Monthly Archives: April 2014

Broadway Green Alliance’s The Green Design Symposium

Broadway Green Alliance,

This post comes to you from the Broadway Green Alliance

The Green Design Symposium took place on 20 March 2014.
It was a panel of experts discussing why and how to green up theatre designing.
Dr. Allen Hershkowitz of the NRDC gave the opening remarks about why it is important to go green this Earth Day.  Then a panel of experts talked about ways to be more eco-friendly when designing sets, costumes and lighting for theater. The panel included Donyale Werle winner of the 2012 Tony Award for excellence in stage design (or whatever they call it) for her up-cycled set of PATS.  Following the presentations the attendees broke up into smaller groups to network and discuss questions and issues in the topic areas. Lastly we had a robust Q and A to end the event.
The event took place at the Westside Theatre, upstairs, 407 West 43rd St. from 7-8:30 pm.

———-

The Broadway Green Alliance was founded in 2008 in collaboration with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Broadway Green Alliance (BGA) is an ad hoc committee of The Broadway League and a fiscal program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. Along with Julie’s Bicycle in the UK, the BGA is a founding member of the International Green Theatre Alliance. The BGA has reached tens of thousands of fans through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other media.

At the BGA, we recognize that it is impossible to be 100% “green” while continuing activity and – as there is no litmus test for green activity – we ask instead that our members commit to being greener and doing better each day. As climate change does not result from one large negative action, but rather from the cumulative effect of billions of small actions, progress comes from millions of us doing a bit better each day. To become a member of the Broadway Green Alliance we ask only that you commit to becoming greener, that you name a point person to be our liaison, and that you will tell us about your green-er journey.

The BGA is co-chaired by Susan Sampliner, Company Manager of the Broadway company of WICKED, and Charlie Deull, Executive Vice President at Clark Transfer<. Rebekah Sale is the BGA’s full-time Coordinator.

Go to the Broadway Green Alliance

Powered by WPeMatico

Announcing the Spring Textile Drive

Broadway Green Alliance,

This post comes to you from the Broadway Green Alliance

Please join Broadway Green Alliance for their Spring Textile Drive on April 23rd!

Duffy Square
Wednesday, April 23rd
11-3pm

More information coming soon!

BGA Volenteers with MOTOWN Green Captain Marva Hicks.

———-

The Broadway Green Alliance was founded in 2008 in collaboration with the Natural Resources Defense Council. The Broadway Green Alliance (BGA) is an ad hoc committee of The Broadway League and a fiscal program of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids. Along with Julie’s Bicycle in the UK, the BGA is a founding member of the International Green Theatre Alliance. The BGA has reached tens of thousands of fans through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other media.

At the BGA, we recognize that it is impossible to be 100% “green” while continuing activity and – as there is no litmus test for green activity – we ask instead that our members commit to being greener and doing better each day. As climate change does not result from one large negative action, but rather from the cumulative effect of billions of small actions, progress comes from millions of us doing a bit better each day. To become a member of the Broadway Green Alliance we ask only that you commit to becoming greener, that you name a point person to be our liaison, and that you will tell us about your green-er journey.

The BGA is co-chaired by Susan Sampliner, Company Manager of the Broadway company of WICKED, and Charlie Deull, Executive Vice President at Clark Transfer<. Rebekah Sale is the BGA’s full-time Coordinator.

Go to the Broadway Green Alliance

Powered by WPeMatico

Eradicating Ecocide in Ireland – send letter to Phil Hogan now

ecoartscotland, , , , , ,

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

chrisfremantle:

Really interesting piece on the legal arguments – EcoArtScotland has posted previously on the legal process of giving legal identity to rivers, and this is another dimension of the argument

Originally posted on resiliencies: stories from a small Irish forest:

meandPollyH

Me [Cathy Fitzgerald] with Polly Higgins, environmental lawyer and campaigner for making Ecocide the missing 5th international crime against peace. Polly’s talk was organised by Friends of the Earth and the Law Dept of Queen’s University, Belfast, 11 Feb 2014.

