Monthly Archives: December 2013

Julie’s Bicycle Sustaining Creativity Sector Survey

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This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Sustaining-Creativity-282-e1386070645110

Julie’s Bicycle wants to understand how the creative community is thinking about the coming decade, what it perceives as the critical drivers for change and where sustainability fits into the picture. ‘Sustaining Creativity’ is a series of conversations and events exploring environmental challenges and the opportunities that transformative solutions offer to the creative and cultural sectors.

To take part in the survey follow this link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/75JFV68?c=a6a2f208c0

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

You can participate in Sustaining Creativity and share your views by answering this 10 minute survey. It is aimed at directors and senior managers of creative and cultural organisations.

The survey will close at 5pm, on Friday 13th December.

All participants will be invited to an event in spring 2014 to announce the results and discuss next steps, and will be entered into a prize draw for a case of English champagne in time for Christmas.

For more information, please visit www.juliesbicycle.com/Sustaining-Creativity

The post Julie’s Bicycle Sustaining Creativity Sector Survey 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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Performing arts conference in Canada: ‘Staging Sustainability’

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This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

An international three-day conference on ‘Staging Sustainability: People, Planet, Profit, Performance’ will be the largest gathering of innovative sustainability practitioners in the world to focus on ways in which performance can positively affect our planet.

staging-sustainability2014

The conference ‘Staging Sustainability 2014’ will introduce the attendees to ground breakers working across Canada, on Broadway, in London, in community gardens — as well as all points in-between — to remake the way we work in the performing arts.

“Performance has always been about how the work affects people. Now we are ready to look at how our performances can affect a sustainable world.”

On 2-5 February 2014 the conference will be hosted at three downtown Toronto venues — MaRS Discovery District, 99 Sudbury, and The Theatre Centre — and will also be streamed to satellite locations across Canada. Live performances illuminating sustainability will be staged throughout the conference and into the weekend.

Performing arts professionals — producers, performers, technicians, funders, decision makers, and anyone interested in how the performing arts can support sustainability efforts — are invited to attend.

Session topics
• How does an artist talk about environmental issues through performance?
• What are approaches to Sustainability in the Arts? Makers, Presenters, Contexts.
• What part do designers play in bringing sustainable practice into performance?
• How are facilities integrating sustainable practices into their operations?
… and more.

Organisers
‘Staging Sustainability 2014’ is presented by ArtsBuild Ontario and the Centre for Sustainable Staging at York University in partnership with Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA), Professional Association of Canadian Theatres (PACT),Canadian Institute of Theatre Technology, Cape Farewell Foundation, Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, and MaRS Discovery District.

Centre for Sustainable Staging
The Centre for Sustainable Staging at York University brings together learning, applied research, and industry partners at the forefront of sustainability in performance and exhibition.

» Conference home page: stagingsustainability.ca

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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Extended Call for papers, Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics, Issue 6

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Seismopolite Issue 6
Theme: The future of the biennial: experimental places to reinvent political space?

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The upcoming issue of Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics will discuss the political future of the contemporary art biennial. How can biennials become experimental «sites» to rethink the relationship between art and politics, without lending themselves too easily to the confines of the contemporary art market and neoliberal political geography? While biennials have been criticized for subjecting themselves to urban/ regional marketing strategies, they have also been defended as valuable places for the formation of new alliances among art scenes of the ‘periphery’, that are today steadily changing the global art map.

For this issue we invite reviews, essays and interviews that discuss the future of the biennial and its potential to rewrite the history, political geography and epistemology of places and regions.

Topics may include (but are by no means restricted to):

– The art biennial as a global and regional phenomenon

– Biennials and political activism

– Art biennials as utopian political «sites»

– Mobility, relational geography and regionalization in contemporary art after the Nation State

– The biennial as a potential site for (re)negotiation of political geography, artistic interventions in geopolitical discourses and decolonization strategies

– Biennials as experimental regimes of bodily orientation and their politics of sensation

– Biennials as reimaginations of territorialities, and renegotiations of the concepts of space and place

Please send your proposal, CV and samples of earlier work to submissions@seismopolite.com within December 13, 2013.

