Ecological Themes

Call for applications for International Artists’ Residency: In Context: public.art.ecology, FOOD EDITION-II

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Deadline: 4 JANUARY, 2013 – Online applications only

Khoj’s international residency: In Context: public.art.ecology focuses on exploring ecological themes in and around public spaces in Delhi and is being carried forth into its fourth year. In continuance with last year’s trajectory, the residency, FOOD EDITION-IIwill once again have a special focus on examining the notion of food and its myriad articulations in art. The residency will be for six weeks duration starting in the first week of March until mid April 2013.

Applications are invited from individual artists and artists’ collectives, with proposals for art projects exploring the intersection between art and ecology through a critical examination of issues surrounding the politics of food. Food as artistic medium incorporating performance, art installations or interactive events that re-examine the significance and relevance of food in the social context, simply in its connection with the body or as a primary ritual that fosters engagement, interaction and collaboration.

The applications should include the following:

  • Artist biography & images of previous projects
  • Concept Note
  • Production & Installation Budget not exceeding INR 50,000 (USD 1,000) for the proposed project

Costs of travel, modest accommodation and daily allowance are separate from the above production budget.

Please send your proposals to applications [at] khojworkshop [dot] org. Mention ‘Food Edition-II’ Residency and ‘your name’ in the subject line.

Reposted from Khoj International Artists’ Association newsletter.

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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

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Edinburgh’s greener Fringe

Fukushima – A Silent Prayer of Poetry

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Wallace Heim writes:

Among the bevy of shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe about Hitler, adolescence, Macbeth and stage spiritualists, there is a remarkable number of dance and physical theatre pieces with ecological themes. Consumerism and happiness, oil and politics, the Japanese earthquake, undercover policing, urban architecture and fear of the woods are among the ideas and sensibilities these shows are expressing.

Theatre shows number highly this year, too, with around 70 that have ecological themes varying from the strongly activist to the bucolic. Shows about animals, food and an apocalypse always feature. This year, there are three shows walking to Edinburgh; shows about abattoirs, about the Deepwater oil spill and the Fukushima nuclear leak; and shows about a swamp, plastics, population and the price of milk.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

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’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

Theater Matters – Notes from EMOS 2009 Part II

It’s 11am where I’m from (9am here on the west coast), and I just woke up. The schedule so far this weekend for EMOS coupled with my determination to get everywhere on a bike while I’m here has added up to the biggest physical challenge I’ve undertaken since my chemo and surgery. At about six o’clock this morning I woke up with a painful cramp in my right calf. I was determined to sleep as long as my body needed. So I did.

I wanted to write more yesterday about EMOS, but my day was so full with the goings-on here, I never got a chance. I arrived at the University of Oregon yesterday morning and began a solid, nearly twelve hour marathon of stuff.

It began by sitting in a classroom, listening to theater scholars describe their work. “Theater scholars,” I thought when I heard the term spoken from behind the lectern for the first time yesterday. “Not theater artists?”

Within the several scholarly talks I listened to yesterday there were a few that stood out, and rose above the scholarly drone. Downing Cless of Tufts University spoke interestingly of how he has directed classic works to draw out their Ecological themes; Heather Barfield Cole (who told me this morning that she’s dropping the Cole from her name soon) of UT Austin described a handful of examples of successful activist theater, including the street theater of Bread & Puppet and even the work of ACT UP — her presentation was refreshingly free of the seemingly typical readerly drone of such things.

The highlight of my day, however, was unexpected: Anne Justine D’Zmura gave a presentation to an entirely too small audience on her experience of producing a work called Green Piece where she is a professor at Cal State Long Beach. Her work was one of the best examples yet of this genre of so-called EcoDrama that I have encountered. Why? It was a completely holistic approach to the problem that we (I think) hope to address when producing work on the environment, sustainability, et cetera. She not only created an original work that thematically addressed the issue of nature, ecological destruction, and social injustice (to name a few), but also took the idea of the thing to heart and made sure to use the work to educate her students (and herself) on the core issues, as well as — and here is where you know I get excited — making a concerted effort to create a piece that tread as lightly as possible on the environment by considering its use of resources carefully. Thank you, Anne. (here is a link to Anne’s study guide for Green Piece.)

Next came Rachel Rosenthal. The now 83-year old performance artist and activist was in good form, and showed excerpts from her works Gaia, Mon Amour (1983), Rachel’s Brain (1986), and L.O.W. in Gaia (1986) — all overpowering examples of her presence on the stage. She struck me as one of the most quotable speakers I’ve ever listened to. Some examples:

“Artaud saved my life.”

“I do love some people, but I love all animals.”

“I hate being old, because I want to see what happens.”

The evening ended with a staging of C. Denby Swanson’s Atomic Farmgirl, a retelling of Teri Hein’s memoir of the same name which details her experience growing up on a farm in Washington state that was repeatedly contaminated with radiation leaking from the nearby Hanford Nuclear site. It was a play in three acts, with two (did I say two?) intermissions. And I have to say this too: as someone who has dealt with cancer directly over the past two years, I was a bit unnerved that the 1st and 2nd place winners of the EMOS play festival both dealt with cancer in a very real way.

Oh, and I almost forgot: I met Theresa May yesterday too, and she was incredibly kind. For all of the nit picking I am capable of, I cannot forget (and won’t let you) that she has undertaken this festival and is obviously a friggin’ force of nature herself. She is to be congratulated for her fortitude and drive — she is asking us to think about these things as theater artists (and scholars), and that in itself is crucial to our future.

Of course, folks never fail to disappoint:

Garrett points at the strange use of the garbage can outside UO's Miller Theatre ComplexGarrett points at the strange use of the garbage can outside UO’s Miller Theatre Complex

It may be difficult to tell in the photo above, but it was surprising to see how so many people at a festival concerned with the environment and our behavior towards it could be so clueless about what to NOT throw in the trash. Behind Ian are a string of recycling options, as well as a yellow bin for compostables — all items used for eating at the festival are designed to be compostable except (I’m not clear on why this is) the forks. But, nearly everyone threw their stuff right in the trash — even the paper plates and seemingly clean napkins. As we walked away from this, Ian and I had a discussion about the need to eliminate sorting at the consumer end of recycling. It confuses, is inefficient, and generally redundant, as most municipalities sort the recycling anyway.

Go to EcoTheater