Monthly Archives: December 2013

Sustaining Creativity

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Via Julie’s Bicycle.

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Julie’s Bicycle has launched Sustaining Creativity, which is looking at what the creative community perceives as the critical drivers for change and the role of sustainability in this process.

The launch event occurred on November 19, 2013.

‘Sustaining Creativity’ is a series of conversations and events exploring environmental challenges, drivers of change, and the opportunities that transformative solutions offer to the creative community. 

‘Sustainability’ generally refers to an approach that balances social, financial and environmental considerations. Julie’s Bicycle’s focus is environmental sustainability. While Julie’s Bicycle recognises and seeks to reinforce the synergies between social, financial and environmental wellbeing, economic and social development are ultimately contingent on a healthy planet.

Sustaining Creativity will take a holistic approach, intent on shoring up strength and wellbeing over the coming decade. It will consider the likely systemic changes already influencing mainstream thinking and put sustainability at the forefront of creative and cultural innovation.

Sustaining Creativity will:

  • Discover what the business critical issues are perceived to be from a wide range of representatives from the creative community.
  • Extend ambition about what is possible using real examples.
  • Identify some key shifts needed to develop a creative infrastructure commensurate with global challenges.
  • Outline what might be done over the next five to ten years to create optimal conditions for change.
  • Foster confident decision-making that looks beyond political and funding cycles
  • Produce a series of events and publications

Julie’s Bicycle will gather and present this thinking at a national event in Spring 2014.

Sustaining Great Art

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Via Julie’s Bicycle.

The results are in! Arts Council England has published Sustaining Great Art, a report presenting results from the first year of environmental reporting by major revenue funded organisations, produced in partnership with Julie’s Bicycle.

An outstanding 90% of all 704 major revenue funded Arts Council organisations got involved, 79% felt that it  has made a positive difference to their organisation, and 86% felt that it can make a positive difference to the arts and cultural sector.

The results have been compiled into the single largest data set on the carbon emissions of arts organisations globally, and this achievement is already having ripple effects both in the UK and internationally.

Read the full report and see an infographic of the results here.

YearOne-Infgraphic.121647

USA: Beauty in public park to generate climate awareness

Culture Futures

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures
Along Chicago’s newest park, the 606, sculptor Frances Whitehead, along with engineers and landscape architects, has designed an installation that will bring trail users face-to-face with the effects of climate change.

Chicago-park606

Trees will bring the public face-to-face with the unpredictability of climate change, through something as simple as a flower’s budding.

“Sustainability is a cultural problem and artists can help find the solution.”

“What if through beauty we can teach? Could beauty replicate science data, can beauty generate awareness?”
Frances Whitehead, sculptor and professor of sculpture at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago

“If it’s recorded year-by-year, it will create a climactic centennial for the city. I’m not aware of any other projects like this.”
Mark D. Schwartz, professor of geology at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, who created the climate model for the 606

According to Lori Rotenberk on Grist, Frances Whitehead’s project for the 606 “will transform three straight miles of an abandoned rail line into parks, bike and running trails, and pedestrian walkways.” Through planting 453 apple serviceberry trees along the park and trail area and digitally tracking their blooming each season, “Scientists and the public will be able to track the blooming year-to-year, thus keeping a running diary of shifts in climate.” In other words, the installation “will bring trail users face-to-face with the effects of climate change” as the blooming season changes in accordance with temperature from year-to-year.

Continue reading:

Grist – 4 Deember 2013:
When it comes to climate change, this artist lets the trees do the talking
Article by Lori Rotenberk

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
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Sexy Peat Exhibition

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This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

drawing-bug

Highland Print Studio in partnership with Cape Farewell currently has an exhibition of contemporary visual art at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh called Sexy Peat/Tìr mo Rùin, celebrating the ecology and heritage of the Lewis blanket bog and highlighting the significant role that peat plays in global climate regulation. The project also celebrates the Gaelic heritage relating to the bog and the significance of the bog to the people who have lived with it.