Via Seismopolite.com

Philippines: Traffic culture and climate issues highlighted with GPS-painting

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This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

‘CAR-Manila – clean air ride’ to be held in Manila, the Philippines, on 29 November 2013. A ‘virtual painting performance’ that combines art and technology, virtual reality and real life, environment and community.

Manila_AIR-map

On 29 November, as a way to shed new light on climate and clean air issues through the combination of art and technology, electric cars, bikes and various other green vehicles painted the three letters of the word AIR as they moved with their GPS-phones on a specified route through the streets of Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

Manila_AIR-vehicles

 

The Virtual Painting Performance in the streets of Manila was organised by Clean Air Asia, Partnership for Clean Air, CO2 Green Drive and Electric Vehicles Association of the Philippines (eVAP).

The 29 November 2013 version in Manila is the first version of a new collaboration between CO2 Green Drive and Clean Air Asia which will act as a sort of ‘blueprint’ for following events to occur in 2014 and 2015.

“The Clean Air Drive Manila project promotes the use of non-motorized transportation options and alternative fuels to reduce emissions from vehicles. It provides an opportunity to present the concept of electric vehicles and alternative fuels in a public discussion forum,” wrote Clean Air Asia on their home page.

The Philippines are currently building an electric vehicle industry using a US$ 300 million ADB loan, reducing annual carbon dioxide emissions by 260,000 tons and doubling incomes for tricycle drivers.

CO2 Green Drive, a project under the umbrella of the Danish Cultural Institute in collaboration with Clean Air Asia, is currently in the process of planning six similar events in various Asian countries in the near future.

On Earth Day, 22 April 2014, the CO2 Green Drive Project becomes a global event with ‘Green Drives’ as well as runs and walks in numerous cities around the globe.

The completion of the route is tracked with the GPS tracking application and the ensuing painting can be visually traced live on a designated website.

» Read more: cleanairinitiative.org

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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Footings and Entanglements

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Capture-d’écran-2012-11-05-à-16.25.57-e1352129233588

Dave Borthwick highlights two new books of poetry.  Entanglements is an anthology for which Dave wrote the Introduction, and includes work by amongst others Alec Finlay, Gerry Loose, Em Strang and Jim Carruth.  You can find out more and order from Two Ravens Press.

Footings is a new collection of specially commissioned poems focused on walking and comes from Longbarrow Press in Sheffield.  Dave has kindly provided this review for ecoartscotland.

Longbarrow Press is a small publisher of a suite of experimental poets, producing a creative output whose eclecticism is its hallmark. Longbarrow believes that the poem should dictate the output, and has to date produced publications in the form of acetates, maps, and matchboxes. This commitment to formal and thematic experimentation is carried forward into its newly-published anthology The Footing, a collection of commissioned poems on the theme of walking and landscape.

This is not a walker’s collection in the sense of exploring pleasing prospects or aesthetic epiphanies, though, but rather a series of often weary journeys where history and memory make uneasy fellow travellers, where ‘Night settles over everything’, ‘the single row of shuttered shops. / 2.00am, deserted streets and cul-de-sacs’ (James Caruth, ‘Nocturne’). Less rooted in, but emanating from, Sheffield these are poems that move through edgelands and riparian zones, a hauntology of locations where the walker is perpetually disturbed, moved on, and so moving off. Andrew Hirst’s ‘Three Night Walks’ has the poet ‘scuttling along the curb’s ledge / alone, unsettled, residual.’

Rob Hindle follows ‘Flights and Traverses (5 itineraries)’ including ‘the supposed migration of Richard Marsden, an ancestor’ in 1782, the sequence ending on ‘a descent in the traces of the first of the Luftwaffe raids on Sheffield’. Chris Jones’ ‘Death and the Gallant’ reimagines the Reformation—with its destruction of artwork and symbolism—as seen through the eyes of a traveller contracted to daub and destroy iconography: ‘we’re pilgrims too’, he explains. Fay Musselwhite’s excellent poems are the voices of the Rivelin’s latter-day spirits ‘tunnelling / under a low stone bridge’ or trekking ‘though woods’ winter skeletons’ by the riverside.