Ecocide, Earth rights and restorative justice: the three cornerstones of a growing international movement to establish new laws which protect both people and planet. The Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth10 was proposed by Polly Higgins in 2008 (as a Universal Declaration of the Planetary Rights).
‘The Ecocide Project: ‘Ecocide is the missing 5th Crime against Peace’ (2012)

A week ago I was in Belfast to hear environmental lawyer speak Polly Higgins speak about the urgent need for a law to make ecocide an internationally recognised crime. After Polly’s talk I was thrilled to meet with her – as some of you know I worked this time last year to present a motion at the Green Party of Ireland and Northern Ireland to support Polly’s growing international campaign to have Ecocide recognised as the missing 5th Crime Against Peace – it was unanimously supported. Polly had heard someone in Ireland had brought this into Ireland’s public arena via the Green Party and was thrilled to put a face to a name (she gave me an enormous hug and a friend snapped this picture straight after -thanks Jan!).

View original to read more.

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

Powered by WPeMatico

Presenting at Enhancing Lives Through Arts & Health, Houston, TX

ecoartscotland, , , , ,

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Originally posted on CHRIS FREMANTLE:

Chris Fremantle’s proposal for a paper “Scottish artists bring nature into healthcare” has been accepted for the Global Alliance for Arts & Health 25th Conference in Houston, Texas in April.The abstract is,

Scotland has a strong portfolio of arts and health projects including both public art installations within healthcare buildings and participatory programmes, in particular with people with long term conditions. This presentation will focus on public art installations by artists and designers which use biophilic and other design approaches to bringing nature into buildings. It addresses the conference themes of Patient Care, Healing Environments and Caring for Caregivers.

It is well known thanks to the work of Robert Ulrich that views of nature contribute to patient recover, and it is clear from the work of Stephen Kaplan that views of nature can play a role in restoring our ability to give our attention. OPENspace Research at Edinburgh College of Art (http://openspace.eca.ac.uk/ ) has further substantiated the connections between nature and wellbeing focusing on inclusive access to the outdoors.

In Scotland there have been a number of projects in the context of Healthcare where artists and designers have specifically sought to use art and design to bring nature into buildings in addition to what the architects and landscape designers are able to achieve.

Four key examples are:

Thomas A Clark’s (http://thomasaclarkblog.blogspot.co.uk/) project with the architects Reiach & Hall, ‘A Grove of Larch in a Forest of Birch,’ for the New Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow integrated poetry and visual arts into what the architects described as the architecture of waiting. The Aim was to create spaces in which users of the hospital could wait for appointments in “a place apart having the brightness and stillness of a woodland glade.”

Alexander Hamilton’s (http://www.alexanderhamilton.co.uk/) Designing for Dignity (http://designingfordignity.co.uk/Inspired-by-Nature) is an approach that draws on a deep understanding of the Victorian poet and artist John Ruskin and of the more recent Biophilia Hypothesis. Hamilton is currently developing designs including furniture and art for the Quiet or Family rooms in the New South Glasgow Hospitals based on an extensive programme of creative engagement. Hamilton is also working on the design of a healthcentre in Glasgow.

Dalziel + Scullion’s (http://www.dalzielscullion.com/) practice is increasingly focused on addressing nature deficit disorder. Their work encompasses exhibitions and public art. Their scheme for the wards of the New South Glasgow Hospitals will bring the whole landscape of Scotland into one building. Their project Rosnes Benches, currently being installed in the landscape of Dumfries and Galloway, they have also contributed work to the Vale of Leven Health Centre (http://www.wide-open.net/index.php?page=vale-of-leven)

Donald Urquhart has completed public art projects for four mental health hospitals including most recently Midpark Acute Mental Health Hospital (http://www.wide-open.net/index.php?page=healing-spaces) and developed Sanctuary spaces for both hospitals and universities. His award winning design for the Sanctuary at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary has become a benchmark (http://www.ginkgoprojects.co.uk/projects/royal-infirmary-edinburgh).

