Monthly Archives: February 2012

forest and stone reminders: the sculpture of eileen macdonagh

 Eileen MacDonagh with her Ogham Stones 2012

Eileen MacDonagh with her Ogham Stones 2012, VISUAL Carlow

This post comes to you from An Arts and Ecology Notebook

‘ THE QUARRY   This is where it all begins.  I love going there to see the stone in its most natural state.  Quarries are my cathedrals,  even when its raining I always come home uplifted.’ Eileen MacDonagh, 2012

Over the last year or so I have been very privileged to have been invited by one of Ireland’s leading sculptor’s, Eileen MacDonagh, to document her work process by film and photographs for her retrospective exhibition LITHOsphere. The exhibition opens today and continues until May 7 2012 and I’ve been editing madly for the 1/2h film I created for the show (I’ll post some of the links to film clips below).

Eileen is a great friend to my husband and I; Martin over recent years has taken up stone sculpture and he could have no better teacher or friend for that matter. Martin is a geologist so there are often lots of discussions on stones, grinding equipment and lots of excitement about the sculpture process in general. Its an odd contrast to my own practice but I want to mention aspects of Eileen’s work that touch me deeply too.

I really admire the attention to working with physical materials in Eileen’s stone practice; it echoes an earlier time when art was more deeply connected to the material world. In contemporary art, there has been a move, and I would say a dangerous loss of connection to the fabric of material life – much contemporary work has moved to virtual digital methods (my own included although I try to ground my work in a long term work with my forest outside my door). And then there are elements in Eileen’s work that serve to trigger profound reminders too; particularly in her  astounding 8m forest of her new breathtaking installation Cathedral and her new Ogham Stones. Her ‘cathedral’ forest towers above one; these papier mache forms reminiscent of highly remarkable and endangered baobab trees, many species of which are on the island of Madagascar. In recent weeks I’ve seen disturbing reports that we are losing our large trees all over the world. Centuries of relatively rapid forest loss over all continents and further degradation of forested areas by industrial forestry methods, ever encroaching intensive agriculture,  changes in climate, and competition from other invasive species  are having profound and irreversible effects. I know not everyone will be thinking about ecological loss when viewing Eileen’s work but I can’t help relate how forests have always been the ‘shadow of civilization’; how we treat our forests and relate to our forests tells us much about the state of our so called civlisation. Eileen’s forest came together with her incredible enthusiasm to bring people to the project too; forests are not just trees but a complex web of relationships and Eileen’s forest also grew from a complex web of relations of people in the local area.

Eileen’s new Ogham Stones are reminders too. In ancient Ireland, stone pillars around the country were marked with carved, indented lines on the edges to describe the species of trees in the surrounding and then much forested regions of Ireland. In the  stone cleave markings in Eileen’s work process, I see references here to trees too.

I am only referring to some of the works in this large exhibition; along with the 8 m forest in which you can walk through, there are over 50 tonnes of stoneworks on display. LITHOsphere opens today and continues for 3 months at VISUAL, the centre for contemporary art in Carlow. Please also see the Visual site for talks by Eileen over the coming months, I know the first talk will be a talk around all the pieces in the gallery and the work that went into making them.

installation of Cathedral by Eileen MacDonagh, 2012

A shot I took in the gloaming when Cathedral was being installed; installation by Eileen MacDonagh, 2012

Here are the links to my film clips that I created for Eileen’s work: there is a long slideshow about her two decades of sculpute work (this is a slow silent piece for the gallery as there will be activity sheets for visiting children about the stone works), a film about her new Stone Circle and clips on the community work behind the development, creation and installation of Cathedral.


installation of Cathedral by Cathy Fitzgerald 2012

Cathedral installed: Eileen and Martin running through the trees: a still from the Lithosphere film

An Arts & Ecology Notebook, by Cathy Fitzgerald, whose work exists as ongoing research and is continually inspired to create short films, photographic documentation, and writings. While she interacts with foresters, scientists, and communities, she aims to create a sense of a personal possibility, responsibility and engagement in her local environment that also connects to global environmental concerns.
Go to An Arts and Ecology Notebook

An Ecology of Mind ¦ A Daughter’s Portrait of Gregory Bateson

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

An Ecology Of Mind | A Daughter's Portrait of Gregory Bateson

An Ecology Of Mind | A Daughter’s Portrait of Gregory Bateson.