The Footing’s seven poets each explore their territory with sensitivity, but without sentiment, their psychogeographical mappings manifesting the interconnections of territory, memory and experience in vivid, and wonderfully unsettling, terms.

Angelina Ayers, James Caruth, Mark Goodwin, Rob Hindle, Andrew Hirst, Christ Jones, Fay Musselwhite, The Footing (Sheffield: Longbarrow Press, 2013). pp. 95. £12.  See also http://thefooting.wordpress.com/, with links to SoundCloud recordings of poems.

David Borthwick teaches literature and the environment at the University of Glasgow’s School of Interdisciplinary Studies in Dumfries. His current research at the Solway Centre for Environment and Culture explores contemporary ecopoetry.

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.
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Canada: Sold-out theatre production on climate change

Culture Futures

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

In Canada, the theatre production ‘The Trial of David Suzuki’ became a sold out event which intrigued an audience of all ages. To the Canadian scientist, broadcaster and author David Suzuki, it provided a way to discuss the threat of human-induced climate change without first having to “prove” it is happening.

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Dr David Suzuki has won numerous awards and is world-famous for being an advocate for both humanity and the environment. On 6 November 2013, he staged an unusual and dramatic theatre production in Toronto: ‘The Trial of David Suzuki’ – a mock trial, held at the Royal Ontario Museum. He stood accused of seditious libel – spreading lies against the government – and the show was promoted as if it had been a real trial where Suzuki would have to defend his ‘Carbon Manifesto’ which had been published as an nine-minute video on youtube.com a month earlier.

Landslide consensus
Joanna Katchutas wrote in Freshprint Magazine: 
“The Carbon Manifesto, in which he claims that climate change is a matter too urgent to keep delaying significant action, states that we need to work as a nation to end the exploration and production of oil by 2035 and begin to change the way we live now as the future of our youth and their children depend on it.

Created and produced by Laurie Brown – an advocate for the arts and a Canadian radio personality – ‘The Trial of David Suzuki’ argued and gathered public opinion on whether or not Dr. Suzuki’s Manifesto is a plan that will save the world or destroy the Canadian economy as we know it.

The cast of the trial included actual lawyers (Linda Rothstein and Will McDowell), a judge, a jury, government of Canada Officials, artists and scientists, expert witnesses (business professor Michael Hlinka and Environmental Minister of Ontario Gord Miller) and of course, Dr. David Suzuki himself with Laurie Brown acting as the bailiff.

At the end of the performance the audience was encouraged to share their opinions by voting on whether or not they felt that Dr. Suzuki was guilty or innocent of sedition. The consensus of the trial was in favour of Dr. Suzuki by a landslide.”

Provided a way to discuss the threat
The day after the event, David Suzuki explained on the theatre production’s home pagetrialofsuzuki.ca:
“The mock trial provided a way to discuss the threat of human-induced climate change without first having to “prove” it is happening. The latest IPCC report provided the scientific heft and sense of urgency. I didn’t know what to expect of the audience’s final decision but was gratified with the result, of course. I hope we can conclude that the audience navigated through the arguments and claims to conclude that these were valid concerns and solutions.

I have to repeat a bit of what I said last night. In 1988, an international meeting of climatologists was held in Toronto where the scientists were so concerned with the threat of global warming that they issued a call for a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases in 15 years. Had we heeded that call which at that time was very achievable, we would have been well on our way to a path of sustainable energy. But in order to get U.S. President George HW Bush to attend the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, a much watered down target of stabilization of 1990 levels of emission by 2000 was signed, but then ignored.

In 1997, in Kyoto, delegates proposed a target of 5–6% reduction below 1990 levels by 2010. Canada ratified the Kyoto treaty in 2001 but did little to achieve the reduction and the current government withdrew from the treaty altogether as our emissions continued to rise. Unlike the prosecutor’s claims last night, there are countries that are taking strong steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The carbon manifesto was based on the need to move to non-carbon energy much faster.

That’s why the mock trial was so timely. The warming is already upon us yet we still have time to hold off chaos and any further delay simply leaves an unprecedented future for our children and grandchildren. Thanks everyone who participated in what I hope will be a continuing call for action. Please click to take my Manifesto Pledge and then share it widely with your family and friends.”
David Suzuki

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Video trailer for ‘The Trial of David Suzuki’.

