Monthly Archives: June 2011

Call for Photographs and Videos: Environmental Photographer of the Year

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This post comes to you from Cultura21

By Ronja Röckemann

The Environmental Photographer of the Year is an international showcase for the best environmental photography and video, honouring amateurs and professionals of all ages. Organised by the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) since 2007, the Environmental Photographer of the Year is one of the fastest growing photographic competitions in the world. Next to the media coverage, all winning pictures are featured in the exhibition and collectors book. The 2011 competition is open and until 31st July 2011. It is free to enter. Read the category briefs before submitting. For more information see: www.ciwem.org/competition-and-awards.

 

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

Death of ecoactivists

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Hi Sacha

I write with tragic news to inform you that Maria do Espirito Santo da Silva, arts-educator, eco-pedagogue activist, grandmother and student-participant in our teacher education project Voices of the Land based in the Federal University of Para, was assassinated with her husband Jose da Silva, on the 24th May, near to her forest home in the region of Maraba. They were, I believe, returning from meetings with the President of Brazil, explaining the need to defend the forests, rivers and pedagogies of the Amazon.

Please would you inform our colleagues in your network of this tragic news. You can find a few details in the Guardian newspaper. The article focusses on her husband (unfortunately rendering Maria’s lifetime of dedication invisible), but gives you a clear picture of their humanity and courage.

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/24/amazon-rainforest-activist-killed?CMP=EMCGT_250511

UNESCO-Brazil has had the clarity and courage to partner this arts education project which contains Maria’s poems, songs and pedagogical reflections. I will let you know when they are published.

Many thanks

Dan

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

Steep Trail

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Roosevelt and Muir

Polarcap, the curatorial project of Liz Adamson and Graeme Todd, has established Basecamp on the legacy of John Muir, one of Scotland’s most important environmentalists.  Polarcap is located in Dunbar, where Muir came from (though he is most frequently associated with the National Parks of North America).

Today and tomorrow a group of scientists and artists will, using Muir’s method, walk and talk in and about the environment.  Muir’s knowledge of the environment was developed through direct experience (including one walk of 1,000 miles from Indiana to Florida), and this was the grounding of his campaigning, agitation and organising.  The most famous example of Muir’s method was when he took Theodore Roosevelt into Yosemite in order to convince him that mismanagement and exploitation were destroying the valley and that government intervention was required.

This is the first event of a series planned by Polarcap, moving up the East Coast of Scotland through Edinburgh (collaborating with Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop) to Fife (with Fife Contemporary Arts & Crafts) and planning to end in Aberdeen.

The aim of Steep Trail is to build mutual understanding between artists and scientists through shared experiential activity and reflection.

If you are interested in checking it out, head for West Barnes Studios, School Brae, West Barnes, Dunbar, EH42 1UD this weekend.  ecoartscotland will continue to cover the Steep Trail programme as it evolves.

steep trail basecamp press release

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

halo-station.org

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

halo-station.org rethinking energy-body-technology.

HALO is an autonomous in energy station, a mobile installation to set up in the public space. It is being built with different phases and versions since 2008, following an ethic in eco-conception in the elaboration of the projects.

Halo is conceived as an immersive and interactive experience, being connected in real time listening to the earth and its oceans. It lies in between a scientific zone and a sensitive art zone, a physical and mental exercise zone, but also a meditation zone.

This project links to the Makrolab, Ant Farm‘s Oceania, Dolphin Embassy Sea Craft (1976), as well as Arts Catalyst‘s recent project on research stations in the Arctic, amongst others.

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

Synth-ethic vs Vandana Shiva

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Synth-ethic: Art and Synthetic Biology Exhibition at the Natural History Museum, Vienna, Austria.

Synthetic biology is at the scientific cutting edge, but also on the ethical edge.  The works in this exhibition explore that edge.  The curatorial essay starts with the principle that synthesis is one of the fundamental practices within art.  As the exhibition title suggests, when moving from mimesis to synthesising with the living, ethics need to be half the work.