Beyond their initially austere or barren appearance the peatlands reveal an abundance of colour, texture and life forms in constant interaction with dynamic weather systems. These features have inspired the people who have lived with the moor for generations. This project will investigate and celebrate that land, those people and their heritage.

The exhibiting artists are:

  • Anne Campbell
  • Jon Macleod
  • Kacper Kowalski
  • Deirdre Nelson
  • Murray Robertson
  • Fabric Lenny
  • Alex Boyd

Find out more about the artists involved in the Sexy Peat project here.

Sexy Peat is part of the Year of Natural Scotland, a partnership between EventScotland, Scottish Natural Heritage and Creative Scotland.

The exhibition runs from 8 November 2013 – 26 January 2014

Image: Christine Morrison, http://www.christinemorrison.co.uk/

The post Sexy Peat Exhibition appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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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The Green Arts Initiative – Creative Carbon Scotland

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The Green Arts Initiative supports Scottish arts organisations to be at the forefront of growing an environmentally sustainable Scotland. Run by CCS and Festivals Edinburgh, it’s an ambitious project designed to give venues and organisations the advice, support and tools they need to become greener and let audiences and the public know what they are doing.

The project comes with a simple accreditation scheme: everyone we work with is entitled to use the Green Arts branding to demonstrate their commitment to becoming greener.

CCS will also support Green Arts organisations to get further industry accreditation where appropriate, including Industry Green and ISO20121.

To download the Green Arts Initiative one-pager click here (90KB).

To find out more or to sign up to the scheme contact Harry Giles for Edinburgh (harry@festivalsedinburgh.com) or Gemma Lawrence for the rest of Scotland (gemma@creativecarbonscotland.com)

Organisations signed up to the Green Arts Initiative:

Assembly

Centre for Contemporary Art 

Dance Base 

The Edinburgh International Book Festival 

Fringe Central 

The Filmhouse 

The Fringe Society 

The Hub 

Gilded Balloon 

The Lyceum Theatre 

 Northern Stage

Out of the Blue 

The Pleasance Theatre 

Puppet Animation Scotland

The Traverse Theatre 

Scottish Poetry Library 

Spring Fling

St Johns Church Venue 

The Quaker Meeting House 

Via The Green Arts Initiative – Creative Carbon Scotland.

Opportunity: CCS Board Members Required

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This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

dalziel-and-scullion

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations aiming to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. Our vision is of a Scottish cultural sector that is a key player in shaping a sustainable Scotland through the work it makes and presents, through the way it operates and through both what it says and how it speaks to the wider public.

Creative Carbon Scotland’s Mission:

  • To engage the sector in actively promoting environmental sustainability and addressing climate change
  • To help the sector take a lead in shaping an environmentally sustainable Scotland
  • To help the sector run itself as environmentally sustainably as possible

Activities

We have two main strands to our work:

  • We provide support to arts organisations and individuals in practical carbon measurement, reporting and reduction, including direct training, one-to-one support and a unique website with tips and resources for carbon management in the arts. This will increase in 2014 in line with Creative Scotland’s recent announcement that recipients of their funding will be asked to report their carbon emissions from 2014/15 onwards.
  • We collaborate with partners on artistic, audience facing and research projects aimed at engaging the sector and the public in shaping a sustainable Scotland.

For more information about our work, go to www.creativecarbonscotland.com.

New Board members

Creative Carbon Scotland is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation, initiated by Festivals Edinburgh with key partners the Federation of Scottish Theatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network. Our Board, comprising Morag Arnot, Mike Bonaventura, Euan Turner (representing the FST) and Gary Stewart (representing Festivals Edinburgh), provides advice, ensures governance and oversees execution of the work of the Director Ben Twist and Project Officer Gemma Lawrence and new colleagues expected to join shortly. We want to extend the board and so we are looking for two new members who:

  • Have knowledge of sectors in the arts other than theatre, dance and festivals, or the world of sustainability
  • Have experience at a senior level working in an organisation or as a freelance in the arts or sustainability
  • Have senior management or Board experience or are keen to get it
  • Are able to commit to attend meetings 4-6 times per year and support CCS with additional work as necessary. (These roles are unremunerated but expenses are payable if required.)