The Trial of David Suzuki: Act 1.

On 9 October 2013, David Suzuki unveiled his ‘Carbon Manifesto’ on the steps of Toronto’s Courthouse.

» Home page: trialofsuzuki.ca

» Facebook page: facebook.com/trialofsuzuki

Media coverage

Freshprint Magazine – 11 November 2013:
The Trial of David Suzuki
Review by Joanna Katchutas: “I wonder where I’ll be “when I’m sixty four” (got the Beatles lyrics going through my head). The Carbon Manifesto affects us, the youth of our nation.  I suppose many others at the Trial agreed with me – I took the Manifesto Pledge and I think for the sake of our future (since we are the future), we all should.”

The Star - 10 November 2013:
David Suzuki shows the ROM how we’ll die: Mallick
Review by Heather Mallick: “In a new play, David Suzuki again shows us the price we’ll all pay if we don’t act now on climate change.”

Financial Post – 7 November 2013:
‘Trial of David Suzuki’ a mockery of a mock trial
Review by Peter Foster: “The real lesson of this mockery of a mock trial was what it said about the objectivity and openness of Suzuki nation”

Fossil Fuel Free Future – 27 October 2013:
Carbon Manifesto
In from Canada comes this scientist and environmentalist with a ‘Carbon Manifesto’ and the kind of speech on youtube which makes him stand out as one of that kind of climate crisis leaders humanity as a whole has been missing in this last decade where politicians have allowed carbon emissions to escalate to this point where they threaten to destroy the planet as we know it.

David Suzuki’s Carbon Manifesto
Published on youtube.com on 10 October 2013

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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What does culture have to do with climate change? Everything

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This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

Introduction to ‘Carbon 14: Climate is Culture’ by Claire Sykes, Curator and Programming Director, Cape Farewell Foundation

carbon14_climate-is-culture

The scientific evidence tells us that the global climate system is changing at an unprecedented rate and in increasingly destructive, self-accelerating ways. But this alarming information alone can be bewildering without narratives and expressions that connect it to our lives and our communities, to our fears and our aspirations. Creating those connections is the work of culture.

A cultural response to the problem of climate change harnesses the powers of creative insight, human emotions, and understanding to effect change. Collaborating with scientists and confronting the facts around global climate change, the artists participating in Carbon 14: Climate is Culture are all responding to different aspects of this climate challenge in poignant, nuanced, subversive, often humorous, and always passionately human ways.

“We need to embrace change and unleash the power of our creativity, ingenuity, innovation, and ability to cooperate — in short, to demonstrate our humanity.”
Claire Sykes

carbon14-exhibitionroom

The exhibition features 13 art installations, including seven new commissions. Subjects include explorations of a changing Arctic; the health of the oceans; biodiversity and extinction; sustainability and new, clean technologies. Central are questions of politics, economics, and ethics.

Climate change is a difficult subject, open to misrepresentation, denial and confusion, yet it cannot be ignored. Nor can we talk about it in isolation as a purely scientific matter. While climate change presents as an environmental problem, it is — as this exhibition insists — fundamentally a cultural one.

Meaningful change must happen first at the level of culture — how we choose to live, and what we choose to do. The questions raised by the climate crisis are about innovation, economics, politics, and essentially, ethics—our responsibility to future generations and the common good—and these are all questions of culture.

carbon14-inuit

A Cultural Shift
What we do now matters on a scale that previous generations could never imagine and will affect future generations in ways we are only beginning to understand. Mitigating climate change will require both the development and delivery of clean and renewable energy sources, and changes in our behaviours and patterns of consumption to reduce our dependence upon fossil fuels.

We need to embrace change and unleash the power of our creativity, ingenuity, innovation, and ability to cooperate — in short, to demonstrate our humanity. We have a unique opportunity to make all the difference. The time is now and together we can.

Claire Sykes
capefarewellfoundation.com

carbon14-evaholtby

The above text was republished from capefarewellfoundation.com with permission from the author.