Art has always involved synthesis. Uniting disparate elements, putting them into a collage to create new works, metaphors, sensory experiences, or aesthetic genres, however, is also inherent to a curiosity, present in every epoch, for finding new ways of creating with new expressive media. Those contemporary artists, who in recent years have begun to employ laboratory methods and biotechnology for their own purposes in new contexts and to modify living systems, are particularly “close to life”. Here, it would seem, the newly declared discipline of synthetic biology is well-suited to the task, seeking, as it does, not only to modify existing organisms but to design “life” anew, from the ground up. Yet, this biological science is not concerned with living beings but rather with components, circuits, and systems. The language of engineering has been shifted to biology. These new dimensions to our technical ability to act, however, call for a new ethical engagement concerning the question of how and whether we should act simply because we can. The exhibition synth-ethic offers perspectives on human intervention in biotechnology and the responsibility that arises with it. Artists appropriate these technologies for their own purposes, see through the mania of novelty and beyond the constraints of economics to examine the areas of tension between molecular biology and ecology, architecture and biochemistry, technology and nature, cybernetics and alchemy.

[more…]

But reading Vandana Shiva‘s text The Corporate Control of Life (Hatje Cantz, 2011) provides a different and significant critical perspective on these issues.  Shiva sets out the activist work of many years challenging the corporatisation of nature.  She articulates the powerful arguments against the application of IPR to biodiversity and the impact on farmers, women and indigenous people.  Underlying her argument is an epistemological position radically at odds with the economically driven epistemology of Western corporate and governmental cultures which she describes as biopiracy.  She says (2011, p8),

The rise  of reductionist science was linked with the commercialization of science and resulted in the domination of women and non-Western peoples.  Their diverse knowledge systems were not treated as legitimate ways of knowing.  With commercialization as the objective, reductionism becaue the criterion of scientific validity.  Nonreductionist and ecological ways of knowing, and nonreductionist and ecological systems of knowledge, were pushed out and marginalized.

The genetic-engineering paradigm is now pushing out the last remnants of ecological paradigms by redefining living organisms and biodiversity as “man-made” phenomena.  Patenting life was transformed into international law through the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

In the context of this epistemological critique, artists need to step with care into the field of Synthetic Biology and the work of the Critical Art Ensemble is, amongst others, exemplary for demonstrating the potential for art to position itself as an effective counterpoint to corporate-political cultures.  One must question carefully the ability of artists to appropriate these technologies, and the form of appropriation must manifest the critique.

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

Water isn’t just about water

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

The Waterfootprint.org website is a resource on direct and indirect water use:

People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but even more for producing things such as food, paper, cotton clothes, etc. The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business.

This site provides a range of useful tools for understanding and analysing water footprints.

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

TWO DEGREES Produced by Artsadmin – 12–18 June 2011

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Cycle Sunday: House of Hot Breath, photo by Erica Earle

 

Sitting between art and activism, performance and protest, this year’s Two Degrees festival takes over the streets of East London

Two Degrees is the first ever festival to bring together over 30 radical and political artists to respond to and intervene in the public debate on climate change and government cuts.

Transcending the gallery space and traditional definitions of ‘art’ this festival is about audiences actively taking part. From bike rides and haircuts to sharing food and stories, Two Degrees is a unique series of performances, films, installations, walks and interventions by artists and activists that offer a positive, alternative response to the current financial and climate crises.

Our consumption of food is increasingly a high-profile political issue, from food miles to fair trade. For one week only a pop up café created by Clare Patey will draw attention to some of the lesser known problems we face. Crayfish Bob’s stylish eatery invites dinner party conversation whilst highlighting the damage caused to London’s waterways by the invasive American Signal Crayfish. Elsewhere in the festival, Rebecca Beinart investigates herbal medicine and natural poisons in a performance that gathers powerful plants from London’s streets and the Otesha Project lead a food foraging cycle tour.