These artists and others demonstrate key aspects of the role of art in bringing nature into healthcare contexts including focus on characteristics of nature such as colour, pattern and movement. As artists they use attention, framing and synthesis.

In addition to sharing these developments with the conference audience I hope to identify other artists exploring similar issues.

He is  very much hoping to find other artists and designers working along these lines with the depth of thinking as well as the quality of work.

View original

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

Powered by WPeMatico

International Award Celebrates a Greener Edinburgh Fringe

Creative Carbon Scotland, news, Open Calls, , ,

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Applications are now open for the 2014 Fringe Sustainable Practice Award, celebrating the greenest and most sustainable shows on the Edinburgh Fringe.

This project, a partnership between Creative Carbon Scotland and the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts, rewards shows which engage their audiences with sustainability, take responsibility for their environmental impacts, and think big about how the arts can help to grow a sustainable world.

Applications are open from February 19th to July 18th, with a shortlist announced in The List on July 30th, and the winner announced in a ceremony at Fringe Central on August 22nd.

“We believe artists and cultural organisations are uniquely placed to address the challenges brought on by climate change,” says Ben Twist, Director of Creative Carbon Scotland.

“This major award celebrates and publicises their innovative work during the Festival Fringe.”

The award for Sustainable Production on the Fringe was first launched in 2010 at the Hollywood Fringe and Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

“We see the arts as the best driver of sustainable societies and it’s not just our opinion: data shows that performance promotes positive environmental, social, and economic impacts,” says Ian Garrett, Director of the CSPA.

“The fringe model provides an ideal platform to start working with sustainable ideas through all of the freedoms and restrictions the festival allows!”

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of cultural organisations using the arts to help shape a sustainable Scotland.

The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts is in the Arts is a Think Tank for Sustainability in the Arts and Culture.

Shows can apply now at https://www.sustainablepractice.org/fringe/

Previous Edinburgh recipients include: The Pantry Shelf (2010), a satirical comedy that takes place in any ordinary pantry shelf, produced by Team M&M at Sweet Grassmarket; Allotment (2011) by Jules Horne and directed by Kate Nelson, produced by Nutshell Productions at the Inverleith Allotments in co-production with Assembly; The Man Who Planted Trees (2012) adapted from Jean Giono’s story by Ailie Cohen, Richard Medrington, Rick Conte and directed by Ailie Cohen, produced by the Edinburgh’s Puppet State Theatre; and How to Occupy an Oil Rig (2013), by Daniel Bye and Company, produced at Northern Stage. Awardees have gone on to future success on the Fringe and presentations around the world including as close as Cardiff for World Stage Design, and as far as New Zealand and all across the US and Canada.

Contact:

Ben Twist, Director, Creative Carbon Scotland
ben@creativecarbonscotland.com
0131 529 7909
www.creativecarbonscotland.com

www.sustainablepractice.org/fringe/

Image Credit: EFF

The post International Award Celebrates a Greener Edinburgh Fringe 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

Powered by WPeMatico

WRITING ROOT & CLAW: A WEEKEND WORKSHOP

ecoartscotland,

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Originally posted on Em Strang :

Exif_JPEG_PICTURE

WRITING ROOT & CLAW

A Weekend Workshop with Susan Richardson & Em Strang

October 17-19 2014, Haybergill Centre, Cumbria

Come along to a stimulating weekend of writing and discussion around ecological themes. What does it mean to write nature poetry in the 21st century? How do we express wildness? Is it possible to speak for nonhuman species? There’ll be an emphasis on writing and exploring poetry, but prose writers are also very welcome.