CCS is keen to broaden the diversity of its Board and staff membership and will particularly welcome applications which will help achieve this.

For more information, please contact Ben Twist on ben@creativecarbonscotland.com or 0131 529 7909/07931 553872. To apply, please send a short statement of why you would like to join the Board and a copy of your biography or CV.

Image: Dalziel + Scullion, film still from Speaking the Land, http://www.dalzielscullion.com

The post Opportunity: CCS Board Members Required appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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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Music offers a breakthrough for communicating on climate change

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This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

In several ways, music dominated discussions at ‘Development and Climate Days’ in Warsaw, Poland, reported Climate & Development Knowledge Network.

cdkn-scrndmp_nov2013

The ‘Development and Climate Days’, held on 16–17 November 2013 at Polonia Palace Hotel during the UNFCCC climate talks, COP 19, saw participants singing songs, improvising collective rhythms, and playing games with dice and cards. These unconventional activities were conceived as a way jump-start creative thinking on climate communications.

The participants shared experience on grassroots communications strategies that have changed communities’ behaviours and have led to new decisions on climate compatible development and disaster risk reduction, and it turned out that many of these positive experiences involved music and performance arts.

Another role for music which was discussed at the Climate Days was the possibility of musical improvisation to stimulate creative thinking in disaster situations.

The ‘Development and Climate Days’ drew more than 60 participants from relief and disaster risk reduction agencies, and climate and development organisations, working from the global to the community level, from countries as diverse as Uganda, Kenya, Nepal the Philippines, Germany and Poland.

More information:

» http://www.climatecentre.org/site/development-and-climate-days

» Article by Mairi Dupar, CDKN’s Global Public Affairs Coordinator:http://cdkn.org/2013/11/music-offers-a-breakthrough-for-communicating-on-climate-change

Canberra, Australia, on 1 December 2013

Canberra, Australia, on 1 December 2013

In Belgium, the campaign ‘Sing for the Climate’ proved, according to the organisers, “that a mass mobilisation around climate change is still possible even after the COP15 in Copenhagen.”

Belgium now appeals to local groups and organisations worldwide to organise their own version of ‘Sing for the Climate’. More information, tools and support for local action can be found on singfortheclimate.com

More about music and climate change

» Climatesafety.info: Concerned musicians communicate climate problems

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
Go toThis post comes to you from Culture|Futures

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Climate Models — Not the Computer Kinds, the Flesh Kinds

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This post comes from Chantal Bilodeau’s Artists and Climate Change Blog

Allegra LeGrande. Photo: Charlie Naebeck / Climate ModelsAllegra LeGrande. Photo: Charlie Naebeck / Climate Models

Can climate scientists be sexy? Francesco Fiondella, Communications Officer at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society, and Rebecca Fowler, Science Writer at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, think so. Fiondella and Fowler are working on a 2014 wall calendar, affectionately called the Climate Models Calendar, that will feature 13 climate scientists–but here’s the kicker–dressed in high-fashion gear. Produced in collaboration with photographers Charlie Naebeck and Jordan Matter, creator of the New York Times bestseller Dancers Among Us, the calendar’s goal is to “humanize science and increase understanding of current climate research.” Says Fowler: “Photos in the calendar shatter stereotypes of scientists and show that they’re a diverse group of people doing important research to understand how our planet works. From studies of drought in the sub-Saharan Africa to reconstructions of Southeast Asia’s climate history using data obtained from tree rings, the information in the calendar covers a broad range of current climate science and describes what scientists are discovering about Earth’s past, present and future climate.”

Fiondella and Fowler just completed a successful crowd funding campaign to cover the calendar’s printing costs. Climate Models is also supported by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and Awesome NYC.

Several articles have been written about the project. Check out EarthFix, the Smithsonian Magazine, and Climate Central.