Finding new ways of sharing ideas and creating dialogue can mobilise change. The Haircut Before the Party is a hair salon with a difference. Customers at this temporary Whitechapel salon will be offered a free haircut in exchange for swapping their opinions, experiences and thoughts with their hairdresser.  Future Editions, an alternative human library at Toynbee Studios will allow you to actively engage with leading climate change specialists. Visitors to the library are met by a maverick librarian who selects for them a human book. Your book will then offer you a 10 minute conversation – a rare opportunity to ask questions or exchange views. Glasgow based artist and activist Ellie Harrison looks at our increasingly fragmented and precarious labour market in Work-a-thon; an attempt to break the world record for the most self-employed workers in one space, creating a social environment for workers to combat issues of isolation, lack of solidarity and unregulated hours.

Green transport is also part of the programme and Cycle Sunday (in collaboration with Arcola Theatre) invites audiences to participate in a range of performances, events and workshops, all made for bikes. From a grafitti tour of London to a bingo bike ride and bike powered smoothie maker – artists, campaingers, engineers and designers explore the possibilities of green technology and low carbon lifestyles.

Across the UK, protest and activism have hit the headlines in recent months, but what is the link between the economic crisis and climate change? Two Degrees asks this question, bringing together artists and activists working outside of the mainstream, proposing alternative and inspiring solutions to the problems we face today, bridging the gap between art and activism.

For further information and images please contact Penny Sychrava PR on 0796 791 5339 or pennysychrava@hotmail.com or Sam Scott Wood at Artsadmin on sam@artsadmin.co.uk or 020 7247 5102.

Crayfish Bob, photo by Dan Houston

 

ABOUT TWO DEGREES

Two Degrees is Artsadmin’s weeklong festival of art and activism, climate and cuts. Following the first festival in 2009, Two Degrees 2011 takes place from 12-18 June in and around Artsadmin’s Toynbee Studios home.

Two Degrees takes place as part of the activities of the Imagine 2020 Network of European arts organisations who are working together to encourage arts organisations and artists to engage more with the subject of climate change. The current partners in the network are Artsadmin; Lift, London; Bunker, Ljubljana; Le Quai, Angers; Kaaitheater, Brussels; Domaine d’O, Montpelier; New Theatre of Institute of Latvia, Riga; Transforma, Torres Vedras; Domino, Zagreb, Rotterdamse Schouwbourg, Rotterdam; and Kampnagel, Hamburg. www.imagine2020.eu

Two Degrees is supported by the European Commission Culture Programme and by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

ABOUT ARTSADMIN

Artsadmin is based at Toynbee Studios and is a unique producing and presenting organisation for contemporary artists working in theatre, dance, live art, visual arts and mixed media, also offering various support services for artists, including a free advisory service, mentoring and development programmes and a number of bursary schemes. Toynbee Studios is Artsadmin’s unique centre for the development and presentation of new work.  The studios comprise a 280-seat theatre, five studio spaces and the Arts Bar & Café, all of which host performances and events throughout the year. www.artsadmin.co.uk

Gulf Coast Fund Responds as Region Braces for Yet Another Disaster

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As Mississippi River Flooding Heads South, Gulf Coast Fund Launches Text-to-Donate Campaign to Raise Desperately Needed Resources

New Orleans, LA – The Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health, (www.gulfcoastfund.org), a community-led philanthropy in the Gulf Coast, is mobilizing in anticipation of yet another disaster. As rising flood waters from the Mississippi River approach the region, the Fund is working with grassroots leaders to distribute emergency grants to underserved communities that will likely be severely affected, such as those along the Atchafalaya River in the Louisiana Bayou. Flood waters are expected to cover ten percent of Louisiana, impacting 2,500 people living in its immediate path and an additional 22,500 who are predicted to be affected by backwater flooding.