There will be a screening and panel discussion of Nora Bateson’s film of Gregory Bateson,

Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture,

L1 Minto House, Chambers Street, Edinburgh

5.30 – 8pm on 23 February 2012

There will be a workshop on 24 Feb for students of any discipline, Masters level and above, at Edinburgh College of Art, Lauriston Place. Please email chris@fremnatle.org if you wish to attend the film. This event is sponsored by the School of Architecture and the CORE research group.

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

Deep sustainability and the art and politics of forests

This post comes to you from An Arts and Ecology Notebook

Internationally, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) still classifies clearfell (clearcut) monocrop plantation sites, like the one above pictured, as a ‘forest’Internationally, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) still classifies clearfell (clearcut) monocrop plantation sites, like the one above pictured, as a ‘forest’

‘I thought again of our fundamental inversion of all relatedness, of how we nearly always ask the wrong question –What can I get from this?–and so rarely the right one–What can I give back? Even when we try to learn from others, it is from the same spirit of acquisition: What can I learn from this forest ecosystem that will teach me how to manage if for maximum resource extraction? Rarely: What can I learn from this forest community that will teach me better how to serve it?‘

Derrick Jensen, A Language Older than Words, 2000, p. 319

Last December on the 30th celebration of the Irish Green Party and in the last few weeks of the UN International Year of the Forest, I presented on behalf of the forestry policy group, a comprehensive new sustainable forestry policy for Ireland. It was accepted that day!!! The policy development had taken several years with the input and hard work of a small number of committed members. It had involved wide consultation with forest and other environment/ natural heritage groups, professional foresters and policy makers from here and overseas.

My own personal involvement in policy development was propelled for a number of reasons: over several years my partner and I, with the help of a local sustainable forester, have been transforming our very small 25 year old conifer plantation into a permanent (non clear-fell) forest using Close-to-Nature continuous cover sustainable forestry methods. This is because I have a strong belief that we need to create radical new ways of relating to our natural environments, if we and those environments that support us all are to thrive in the long-term. I have spent considerable time too on a long term art & ecology project of which my forest is central to my work.

I also wanted to help introduce policy that would finally address the appalling irresponsibility of current Irish policy that ignores the devastation that we inflict on other human and natural communities when we continue to allow the importation of timbers and wood products from countries where unsustainable logging, often still from old growth forests, are occurring. As hidden behind the everyday headlines of economic collapse we are now living in an unprecedented age referred to as the age of the 6th great extinction. This Anthropocene age is where our own species actions alone are dramatically altering the very fabric of our finite biosphere. Around the world, the degradation of natural environments, the way we interact with our supporting land bases, has and continues to lead to unprecedented species, habitat and much cultural loss. This age of extinction, where we are losing 200 species every day,  mirrors the ecocidal growth-at-all-costs politics of our hyper-consumerist industrialised societies, the now globalised dominant cultural model that fails, in a mixture of blind ignorance and short-term profiteering, to understand the limitations and sensitivity of environments that supports all life. For example, short-term returns obscure the fact that clear-fell forestry that relies on serial plantings of monocrops, will lead, in 4 or 5 rotations, to severe soil degradation and ever reducing timber volumes. Such practices also limit and disrupt other species and dull the social and cultural values of our forests in the meantime.