Artists and Climate Change is a blog by playwright Chantal Bilodeau that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to Chantal Bilodeau’s Artists and Climate Change Blog

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Liberate Tate Stages Performance at Tate Britain

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This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

liberatetatepartspermilliontatebritain2013-e1385473983967Fifty veiled figures dressed in black carried out a performance art installation entitled ‘Parts Per Million’ throughout a series of rooms in the ‘BP Walk Through British Art’ at Tate Britain during the art gallery’s official re-opening (Saturday 23 November 2013). The piece critiqued the role that Tate is playing in exacerbating climate change by bolstering the public perception of BP through its long-standing sponsorship relationship.

The art at Tate Britain was reordered chronologically this year. The Liberate Tate performance began in the ’1840′ room, when the industrial revolution started to significantly impact emission levels, to the present day room with contemporary art created as carbon dioxide levels reached an all-time high of 400 parts per million (ppm). Leading climate scientists consider 350 ppm to be what must be returned to in this century for earth to be safe for human life for generations to come. In each room the Liberate Tate performers arranged themselves in a different configuration and counted aloud en masse the increase in atmospheric carbon ppm during that time period.

‘Parts Per Million’ is the tenth performance at Tate by Liberate Tate: a group that has become internationally renowned for artworks aimed at ending the relationship of Tate and other cultural institutions with oil companies. One of the performers, Fiona Edwards said:

“Any celebration of British art that prominently bears the BP logo is also endorsing that company’s business model which explicitly involves the destruction of a safe, liveable climate. Tate Britain celebrates with a ‘House Warming Party’, but the presence of BP, one of the companies data shows is most responsible for climate change due to its carbon emissions, makes it more of a ‘Global Warming Party’.”

The national collection of British art housed at Tate Britain – art owned by the public – was rebranded the ‘BP Walk through British Art’ in May: in the very week it was announced carbon dioxide levels had reached 400 ppm. A report published earlier this week estimated that BP was responsible for 2.5% of global historic emissions.

Terri Fletcher of Liberate Tate said: “Tate’s vision statement says that it will ‘demonstrate leadership in response to climate change’. Yet oil companies like BP are actively looking for ways to expand their markets and find new reserves at a time when the world needs to be dramatically reducing the amount of fossil fuels that are being burnt. By actively promoting BP, Tate is positioning itself on the side of the fossil fuel companies that are actually creating dangerous climate change.”

There is growing alarm from artists, Tate members and visitors that Tate is providing support to a corporation creating climate chaos and forcing climate-conscious gallery visitors into an uncomfortable position if they want to enjoy art at Tate (the mission of the art museum is to promote public enjoyment of art). Last year Tate said in a reply to a freedom of information request that it had received more representations raising concerns about BP’s sponsorship than any other issue since the oil company became linked to the gallery in 1990.

Since 1990, when BP first attached itself to Tate and its collection, much has changed: the scientific evidence of climate change due to burning hydrocarbons and the negative social and environmental impacts of oil companies, BP in particular, is now clear and far more widely known amongst the public, including art lovers.

Tate has placed BP sponsorship “under review”. BP has dominated the Tate Members Annual General Meeting (AGM) for years. In 2012 Tate Director Sir Nicholas Serota promised Tate members ethical alternatives would be explored so that Tate trustees had a choice not to continue BP sponsorship. A progress report is due at the 2013 AGM on 6 December.

Liberate Tate (www.liberatetate.org) is an art collective exploring the role of creative intervention in social change dedicated to taking creative disobedience against Tate until it drops its oil company funding. Contact: email liberatetate@gmail.com twitter @liberatetate.

The post Liberate Tate Stages Performance at Tate Britain appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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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Soil Arts Call for examples

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

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James Brady suggested that the Soil Arts Call might be of interest to readers of ecoartscotland (and Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts).  Alex Toland who is behind the site is a visual artist and environmental planner.

The Soil Arts Call says: If you have used earth materially or symbolically in your creative practice, or in some way addressed the value, function, or meaning of soil in your art, we invite you to submit work to our blog.

There are already some really interesting and diverse examples of work in the links section.

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

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