Yearly Archives: 2013

Winners of student contest ‘Co-creating Sustainable Solutions for the Future’

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

The winners of the student contest ‘Co-creating Sustainable Solutions for the Future’ are found.
 The students were celebrated in New Delhi, India, with an award ceremony during the World Sustainable Development Summit

Priyanka-Raju_1000Chairman of the UN climate panel, and 

Secretary-General of TERI, Dr R. K. Pachauri and the Danish Ambassador to India, Freddy Svane, handed over the awards to the winners of the student contest ‘Co-creating Sustainable Solutions for the Future’ on 1 February 2013.

• BUSINESS AWARD WINNER:
Mr Priyam Johry, Institute of Technology, Kanpur

• TECHNOLOGY AWARD WINNER:
Ms Nambu Priya Dharsini, Pandian Saraswathi Yadav Engineering College

• URBAN DEVELOPMENT AWARD WINNER:
Ms Priyanka Raju, 
Institute of Technology, Kharagpur

• DESIGN/CULTURE AWARD WINNER:
Ms Anne Camilla A. Auestad, 
Aarhus School of Architecture

Read more about the projects: on www.cocreatenow.org/competition

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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Mindset of Green Growth

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

Culture|Futures’ Olaf Gerlach-Hansen moderated the panel session ‘Mindset of Green Growth’ at the World Sustainable Development Summit in Delhi, India, on 1 February 2013

mindset_workshop2_1000The panel discussants included

  • Ms Mili Majumdar, Director, Sustainable Habitat Division, The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI)
  • Ms Mette Morsing, Professor, Copenhagen Business School, and Co-Director, CBS Sustainability Platform,
  • Mr Kasper Guldager Jørgensen, Architect, Partner and Co-Founder of 3XN, and
  • Mr Denis Leclerc, President and CEO of Ecotech Quebec, Quebec Cleantech Cluster.

The discussion between Ms Mili Majumdar and Ms Mette Morsing stressed upon issues such as green architecture as an alternative to energy intensive buildings. They also suggested the use of biological ecosystems in them.

Danish Architect Mr Kasper Guldager Jørgensen shared his expertise in new building materials as a road to sustainable development. Mr Jørgensen, who is also a founder of Cradle to Cradle in Denmark, has just published the first official ‘Cradle to Cradle Guide’ for Danish construction companies and business.

Mr Denis Leclerc from Canada shared his experiences about new mindset from Quebec Clean Tech Cluster. The development of clean technology and training of future managers with a focus on business and sustainability was also recommended.

The session gave weight to ideas, such as algae ecosystems in green buildings. The speakers also talked about focusing on ensuring executive training on sustainability issues in business school curriculums. They concluded with recommendations on the use of clean technologies with aggressive targets for carbon-neutral growth based on the Quebec model.

More information about the summit: dsds.teriin.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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Chasing Ice Chases Oscar

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Kellie Gutman writes: Chasing Ice a film about National Geographic photographer James Blalog’s quest to document the melting glaciers, has received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song.  The film, directed by Jeff Orlowski, chronicles Blalog’s three-year project setting up time-lapse cameras to chronicle the effects of climate change on the great glaciers of the world.  Although the film is in limited release, the Oscar nomination should bring more attention to it.  Screenings in the UK, Canada and the US are listed here.

Chasing Ice has won twenty-three awards at film festivals, including the Environmental Media Association’s Best Documentary Award.  The nominated song, “Before My Time,” was written by J. Ralph. It is performed by Scarlett Johansson and violinist Joshua Bell.

“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

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Jennifer Monson live, indoors, at The Kitchen

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Wallace Heim writes: Tomorrow, at The Kitchen in New York City, the movement artist Jennifer Monson starts Live Dancing Archive, a week of live performances, video installation and a digital archive.

One of the first stories on the Ashden Directory in 2000 featured Jennifer’s project BIRD BRAIN Dance, a dance touring project following the migratory pathways of birds and grey whales in the northern and southern hemispheres. Jennifer’s work in the UKcontinued with Water Log, an outdoor movement project across the sands of Morecambe Bay. She returned to America and now is director of iLAND (Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art, Nature and Dance), developing collaborative art and environmental projects.