On a global scale, we know our forested areas are critical in regulating our climate and storing carbon and are the most important habitat for most terrestrial species, but do we relate that every effort should be to grow more now, to sustain and create more resilient and diverse  (uneven aged and mixed species) permanent forests? Diverse forests, for instance, will be crucial to counter the effects of changing climate with its increased likelihood of tree disease. On a national scale and when other fuel costs are set to keep rising, local fuel independence provided by well managed, selectively harvested permanent forests must be part of the equation to support local economies and communities fuel requirements not to mention improving local  biodiversity. I now also understand why leading sustainable European foresters see such potential in transforming much of Ireland’s pioneer conifer plantations to permanent forests. I’ve long known we have the best tree growing conditions in Europe but I can now see that we have too long focussed solely on short-term economic returns of forest plantations forgetting the intrinsic ecological and cultural wealth that our ancient biodiverse Irish Forests once provided. In some small measure I hope ideas in the new Irish Green Party forestry policy will help enable a new expanded vision of permanent forests potential to circulate more widely in Ireland and elsewhere.

New Zealand old growth forest, South Island, photo Cathy Fitzgerald 2003

New Zealand old growth forest, South Island, photo Cathy Fitzgerald 2003

I am very fortunate that my thinking and practical knowledge about forests has come from both long associations with leading people from Crann (an Irish forest group), ProSilva Ireland and ProSilva Europe (sustainable forestry organisations) and from living within a small forest. In recent years on study tours I have experienced the vibrant mixed species, permanent forests in Hungary, Slovenia, Austria and the Netherlands that are managed carefully for ecological, cultural, as well as economic benefits. Fifteen years ago, when I first came to Ireland from New Zealand, I worked on a Crann Leitrim project and witnessed the largest Forest Service supported county-wide planting of broadleaf woodlands amongst local farmers and those interested in doing something different with their land. My friendships with leading forest practitioners from then continues to this day and some years ago I had the good fortune to go back to Leitrim to make a small film of the ‘local project’ as it had been called, where I interviewed the new woodland owners and the vibrant mixed woodlands that I had seen planted not many years before. Such projects were so important in practically illustrating the need for new policy then. We have come a long way in that broadleaf tree planting and increased afforestation are now well supported but we still have so much to learn that planting any species as crops is shortsighted and will never lead to longterm wealth or real forests.

Cathy Fitzgerald and her dog Holly in their small Hollywood forest                      Co. Carlow, Ireland 2010

Cathy Fitzgerald and her dog Holly in their small Hollywood forest Co. Carlow, Ireland 2010

On the practical side, my own observations of the small forest in which we live has been invaluable. Our tiny, 21/2 acre forest-in-the-making, comprising of 25 year old conifers undergoing periodic selective harvesting, now supplies us with over 70 tonnes of firewood every three years!  We have had to start selling firewood to our neighbours to cope with our clever, fast growing forest.  And as the integrity of our small forest remains intact, since we do not clear-fell, we have more and different birds every year and incredible range of fungi too. More valuable ash and some oak trees are self generating and growing quickly in the shelter of our large conifers (they’ll grow quicker and straighter in such company without us having to waste energy to prune them too). So from my window I can see our small acreage is a more vibrant community where the real wealth is embedded and accumulating in the diversifying, aging forest! Such forestry does require a long-term, slower mindset. Its one that attempts to respect all aspects of what makes a forest (which is very complex and dynamic when you think of it) and with it, thinking of new ways of relating to its living inhabitants so all thrive and survive. Its a type of slow-forest, interdependent management where one seeks to carefully observe and understand rather than quickly exploit and move on. So thinking and working in forests has for me been an important means to think about some very real aspects of deep sustainability in the wider context too. Where deep sustainability refers not only implementing measures for our own benefit but measures that ensure all aspects of a forest thrive. By the way, our small 2 1/2 acre site is now listed with a growing number of other sites around the country on the new Coford research database of forests undergoing transformation, or as they refer to it, being managed by implementing low impact silvaculture systems (LISS).

From a completely different view, as an artist I have long being fascinated and in turns equally concerned by what has created contemporary culture’s short-sighted ecocidal perspective. I have been influenced and inspired by artists and writers before me.  However I am often shocked and at a loss how too few artists today examine our relation to the living world in any depth. Perhaps my previous working background in the biological sciences means I have always been drawn to and feel more able to engage with ideas and concerns about our increasingly growing ecological crises. I have of course always been drawn to artists that have related to forests too.