More information about ‘Carbon 14: Climate is Culture’

‘Carbon 14: Climate is Culture’ was produced by Cape Farewell Foundation in partnership with ROM: Contemporary Culture. It is the inaugural programming coming out of the North American office of Cape Farewell – the Cape Farewell Foundation – which is based in Toronto.

Carbon 14 is a two-year project that began with an intensive workshop on the shores of Lake Ontario in the fall of 2011 and continues with a wide range of programming activities, culminating in this exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum’s (ROM) Centre for Contemporary Culture, a performing arts festival with The Theatre Centre (Toronto), and a rich series of public programs and events.

» ‘Carbon 14: Climate is Culture’ media coverage:
capefarewellfoundation.com/carbon14/press

» ‘Carbon 14: Climate is Culture’ website: capefarewellfoundation.com/carbon14
» North America: capefarewellfoundation.com
» UK: capefarewell.com

Culture|Futures article – October 2013:
Canada: ‘Carbon 14: Climate is Culture’ exhibition

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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Galleries, Museums, and Climate Change l M&GQS | UQAM 2013 Seminar

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Galleries, Museums & Climate Change was M&GSQ’s 2014 seminar, an annual partnership with the University of Queensland Art Museum and the UQ Museum Studies Program.

On November 13th, the event featured:
+ Tour of University of Queensland’s Global Change Institute building as an environmental sustainable showcase
• Judith Nesbitt, Head of National and International Partnerships, Tate, on Environmental Sustainability at the Tate.
• Emrah Baki Ulas, Associate, Steensen-Varming, and Julian Bickersteth, Managing Director, International Conservation Services and co-authors The Technical Industry Report on Museum and Gallery Lighting and Air Conditioning, on future options for economically and environmentally sustainable methods of display environments, preservation and storage of art and cultural material.
• Dr Laura Fisher, National Institute for Experimental Arts, CoFA, UNSW, on Curating Cities and how the arts can generate environmentally beneficial behaviour change and influence the development of green infrastructure in urban environments.
• Panel discussion with all speakers moderated by Sarah Kanowski, ABC RN Weekend Arts.

Following refreshments, 6pm- 7pm, Fiona Hall, Janet Laurence and Caroline Rothwell discussed their work on display in the UQ Art Museum: Contemporary art meets the environment. The artists spoke about how they make visible the interconnections between nature and culture, and elaborate the devastating impact of human action on the environment.

Judith Nesbitt, Head of National and International Partnerships

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Judith Nesbitt leads Tate’s national and international programmes delivered through partnerships and exchanges. Before taking up this post, Judith was Chief Curator at Tate Britain (2001 – 2010) where she led the curatorial team and played a key role in shaping all aspects of Tate Britain’s programme of exhibitions and displays. She curated Michael Landy’s Semi-detached commission in 2004, co-curated the 2003 Tate Triennial Days Like These, the Peter Doig exhibition in 2008 and the Chris Ofili exhibition in 2010. Judith also leads Tate’s Sustainability Task Force, with the aim of reducing the organisation’s carbon emissions and embedding environmental sustainability in policy and practice.

Educated at the University of York and the Courtauld Institute of Art, Judith began her career at Leeds City Art Gallery, 1986-91, joined Tate Liverpool as Exhibitions Curator, 1991-1995 and was Director of Chisenhale Gallery, 1995-1998. She was Head of Programming at Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1998-2000, and Head of UK Content at eyestorm, the art media company, 2000 – 2001. She is Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art, is a member of the Advisory Panel for Art on the Underground, and on the Board of Film and Video Umbrella.

Environmental sustainability at Tate 

For over five years, Tate has made a concerted effort to reduce its environmental impact and worked with colleagues in the museum sector to address the challenges specific to the sector.
This initiative has brought changes to how it cares for, presents and transports its collection, the operations across its varied estate, the design and engineering of its new buildings. Some of these changes are incremental; other changes require a greater shift, whether in practice or attitude. Staff, audiences, and artists all have a part to play in how we develop imaginative solutions to the environmental challenges of the 21st century.