You’ll have the opportunity to share your work, engage in writing exercises both indoors and out in the inspirational landscape surrounding Haybergill Centre (http://www.haybergill.co.uk/), enjoy delicious food, autumn walks, evening bonfires and even a sauna! There’ll be space timetabled into the weekend for plenty of focused periods of writing, plus helpful feedback and editing sessions in a supportive group setting. All levels of experience welcome.

Susan is a Wales-based poet whose most recent collection, Where the Air is Rarefied (Cinnamon Press) is a collaboration with printmaker Pat Gregory on ecological and mythological themes relating to the Far North. Her third collection, Skindancing, will be published in 2015. Susan has more than sixteen years’ experience of running poetry workshops for universities, conservation organisations and environmental groups, both indoors and outside in wilder landscapes. For further information, please visit: www.susanrichardsonwriter.co.uk

Em completed a PhD in Creative Writing (ecological poetry) in December 2013 and is now seeking a publisher for a first collection of poems, Habitude. She has recently been awarded a New Writer Scotland Award 2014 and teaches Creative Writing in Dumfries prison. She is currently also tutoring on the Mlitt in Environment, Culture & Communication at the University of Glasgow (Dumfries). For further information, please visit: http://emstrang.wordpress.com/

Cost for the weekend includes 2 nights’ full-board: £335. Accommodation is in twin or single rooms (single room supplement applies and these rooms will be allocated on a first come, first served basis). All meals are vegetarian and special diets can be catered for. For bookings and further details contact: emmastrang@hotmail.com or susan@susanrichardsonwriter.co.uk

View original 

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

Powered by WPeMatico

Taipei Biennial 2014

Cultura21, ,

This post comes to you from Cultura21

The French art critic/curator Nicolas Bourriaud (b. 1965) has been selected as the curator of the Taipei Biennial 2014. Titled The Great Acceleration, it will develop his curatorial concept for the biennial around the topic Art and Its New Ecosystem: A Global Set of Relations.

Since 1998, the Taipei Biennial has launched its international programming in the city by inviting guest curators to contribute to an enriched environment, cross-cultural practices, and to showcase disciplines and new practices of art today. But the Taipei Biennial also endeavours to address social and historical issues concerning the city (Taipei) as a place, not merely a venue, by mixing artists and elements of the city.

In this light, Nicolas Bourriaud will expand on his theory of relational aesthetics, examining how contemporary art expresses this new contract among human beings, animals, plants, machines, products and objects. The exhibition will highlight the way artists focus on links, chainings, connections and mutations, and how they envision planet Earth as a huge network, where new states of matter and new forms of relations appear, forming a new state of the “ghost dance” between people and objects that Karl Marx has described in the 19th century.

The Taipei Biennial 2014 will be held at Taipei Fine Arts Museum from 13 September 2014 through 4 January 2015.

More Info.

Picture Credit: Nicolas Bourriaud, curator of Taipei Biennial 2014. © Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

———-

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

Powered by WPeMatico

Arts and Ecology: emerging uses for digital technologies

Cultura21, news, Open Calls, , , , ,

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Digital Creativity is a journal devoted to the intersection of the creative arts and digital technology. Concerned with both the practical and the theoretical, Digital Creativity offers a unique forum to researchers and practitioners involved in the interdisciplinary nature of making or using digital media in creative contexts. They include such disciplines as fine art, graphic design, illustration, photography,
printmaking, sculpture, 3D design, interaction design, product design, textile and fashion design, film-making, animation, games design, music, dance, drama, creative writing, poetry, interior design, architecture, and urban design.

Proposal for a special issue of Digital Creativity Vol 25 No 4

Call for papers

In this special issue, they explore the emergent practice known broadly as ‘Arts & Ecology’, a set of practices in which arts practice engages with the natural world.
Practice might be issues-based or activist in nature, or may simply have a desire to reflect upon or engage directly with nature or ecology. This special issue of the journal seeks writers, theorists, practitioners, and other researchers who can reflect on this practice and on emerging and emergent uses of digital technologies within it. Can it be said that there is a new awareness of and a newly-emergent practice of nature writing? Are ecological artists using technologies in different ways? Do
ecological pressure impact upon how we use, develop and fuel our technologies? Can renewable energy play a part in a technological arts practice? Are digital technologies changing the ways in which people can engage with the natural world? How are cultural practices remixing the digital world with the more-than-human and other-than-human worlds? We welcome philosophical and/or theoretical reflection as well as detailed descriptions of practice or critique.