I suspect that many members of the Green Party and the public in general would be unaware that some of the early formative material for the first Green Party in Germany evolved from ideas from the leading 20th century German artist, Joseph Beuys. Beuys was a  founding member of the first Green party and later unsuccessfully stood as a Green Party candidate for the European Parliament. A highly charismatic, self-professed shaman-like figure, Beuys was an outspoken artist attracting considerable media attention for his ideas about the central and essential role of art in society. He considered all members of society active agents in shaping society (he’s widely known for his claim that ‘everyone is an artist‘ and also that truly healthy societies support and understand that ‘art = capital’).  Beuys also had a deep understanding that a healthy environment is a necessity for healthy societies.  As an arts professor he had controversial ideas that the arts must be freely available to all, opening his classes to un-enrolled students. Although very popular with students and other artists such controversial ideas eventually lead to his dismissal as Professor from the Dusseldorf Arts Academy.  Though his political ideas about society, education and the environment were instrumental to the newly forming Green Party, his involvement in politics was not to last either, as he was frustrated by the slow democratic process of the new party and in hindsight, his own eccentric character seemed ill suited to connect with the general public. Even so, he carved a considerable public profile for his works and ideas, and to this day he is highly regarded in bringing art out of institutions and galleries to create projects that combined community actions, what he termed ‘social sculpture’, to address eco-societal concerns in the wider public domain.

Beuys at Kassel

While it is difficult to condense Beuys’ work into a short article, his final large scale project, 7000 oaks for the International Documenta Arts Exhibition in Kassel (1982) city left a lasting legacy for the German city and contemporary art. Creating a huge mound of 4 ft high basalt stone pillars outside the entrance of Documenta, he stipulated that each of the 7000 stone pillars could only be moved to be placed alongside a planted oak, both of which were to be put in the environs of Kassel city. After considerable city-wide debate, communities and individuals working with local government and other community institutions carried out his forced urban tree planting project over 5 years. Though initially greeted with much skepticism this new type of community art project eventually gathered wide and popular support and has been replicated in other cities. Beuys instinctive understanding of relational community art practice has also been immensely important to contemporary art.

Beuys’ idea of the oak each being planted along with a stone pillar also presented an intriguing means to project this artistic endeavour well into the future; the pillars act as permanent markers of the townspeople actions to future generations, reminding them of the long-term thinking and environmental actions of its previous citizens. Such deeply symbolic practical actions encompassing long-term thinking for society is much needed now but not only in our cities. In fact Beuys sought to have this project replicated all over the world. An important legacy of Beuys work continues now through the Social Sculpture Unit in Oxford and last year when I visited I heard that over 80 art and forest projects from around the world were connecting with their University of Trees network project. Of course, when you think of it, we have our own standing stone reminders in Ireland. Our ancient Ogham alphabet carved on our standing stones all tellingly describe our then high regard for our native forest species, each letter corresponding to a native tree or shrub. It might be that Beuys had remembered this as he a deep interest in celtic Ireland too.

Permanent forests, Slovenia 2009

A Slovenian permanent forest - where clearfelling (clearcutting) has not been performed for 64 years!

Postscript: when I started writing this article a week ago I received a short Skype message from a leading sustainable close-to-nature forester in Tasmania. He had discovered and enjoyed looking at my short, birdsong narrated film I had created about our forest practices, called Transformation but noticed an error under a photograph I took of fabulous permanent forests in Slovenia where I had noted that clearfelling in Slovenia has been illegal these past 25 years. He wrote, ‘Just noticed the comment under the photo from Slovenia. Clearfelling in Slovenia was ended in 1948! That is 64 years of changed thinking and planning and operating”

… I hope we too reach such longterm forestry practice in the very near future both here and Ireland and beyond.

 

Further Reading

Strangely like war: the global assault on forests by Derrick Jensen and George Draffan (2005), see also A language Older than Words, Derrick Jensen (2000)

Forests: the shadow of civilisation by Robert Pogue Harrison, 1992.