Like many galleries, Tate has achieved reductions in the energy demand of heating and cooling its buildings, and taken the opportunity presented by capital projects, such as expansion of Tate Modern, to achieve energy efficient design through passive measures, maximising natural lighting and developing the use of LEDs. All aspects of gallery practice are systematically examined, from re-usable wall systems for exhibitions, waste to heat contracts, to sustainable catering and trading. Aiming to embed sustainable practices across the organisation, Tate’s environmental strategy is championed by Green Reps, overseen by the Sustainability Task Force, regularly assessed by Trustees and detailed in its annual report.

The effort is not just an organisational one, since many of the most far-reaching changes require sector-wide agreement between lending institutions. Many international colleagues have indicated their readiness to adopt a smarter approach to running galleries and museums in the long-term public interest. Sharing experience and data is the first step towards well-founded changes of practice, which is why this seminar is a welcome opportunity.

Dr Laura Fisher, National institute for Experimental Arts 

Laura Fishersml5

Based at the National Institute for Experimental Arts (COFA, UNSW), Laura Fisher is part of the research team behind the Australian Research Council funded Linkage project Curating Cities. Over the last year she has been involved in building the Curating Cities database of eco-sustainable public art, which is a resource for researchers, artists, commissioning agencies, government bodies and members of the public who are interested in how public art can generate beneficial social change with respect to environmental sustainability. She is also currently co-editing the conference proceedings of the 19th International Symposium on Electronic Arts which was staged in Sydney in July 2013. Laura completed her doctoral thesis in the sociology of art at the University of NSW in 2012.

Curating Cities: public art and sustainability in urban environments 

Led by researchers at the National Institute for Experimental Arts (COFA) in partnership with the City of Sydney, Carbon Arts, Object, and the University of Cincinnati, Curating Cities examines how the arts can generate environmentally beneficial behavior change and influence the development of green infrastructure in urban environments. The project rests on the conviction that public art can very effectively serve the sustainability agenda if it is integrated into the processes of reshaping urban infrastructure and managing the efficient use of resources in cities. This presentation will explain the aspirations that underpin Curating Cities, and discuss several exemplary public art projects that have been documented on the Curating Cities database of eco-sustainable art. It will also discuss the database’s purpose as an informative and evaluative resource that documents the mix of aesthetic, civic and environmental concerns that each work seeks to address, and provides useful insights into the funding arrangements, multi-party negotiations and problem-solving processes that bring public art projects to fruition.

Curating Cities

Julian picsml

Julian Bickersteth is the managing director of International Conservation Services and Vice President of the International Institute for Conservation. He chairs the AICCM taskforce on Environmental Guidelines, and is coordinating a joint IIC and ICOM CC working group to examine the international position on potential relaxation of environmental parameters in museums.

Managing environmental parameters in museums in the face of climate change 

Relaxed environmental conditions for museums to reduce energy consumption, whilst not compromising the preservation of collections, have been on the table for consideration by the conservation community for at least the last five years. It is acknowledged that existing parameters are based on a blanket approach, and are unnecessarily tight for all but the most vulnerable of artworks. Major museums and galleries worldwide are recognising this and implementing relaxed parameters, such as the Tate, the Smithsonian and the V&A.
Two years ago it looked as though international agreement was close. However a significant proportion of the conservation profession are not convinced that the risks in relaxing these parameters can be safely managed. Accordingly consensus amongst conservators internationally is not going to be achieved and therefore there will be no new blanket environmental standards. This paper examines the current situation on this complex issue.

EmrahBakiUlasEmrah Baki Ulas, Associate, Steensen Varming , is a lighting designer, educator and researcher.
His career in lighting began working for the International Istanbul Biennale. He completed his studies in Germany and Turkey, and worked in Greece prior to joining Steensen Varming.
Emrah’s work spans over iconic and high profile projects, including heritage sites, performing art venues, museums and galleries, research and education institutions, commercial developments, monuments, urban lighting and masterplanning.
Emrah is a co-leader of the Master of Lighting Design Postgraduate Studio and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney and is also a frequent contributor of international lighting forums. He was featured as one of the top 30 upcoming professionals by the UK based BS Journal in 2008 and as one of the top 25 upcoming lighting professionals in the USA based AL Journal in 2010.