The New Yorker previews her show:

‘For more than a decade, this esteemed improviser has done most of her dancing outdoors, following the migrations of animals and exploring the connections between dance and scientific research. In Live Dancing Archive, she reconstructs some of those outdoor experiences, attempting to reveal the traces a place might leave on a body. But the work is equally, if even more obliquely, about Monson’s history as a dancer, a queer performer, and an ever-questioning mind’.

“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

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Call for papers on The Politics of African Contemporary Art – Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics

seismopoliteRecent approaches to African contemporary art often celebrate the advent of a global contemporary art scene in which they see an abolition of the provincialist and historicist concepts that were imposed by the West during the colonial period. One assumes that by taking part in new and post-historical/ post-national networks of exchange, facilitated by large-scale international exhibitions, biennials and fairs, artists can express themselves more truly as they are no longer doomed to wrestle with the notions of the pre-colonial/ colonial; to be measured against Western art-historical paradigms, or to be defined via enduring fictions about their own parochialism.

This issue of Seismopolite aims to assess the validity of this perspective and to further inquire into the possibilities and limitations pertaining to the global contemporary art scene in terms of addressing political issues in, and rewriting the history and future of African societies (as well as African art history) in a consequential way through art.

In particular we wish to shed a critical light on how the contemporary art economy influences the political agency and interaction of artistic expression in African societies, and reversely, how African art, although it may be free to address political issues, can retain or represent such a political agency once it has become part of the global contemporary.

Contributors from diverse disciplinary backgrounds are invited to submit essays, exhibition reviews or interviews that address the theme “The politics of African contemporary art” through a high variety of possible angles.

Topics may include, but are not restricted to:

  • The role of art and artists in the rewriting of (art) history and political geography.
  • The development of international contemporary art venues/ festivals/ biennials in African countries, and their impact on the societal function and meaning of art in these contexts.
  • The agency and potential of art to stimulate new future trajectories in precarious socio-political situations.
  • Political activism and post-colonial consciousness in art and art communities under colonial rule.
  • The relationship between cultural politics/ geopolitics and international contemporary art venues/ festivals/ biennials in African countries.
  • Changes to the role and the economy of the artist in African societies.
  • Processes of translation in the global mediation of African contemporary art.
  • Aesthetics and politics of art in ‘African diaspora’.

We accept submissions continuously, but to make sure you are considered for the upcoming issue, please send your proposal, CV and samples of earlier work to submissions@seismopolite.com within February 20, 2013. Completed work will be due March 8, 2013. Commissioned works will be translated into Norwegian and published in a bilingual version.

Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics is a bilingual English and Norwegian quarterly, which investigates the possibilities of artists and art scenes worldwide to reflect and influence their local political situation.

Current issue: www.seismopolite.com

Previous issues: www.seismopolite.com/artandpolitics

Contact: submissions@seismopolite.com

I-Park 2013 Artists-in-Residence Program Application

Screen-Shot-2012-12-02-at-6.37.05-PMApplication Deadline for Visual Arts, Music Composition/Sound Sculpture, Creative Writing, Moving Image: February 18, 2013

Application Deadline for Environmental Art, Landscape/Garden Design, Architecture: April 1, 2013

Self-directed, multi-disciplinary artists’ residencies will be offered from May through November 2013. Most sessions are 4-weeks in duration and are offered to those working in the Visual Arts, Music Composition/Sound Sculpture, Architecture, Creative Writing, Moving Image and Landscape/Garden Design. There is also a special Environmental Art Program in 2013.

Except for the $30 application fee, the residency is offered at no cost to accepted artists and includes comfortable private living quarters, a private studio and meal program. International applicants are welcome. To defray the cost of travel, four $750 grants will be awarded in 2013 to non-North American artists.

For details and to apply, visit http://www.i-park.org/residency-programs/2013-residency-program. Contact: iparkapplications@gmail.com or 860-873-2468.