itself as having all the answers, it does offer some important insights, such as the way that values are connected.  Often different ’causes’ are seen to be in competition with each other, but from a psychological perspective, what is important is whether they are addressing a common set of values.  This suggested that environmental organisations could usefully form alliances with organisations in other sectors and focus on emphasising common values.

But the link between values and behaviours is not simple.  Although cognitive dissonance was not specifically mentioned, there was considerable discussion, and both Christie’s and Dugmore’s presentations offered nuanced readings.  Christie was at pains to emphasise that engaging faith groups, although potentially very effective, was not without risks.  Dugmore’s analysis of the collapse of Viking society in Greenland indicated that they had successfully adapted to one environmental change (the mini ice age), but the adaptations had infact trapped them (in tighter hierarchies and patterns of behaviour), reducing their ability to address a second phase of change.  Christie also highlighted the importance of ‘wilful’ individuals, saying that faith groups that engage with issues of sustainability usually do so through the leadership of specific individuals, rather than group decisions.

In the plenary some discussion focused on the relationship between the current economic crisis and broader environmental change issues.  It was suggested that, whilst economic crisis often results in greater concentration on extrinsic values, reflection on the crisis actually promotes longer term thinking and focus on intrinsic values.  It would have been interesting to hear more about mindfulness.

Finally the theologian in the room asked whether the language of ‘intrinsic’ values actually had a root in Aristotelian virtues: virtuous behaviour is our best bet to address climate change.  There’s a thought!

 

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