Beuysian Legacies in Ireland and Beyond: Art, Culture and Politics by Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes and Victoria Walters, European Studies in Culture and Policy, Lit Verlag, 2011

Note: This article was first published on HerCircleEzine.com on 20.1.12 and on my www.ecoartfilm.com site too.

An Arts & Ecology Notebook, by Cathy Fitzgerald, whose work exists as ongoing research and is continually inspired to create short films, photographic documentation, and writings. While she interacts with foresters, scientists, and communities, she aims to create a sense of a personal possibility, responsibility and engagement in her local environment that also connects to global environmental concerns.
Go to An Arts and Ecology Notebook

SURVIVAL OF THE BEAUTIFUL (USA)

This post comes to you from Cultura21

An All-Day Wonder Cabinet

On Saturday, February 25th, 2012 from 10:45 am till 9:30 pm, the New York Institute of the Humanities and The New Jersey Institute of Technology present SURVIVAL OF THE BEAUTIFUL at the NYU’s Cantor Film Center in New York.

David Rothenberg talks with scientists and artists about his new book Survival of the Beautiful, which examines the interplay of beauty, art, and culture in evolution.

In it the philosopher and musician Rothenberg deals with the questions, why animals have innate appreciation for beauty and why nature is beautiful.

On the 25th of February the question of how art has influenced science is investigated by him and his guests.
Above that it is asked what we can learn from the amazing range of animal aesthetic behaviour about animals and about ourselves. The event is topped of with music by David Rothenberg and Jaron Lanier and free and open to the public.

For further information about David Rothenberg see http://davidrothenberg.com

Background: David Rothenberg recently published a book, Survival of the Beautiful (www.survivalofthebeautiful.com). Many of the protagonists he encountered will join him on stage at the Cantor Film Center to debate the question of whether nature’s beauty is actual, imaginary, useful, excessive, or perhaps even entirely beside the point.

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

Plunge by Michael Pinsky

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Michael Pinsky’s Plunge, on three monuments in London

In a collaboration among LIFT, Artsadmin., and IMAGINE 2020, artist Michael Pinsky was commissioned to create a new work of public art in central London.  Today the project is launched and will remain on view through 4 March. Blue circles of LED lights have been placed on the Seven Dials Sundial Pillar, the Duke of York Column, and the Paternoster Square Column indicating the height of the sea level one thousand years from now, if climate change continues unchecked.

Though thousands of people pass these monuments every day, Pinsky’s art allows people to see them in a new (blue) light.

Together, the Plunge monuments create an arc across central London, following the line of a future Thames that has swallowed much of the capital in its wake.

Plunge on Twitter
Plunge on Facebook
Plunge website

“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

Invitation to participate in an Earth Forum with Shelley Sacks

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Within the framework of the Citizen Art Days Shelley Sacks offers twice a day the possibility to take part in an Earth Forum „Social Sculpture“ Process at the Freies Museum_öffentlicher Raum Berlin. From February 20th to 24th, in each case from 11 am to 2 pm and 3 to 6 pm, people are given the opportunity to create a humane and ecologically just future in groups of 8 to 12.

Artist and former scholar of Joseph Beuys, Shelley Sacks, invites people of every age and background to a process of creative imagination and exchange in order to bring room for new approaches of thought and action into being. After building an awareness in the group, the focus shall be put on questions directly related to the environment, the neighborhood, the city of Berlin and even the world.

Everyone is invited to participate in the Earth Forum process, whether as an individual or as a network of individuals and organisations who have diverse interests or as an organisation or group of individuals who have similar aims and views of sustainable development, but may have different ideas of how to achieve these aims.

Possible languages are English and German.

