Monthly Archives: March 2009

Tipping Point to commission climate change performances – 4 May deadline

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Editors’ note: This commission is unique among those dealing with art and climate change in its focus on performance and theatre.

The Tipping Point Commissions are inviting artists to submit proposals for new performance work in the context of climate change. The proposals will be considered by a selection panel, leading to around four commission awards of at most £30,000.

The theme of climate change is intended to provide a springboard for the commissions. Artists are invited to submit projects that stimulate audiences towards the radical and imaginative thinking necessary to comprehend a world dominated by climate change. The Tipping Point Commissions are seeking proposals that offer creative reflections on a world that is rapidly changing and on humanity’s role and responsibilities within it.

Proposals can be made by practitioners of any performance discipline, as individuals or groups, by artists on their own or together with curators or producers.

Proposals must be submitted by 4 May at 5pm. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to develop ideas and attend an interview. The selection panel which will include:

  • Graham Devlin: Chairman, Tipping Point (Chairman of Selection Panel)
  • John Ashton: UK Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change 
  • Nick Starr: Executive Director, National Theatre 
  • Maresa von Stockert: Director, Tilted Productions 
  • Cecilia Wee: Writer, Broadcaster and Curator

The criteria for the TippingPoint Commissions and the application form is available here.For further information, contact Angela McSherry.

www.tippingpoint.org.uk/commissions

Go to the Ashden Directory

Devoted and Disgruntled (about theatre) Northeast – 30 – 31 March

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The Empty Space and Improbable Theatre are hosting Devoted and Disgruntled North East an Open Space event to consider ‘What are we going to do about theatre?’, at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle.

Open Space is a form of meeting in which participants determine the discussion sessions. Questions on theatre’s relation to environmentalism would be possible to offer to the group. The event will be facilitated by Phelim McDermott.

This is the first Devoted and Disgruntled to be held outside London.

www.theemptyspace.org.uk 
www.improbable.co.uk

Go to the Ashden Directory

Eco Arts: Japanese Artist Creates Stunning Pieces Of Art From Toilet Paper Rolls – Ecofriend

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Recycled art is nothing new on Ecofriend, but we just can’t let our eyes off objects reincarnated from things we usually throw in our trash bags. Yuken Teryua is another artist from Japan who knows the value of trashed objects and has the skill to make them a part of your living room in a stylish way.

via Eco Arts: Japanese Artist Creates Stunning Pieces Of Art From Toilet Paper Rolls – Ecofriend.

Research in Art, Nature and Environment (RANE) Lectures

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University of Falmouth

The RANE ‘Comprehending Nature’ Lecture Series for 2009 will include:

Andrej Zdravic 
9 March
Slovenian film and sound artist Andrej Zdravic has lived and worked across the US and Europe. Inspired by music and nature, he has created over 30 independent films focusing on the energies and spiritual aspects of natural phenomena. This screening of his film ‘Riverglass’ will be followed by a question and answer session.

Linda Weintraub 
20 April
Linda Weintraub is a curator, educator, artist, and author of several popular books about contemporary art. She is currently writing the fourth book in her eco-art series that is titled Avant-Guardians: Textlets in Art and Ecology. This series is designed to highlight and accelerate the integration of environmental principles throughout university art pedagogy.

Entry to the events is free, but you need to reserve a place.

www.rane-research.org

 Go to the Ashden Directory

Green Sundays start at Arcola Theatre

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Arcola Energy will host Green Sundays on the first Sunday of each month, starting with a launch on 1 March. The Green Sundays are free events, and the public is welcome to drop in to Arcola Theatre throughout the day from 1:30 – 7:30 pm.

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The Green Sundays programme will feature music, games, films, speakers and readings based loosely on an issue under the climate change umbrella, such as food, travel, energy or politics.

Green Sundays are intended to demonstrate how a creative industry, such as theatre, can provide a space to discuss the environment and how people can work together to tackle climate change.

The March launch theme was food – growing, making, enjoying and sustaining food. The day included meals, short films and a screening of ‘Our Daily Bread’, a reading from The Hungry Cyclist: Pedalling the Americas in Search of the Perfect Meal by the author Tom Kevill-Davies, an open mic session and presentation of the Food Chain Campaign by Friends of the Earth,

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Arcola’s partner for Green Sundays is Be The Change.

www.arcolatheatre.com 
www.arcolaenergy.com 

a: 27 Arcola St 
London, E8 2DJ 
Nearest station- Dalston Kingsland

Go to the Ashden Directory

Northern Students Scriptwriters’ Conference

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Universities of Bolton and Huddersfield

11 – 12 March

The Universities of Bolton and Huddersfield are collaborating to host the first Northern Student Scriptwriters’ Conference at both locations.