Important dates:
Abstracts are due on May 1, 2014
Short/long papers are due on: July 10, 2014
Final, revised papers are due on: August 23, 2014
Expected publication: November, 2014

More Info.

———-

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

Powered by WPeMatico

From the Valley of the Deer on Turbulence

ecoartscotland, , , , , ,

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Jillian Mcdonald‘s augmented reality work From the Valley of the Deer, resulting from a residency at Glenfiddich, is now accessible on the Turbulence website.

The press release is as follows,

“From the Valley of the Deer” is an augmented reality artwork based on Valley of the Deer, a video installation produced in Scotland in 2013. In each city where the installation is exhibited, local GPS coordinates will be haunted by characters and scenes from the video, discoverable on walking tours near the exhibition site. These apparitions may also be stumbled upon as ‘Points of Interest’ by passersby, the locations visited long after by spirits of a distant valley.

“From the Valley of the Deer” is a 2013 commission of New Radio and Performing Arts, Inc. for its Turbulence website. It was funded by the Jerome Foundation.

BIOGRAPHY

Jillian McDonald is a Canadian artist who divides her time between New York and Canada. She is an Associate Professor of Art at Pace University. She is hopelessly in love with northern places, snow, fog, and the ocean, and since 2006 has watched a healthy amount of horror films. She spent much of the past year living and working in Northeastern Scotland.

Solo shows and projects include the Esker Foundation in Calgary; Moti Hasson Gallery, Jack the Pelican Presents, and vertexList in New York; The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery and Rosenthal Gallery in San Francisco; Hallwalls in Buffalo; La Sala Narañja in Valencia, Spain; and YYZ in Toronto. Her work has been included in group exhibitions and festivals at The Chelsea Museum and The Whitney Museum’s Artport in New York; The Edith Russ Haus for Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany; MMOCA in Madison, Wisconsin; Onsite at OCADU and YYZ Gallery in Toronto; The International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Mérida, Venezuela; The Sundance Film Festival in Utah; La Biennale de Montréal; and the Centre d’Art Contemporain de Basse-Normandie in Caen, France.

Her work was the subject of a 2013 radio documentary by Paul Kennedy on CBC’s IDEAS. It has been reviewed in The New York Times, Art Papers, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star, Border Crossings, and The Village Voice, among others. A discussion of her work appears in several books including Better Off Dead, edited by Sarah Juliet Lauro and Stalking by Bran Nicol.

McDonald has received grants and commissions from The New York Foundation for the Arts, The Canada Council for the Arts, Soil New Media, Turbulence.org, The Verizon Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts, The Experimental Television Center, and Pace University. She lectures regularly about her work and has attended numerous residencies including The Headlands Center for the Arts in California, Lilith Performance Studio in Sweden, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Workspace Program in New York, The Western Front in Vancouver, and The Banff Centre for the Arts in Alberta. In 2012 she represented Canada at the Glenfiddich international residency in Dufftown, Scotland.

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

Powered by WPeMatico

Greater Thames Marshes, Nature Improvement Area Commission Opportunity

ecoartscotland, news, Open Calls, , , , ,

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

The project provides a unique opportunity with much of the land within Hadleigh Country Park being designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest as it is a haven for around 1,300 species of wildlife including the shrill carder bee, the emerald damselfly and the weevil hunting wasp. The local environment also supports dark-bellied Brent geese.

Public Art Online Commissions – Greater Thames Marshes, Nature Improvement Area Commission Opportunity.

(Deadline was 3 March 2014)

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

Powered by WPeMatico