“We hope for the best but prepare for the worst,” states Marylee Orr, Executive Director, Louisiana Environmental Action Network (www.leanweb.org). “The challenge is waiting to see what the river will do. For now, we’re doing what we can–patrolling the River, distributing daily updates on flood conditions, keeping communities informed, and supplying clean-up kits for use after the water recedes, which is expected at the end of May at the very earliest,” Orr continues.

“Most evacuees have stored their belongings and are staying with friends or family, and more mandatory evacuations will likely be issued in the coming days,” explains LaTosha Brown, Director, Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health. “Just as with the residents displaced by the recent tornadoes, permanent and lasting housing solutions need to be developed. Staying with friends and family can not be considered a long-term solution,” Brown states.

This latest emergency response by the Gulf Coast Fund is in addition to ongoing support for hard-hit, low-income and often isolated rural communities in Alabama and Mississippi, who are still reeling from the tornadoes that struck last month, as well as continued funding and aid to support residents impacted by health issues and loss of livelihood due to the BP drilling disaster.

“By establishing an extensive network of grassroots organizations, the Gulf Coast Fund has been able to move resources quickly to areas with urgent needs,” Brown declares. “But in the face of so many recent disasters occurring one after the other, the need for funds has increased. Our hope is that by launching a text-to-donate campaign, we can reach out to a broad audience, and fortify our ability to provide emergency grants to disenfranchised communities with crucial needs,” Brown states.

You can now donate to the Gulf Coast Fund with your cell phone:

TEXT “RESTORE” to ‘85944’ to donate $10 instantly

Make sure you Reply Yes to confirm your gift

Standard Messaging Rates Apply

The Gulf Coast Fund will also be launching the “One Gulf. One People. One Future. Restore America’s Gulf Coast” social media campaign on their Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages as part of the RESTORE text-to-donate effort to increase funds supporting Gulf Coast organizations.

www.Facebook.com/GulfCoastFund

www.YouTube.com/GulfCoastFund

@GulfCoastFund on Twitter

* Interviews with Marylee Orr and LaTosha Brown available upon request*

Call for participants/presenters in a panel presentation and round table discussion, with possible breakout sessions at Scenofest, PQ2011

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Roundtable Information

10am  21st June

Considering Sustainable Design: expanding the possible by rethinking the way we create

In their book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue that we will never sell sustainable practice by pitching cutting back, but rather through creating products that are beneficial to the earth. As Braungart points out, ants have a greater biomass than humans, and have been industrious for millions of years, yet unlike humans, their industry nourishes the planet. This panel will consider the benefits of sustainable design practice beyond the ‘it feels right’ motivation. By Rethinking the Way We Create Things, might we be opening up to a whole new and exciting world of design possibilities?

If you are planning to attend PQ2011, are interested in this aspect of design, and feel you would be interested/available to participate, please send your proposed presentation topic (abstract), and a short bio to William Mackwood:  mackwood@yorku.ca

2pm 21st June

Sites of Performance – Theatre out of frames

This years Scenofest sees two major performance projects happening outside of a theatre building, so what is it that this form of theatre achieves that cannot be achieved through other means ? Over the last ten years there has been a real surge in the interest in making work in unorthodox spaces from garages, botanical gardens, intimate apartments to massive industrial units.  Increasingly this work seeks out intersection with other collaborators, historians, cultural geographers, urban planners as the work seeks to map hidden histories. Street theatre performance too has developed in sophistication and scale and artists are employed as a catalysts to re-imagine their futures. Work by pioneering artists like Meredith Monk, Ariane Mnouchkine, Peter Brooks and companies like Dogtroep, Skewed Vision, Wilson+Wilson, La Machine all shaped the form, but what does the future hold ?

This roundtable considers the unique opportunities offered through this work and explore sites of performance potential for spectacle / community engagement / regeneration / as text / scenographic material.

If you are planning to attend PQ2011, are interested in this aspect of performance, and feel you would be interested/available to participate, please send your proposed presentation topic (abstract), and a short bio to Peter Reed at peter.scenofest@gmail.com