Technical Industry Report Lighting Air Conditioning

Emrah Baki Ulas

Acknowledgements: The Energy Efficiency component of this activity received funding from the Department of Industry as part of the Energy Efficiency Information Grants Program.

Judith Nesbitt’s visit to Australia is co-hosted by the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council and the project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.

Via M&GSQ l UQAM 2013 Seminar.

The Sustainability Review: Call for Submissions for Video Articles (SciVOs)

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logoThe Sustainability Review (TSR) is seeking submissions for its Spring 2014 issue. TSR is an online, open-access journal edited and published by graduate students at Arizona State University and hosted by the School of Sustainability. TSR features original research, opinion, and art pieces on the topic of sustainability.

The Spring 2014 issue will feature publications in the journal’s new video format: the “SciVO,” a short (7-10 minute) video that is transparent and educational while adhering to standards of scientific rigor and academic excellence. Submissions should be in the format of a script for a SciVO, NOT a finished video. If your script is accepted for publication, the TSR editing staff will work with you to produce your SciVO. Please review the submission guidelines at http://www.thesustainabilityreview.org/submit/.

Submissions for this issue will be accepted until December 31, 2013 and will be published starting March 2014.

Exposure UNESCO-COAL Adapting to the Anthropocene

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EXHIBITION ORGANIZED BY UNESCO, THE UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION COAL, COALITION FOR ART AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.

Monday, November 25 to Friday, November 30 from 10am to 17:30 ●

Opening Tuesday, November 26, at 18h, in continuation of the roundtable  Thinking Anthropocene from 4:15 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. in Room II

On the occasion of the World Day of Philosophy in 2013.

Fourteen projects by contemporary artists involved in environmental issues named in the various editions of the Prix COAL Art & Environment: Ackroyd & Harvey – Thierry Boutonnier and Ralph Mahfoud – Damien Chivialle – Olivier Darné – Nicolas Floc’h – Hanna Husberg, Laura McLean, Nabil Ahmed, Benedetta Panisson, Rosa Barba, Christopher Draeger & Heidrun Holzfeind Marian Tubbs and Drew Denny – Ivana Adaime Makac – Matthew Moore – Liliana Motta – Lucy + Jorge Orta – Zhao Renhui – Anna Katharina Scheidegger – Laurent Tixador – The Migrant Ecologies Project .

Entitled  Adapting to the Anthropocene , this exhibition presented art projects nominated in the various editions of the Prix COAL Art & Environment, which all have in common understanding of the major environmental issues, societal and contemporary, participating in the emergence a new culture of nature and ecology. Each year, through the COAL Art & Environment Award, the association recognizes a contemporary artist involved in environmental issues. The winner is named among the ten selected by a jury of personalities from the world of contemporary art, research, ecology and sustainable development artists, through an international call for projects.

The furnishing of this prize has now become a truly international event that attracts many renowned artists and pioneers in the art of ecology. Each year, the Coal Price Art and Environment is a theme of honor. The 2013 edition on the theme Adaptation received nearly three hundred entries from over 50 countries.

Established in 2010 by the COAL association, COAL Art and Environment Prize of EUR 10 000, is placed under the patronage of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, Ecology, Sustainable Development and the Energy, and the National Center for Visual Arts. It also receives support from private partners.

For UNESCO, this exhibition provided an exceptional opportunity to promote to the public the ethical principles and responsibilities for climate change adaptation that the Organization seeks to encourage each day through its activities, and in particular through the activities developed by the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST).

These principles and responsibilities that call for humanity to ensure the sustainability of the environment, encourage people to consider biodiversity and ecosystem integrity as the foundation of life on earth.

Beyond the analytical contributions of the social sciences that may help change human behavior, there is no doubt, for UNESCO, that art can not only be suitable emotional way  to foster new attitudes towards nature and the environment, but it can also be their reflection. This is indeed provided by the example of the  COAL association, founded in France in 2008 by professionals of contemporary art, sustainable development and research to foster the emergence of a culture of ecology.

Video credit: The glacier study group, 2013. Institute of critical zoologists

Via Exposure UNESCO-COAL Adapting to the Anthropocene: COAL.