Background: The Citizen of Art Days from the 19th to the 24th of February 2012, offer the possibility for citizens to participate directly in the designing of their city by means of workshops, lectures, discussions and city excursions.
Registration and further information here:
www.citizenartdays.de / earthforum [at] citizenartdays [dot] de / 030-49 914 661
———————————————
Further projects of Shelley Sacks:
www.social-sculpture.org
www.universityofthetrees.org
www.exchange-values.org
www.ortdestreffens.de

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

Plasticities Sciences Arts

This post comes to you from Cultura21

“Plasticities Sciences Arts” is an association based in France, operating at the transdisciplinary crossroads of art and science. As expressed by its president, Marc-Williams Debono, “the PSA research group aims at opening new fields of interaction between sciences, arts and humanities. The group has its origins in 1994 when it established a Transdisciplinary network of researchers focusing on the nature of evolutionary processes. The identity of the group is founded on both knowledge and human experience as on the suggestion of the concept of plasticity. The latter is considered to be the basic principle underlying the organization of any life form, art or idea.”

The group’s website contains valuable online resources including news items, activities and publications, and the online Journal  Plastir, which is on open access (i.e. freely accessible). The latest issue of Plastir (25) was released in December 2011.

The website (in English and in French) of “Plasticities Sciences Arts” and Plastir is accessible at: http://plasticites-sciences-arts.org/

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

Workshop/Conference: Volunteering in times of crisis

This post comes to you from Cultura21

RECREATURA is a non-profit organisation supporting innovative and creative art projects in order to support an active European citizenship. The two-day conference concerning “Volunteering in times of crisis” takes place on March 2 and 3, 2012 and aims to promote volunteering in European cities. Against the backdrop of the consequences from the recent crisis and high unemployment especially among young people in Spain, the conference will discuss the effects of the crisis on active citizenship and volunteering.

The event will be in English and Spanish and a variety of experts, representatives of NGOs, local governments and others will take part in the conference. If you are interested in participating – either as participant or speaker – please get in touch with Dorothee Fischer, Vice-President RECREATURA_arts&culture, dorotheefischer [at] gmail [dot] com. Participants need to sign up by e-mail by 28 February at the very latest.

Information on the schedule can be found in the PDF file Draft Agenda here.
For details about the background of the project see www.recreatura.com and www.alda-europe.eu

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

Screenings of An Ecology of Mind

Screenings with Nora Bateson of her film An Ecology of Mind, a portrait of her father, Gregory Bateson
London, Manchester, Bradford, Bristol, Dartington, Glasgow, Edinburgh

15 – 27 February 2012

“Tell me a story” … of life, art and science, of systems and survival

 Gregory Bateson’s way of thinking – seeing the world as relationships, connections and patterns – continues to influence and provoke new thinking about human social life, about ecology, technology, art, design and health. Nora Bateson, Gregory’s youngest daughter, introduces Bateson’s ideas to new audiences in her film An Ecology of Mind, using the metaphor of a relationship between father and daughter, and footage of Bateson’s talks.

Each screening, too, hosts a discussion between Nora and a wide range of people working in depth with Gregory Bateson’s ideas: artists, architects, organisation theorists, action researchers, ecological activists, mental health practitioners, scientists, urban designers, cyberneticians.

These screenings and discussions show a way of thinking that crosses fields of knowledge and experience, one that can lead out of the ecological crisis and towards a more sound way of living.

News items could feature all or any one of the following angles: culture and science, cities and ecology, biology and communication, family health and systemic therapies, technologies and religion.

Nora Bateson is available for interview; please contact Wallace Heim, as above.

Gregory Bateson, British-American anthropologist, biologist, systems thinker (1904 – 1980),  invited people to look at a thing – an earthworm, a number sequence, a tree, a definition of addiction, anything at all – by seeing the interdependencies that connect them and the processes beneath the structures. He believed, “The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between the way nature works and the way people think.”