The conference inlcudes materclasses and workshops, and is an opportunity for undergraduates, postgraduates and new and emerging writers to learn about the mechanics of the scriptwriting industry and gain advice from established writers. The first day of the conference at the University of Bolton deals specifically with Film and Television writing, whilst the second day at the University of Huddersfield concentrates on Theatre and Radio writing.

In Bolton, speakers and workshop leaders include Willy Russell, Debbie Horsfield (Cutting it, True Dare Kiss), Emily Feller (Red Productions), Marc Boothe (B3 Media), Katherine Beacon (BBC Writers Room), Amy Buscombe (freelance script consultant), Angela Clarke (Eyes Down, Window shopping) Sarah Hooper (Shameless).

In Huddersfield, speakers include Willy Russell, Sue Roberts and Gary Brown (BBC Radio Drama), Sue Teddern (Radio writer and TV writer of My Family, Birds of a Feather), Colin Teevan (Playwright, How Many Miles to Basra?, Don Quixote), Alex Chisholm (Associate Director, Literary, West Yorkshire Playhouse), and Rod Dixon, Artistic Director of Red Ladder Theatre Company.

Places are limited and must be booked in advance.

e: jks1@bolton.ac.uk 
www.bolton.ac.uk/Conferences/Scriptwriters

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Buckminster Fuller: the crucial difference between the main engine and a starter motor

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US Pavilion, Montreal Expo 67, 1967

“Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are only the experiment.”

I’m never entirely sure what that quotation really  means, but R. Buckminster Fuller’s  grand turn of phrase was only one part of his genius, mixing the mystically visionary with the visonarily practical. This week sees the largest celebration of his work in 35 years open at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. Starting With The Universe explores that mixture of utopianism and engagement.

Another quote from Bucky, this time from Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, which is published online by the Buckminster Fuller Institute here. Bear in mind this was written around 46 years ago:

The fossil fuel deposits of our Spaceship Earth correspond to our automobile’s storage battery which must be conserved to turn over our main engine’s self-starter. Thereafter, our “main engine,” the life regenerating processes, must operate exclusively on our vast daily energy income from the powers of wind, tide, water, and the direct Sun radiation energy. The fossil-fuel savings account has been put aboard Spaceship Earth for the exclusive function of getting the new machinery built with which to support life and humanity at ever more effective standards of vital physical energy and reinspiring metaphysical sustenance to be sustained exclusively on our Sun radiation’s and Moon pull gravity’s tidal, wind, and rainfall generated pulsating and therefore harnessable energies. The daily income energies are excessively adequate for the operation of our main industrial engines and their automated productions. The energy expended in one minute of a tropical hurricane equals the combined energy of all the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. nuclear weapons. Only by understanding this scheme may we continue for all time ahead to enjoy and explore universe as we progressively harness evermore of the celestially generated tidal and storm generated wind, water, and electrical power concentrations. We cannot afford to expend our fossil fuels faster than we are “recharging our battery,” which means precisely the rate at which the fossil fuels are being continually deposited within Earth’s spherical crust.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology Blog

Turning archives into social media spaces

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Just spent a little while taking  a brief but enjoyable gambol in  this new gallery/museum-based social media project, Creative Spaces. It’s a beta version, but already creates a great model of how to make collections more accessible, and how to let the public use material that might otherwise be gathering dust.  I should get out more, I know, but I do like the idea of not having to travel to museums.

Creative Spaces is based on the idea of creating groups and notebooks around subject areas. They have access to the digital archives  of  nine major galleries and museums, including the Tate, the Imperial War Museum, the V&A, the Natural History Museum and the National Portrait Gallery. The photo on the right is from a notebook  created by one user titled My Dream Green Home, which uses the collections to find inspiraton for modern green living. It shows a wartime community garden in Worcestershire in 1943, courtesy of the Imperial War Museum. The original caption reads:

The English village is a closely knit community, its inhabitants good neighbours who share their labours and their surplus produce. It is thus good ground on which to organise wartime Food Production Clubs to produce more food and save shipping space and transport. Clubs are run by villagers, with help from County Authorities. At Rowney Green, Worcester, a club helps villagers to cultivate more land, keep pigs, poultry and bees. Seeds and fertilizers are bought wholesale through the club, advice comes from the County Authority through Mr S T Buckley assistant instructor in horticulture.

It was a similar photograph taken in the US that inspired artist Amy Franceschini to start the Victory Gardens project in 2007. Amy was one of the artists I met in California last week; more of that soon.

Anyway, Creative Spaces is a really excellent project. They’re looking for people to get stuck in and beta test it, so go along and try it out. Myself? I’d like to see an advanced search facility, but I’m sure there are plenty of other tweaks that you could suggest…

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