Tour dates:

15 & 16 Feb – Manchester

17 Feb – Glasgow

20 Feb – Bradford

21 Feb – Bristol

22 Feb – Dartington

23 & 24 Feb – Edinburgh

27 February – London

UK Press:

Interview with Nora Bateson by Rachel Freeman on The Ecologist online:

http://www.theecologist.org/how_to_make_a_difference/culture_change/1198372/an_ecology_of_mind_film_interprets_a_life_of_unconventional_thought.html

“For me, watching Nora Bateson’s film was overwhelming. Her biggest achievement is in explaining abstract concepts in a clear way. Until now, Batesons’ work has been largely inaccessible outside the academic community. With this film, this is bound to change”

Jan van Boeckel, Resurgence, Jan-Feb 2012

Gobal Press:

“The double bind that we now face is this: on the one hand, we want to preserve our natural environment; on the other, everything we do to grow our economy and preserve our standard of living disrupts the natural environment and our relationships with it. Nora, like her father, suggests that we must raise our consciousness and learn to think in new ways to escape our pathology of wrong thinking…Nora Bateson presents viewers not only with an intellectually challenging and inspiring work of art, but also with a glimpse of evanescent hope.”

Marilyn Wedge, Huffington Post, 13 October 2011

“Gregory Bateson taught us how to stop having the most fundamental old ideas: the static, separating, reductionist fictions that dis-integrate an integrated world. Nora Bateson’s beautiful portrait of her father’s key insights is a stunningly effective antidote for a new generation that now needs his wisdom more than ever.”

Amory B. Lovins, Chairman and Chief Scientist, Rocky Mountain Institute

An Ecology of Mind is a spell-binding, lyrical, and very important film…”

Rex Weyler – Co-Founder, Greenpeace International

Awards for the film:

  • Gold for Best Documentary, Spokane International Film Festival, 2011
  • Audience Award Winner, Best Documentary, Santa Cruz Film Festival, 2011
  • Winner, Media Ecology Association, John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis, 2011

CFP: The Two Cultures: Visual Art and Science c.1800-2011

The Two Cultures: Visual Art and Science c.1800-2011
Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference, 26 April 2012

History of Art Department, University of York

It is bizarre how little of twentieth-century science has been assimilated into twentieth century art. C.P. Snow, 1959

In his 1959 lecture “The Two Cultures” C.P. Snow asserted that the intellectual life of western society was increasingly being split into two polar groups: the sciences, and the humanities. The notion that visual artists and scientists are two entirely isolated strata of human activity and experience has proliferated since the nineteenth century, and continues to plague academic institutions and political policy today. The term “scientist” was coined in 1834 as a means of designating those who worked professionally in the various sciences. The “scientist” was described by direct analogy to the artist; suggesting that these now seemingly dichotomous areas of scholarship were in fact intended to exist in direct relationship to one another.

This conference seeks to challenge Snow’s separatist assertion, and explore the ways in which visual artists have acknowledged, appropriated and assimilated the ideas and theories of the ever-expanding field of “science” in their work since c.1800, the moment at which the professionalization of the sciences engendered a seemingly irrevocable split in the academy. As a result, we hope to recoup a sense of interdisciplinary fluidity amongst the international fields of visual arts and sciences, in order to build as complex and nuanced a picture as possible of the exchanges and interconnections between the “two cultures” over the past two centuries.We invite abstracts for papers of 20minutes by postgraduates that address the theme of relationships between the visual arts and the sciences 1800-2011. We welcome submissions from students working across the humanities, fine arts, social sciences, and applied sciences, but ask that the papers specifically address such relationships from the perspective of visual or material culture. Possible themes for discussion might include, but are by no means limited to:

  • Collaborations and communications between artists and scientists.
  • Representation and/or use of scientific concepts, vocabularies or technologies by an artist in the creation of works.
  • Modern medicine and representations of the body.
  • Representations of warfare, machinery and technological development – their physical and psychological effects/treatments.
  • The influence of post-Darwinian structures/theories on the visual realm.
  • The effect of/responses to new media such as photography, film, and internet.
  • The advent of cybernetics and computers, from early experimental use to contemporary digital media.
  • The ways in which the relationship between art and science intersects with issues of class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity.
  • The attitude of art education to science and vice versa.- How established genres such as landscape and still-life have responded to scientific developments.

Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words. We ask that applicants also submit a brief biography in addition to their abstract. The deadline for submission is February 24th 2012. All submissions should be sent to Kirstin Donaldson and Robert Sutton at TwoCultures2012@gmail.com along with any questions regarding the conference or abstracts.