Monthly Archives: April 2016

Short Course – Transcribing Landscape – Portraits and Tales

Open Calls

From our Friends at Schumacher College / https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/short-courses/transcribing-landscape-portraits-and-tales

With Fiona Benson, Richard Povall and special guestartist – Garry Fabian Miller

Join us for this residential week as we explore our relationship with landscape; part of Schumacher College’s Art and Ecology Programme.  Transcribing Landscape is convened by poet Fiona Benson and artist-researcher Richard Povall. Our special guest is the renowned photographic artist Garry Fabian Miller (link is external).

‘Garry Fabian Miller is one of the most progressive figures in fine art photography. Born in 1957, he has made exclusively ‘camera-less’ photographs since the mid 1980s. He works in the darkroom, shining light through coloured glass vessels and over cut-paper shapes to create forms that record directly onto photographic paper. These rudimentary methods recall the earliest days of photography, when the effects of light on sensitised paper seemed magical.’ – Martin Barnes (link is external) (Curator of Photography at the V&A)

How do we mark the world around us, and how does it mark us? The narrative of landscape exposes how we feel about our planet, how we act in it, how we care for it, how it moves us. Deeper forms of connection to the non-human through word, act, and imagining help us find other forms of knowledge and ways of being in the world. Can we gain new understandings of the ecology of our planet and our world at a time when this seems perhaps more important than ever? Science and its knowledges are failing to move us, to jolt us into feeling the fragility of the planet in which we all live, despite the clarity of their evidences and the increasing baldness of their language.

You will spend time in the landscape of the beautiful and diverse estate at Dartington Hall, walking, listening, meditating, making, marking, exploring, accepting, questioning, and writing. There will also be time for private making as well as group sessions and critiques.

The course links to a two-day symposium the following week (June 29-30) entitled ‘Language, Landscape and the Sublime’ which picks up on many of the themes you can explore in this short course. Participants of this short course will receive a £100 discount off of the Symposium fee when booked alongside this short course. If you would like to take advantage of the short course and symposium rate, please register below and email: shortcourseadmin@schumachercollege.org.uk to let us know.

Find more information about the Language, Landscape and the Sublime two-day symposium a twww.languagelandscape.info (link is external).

Energy Renaissance: A Visionary Partnership between Technology, Science and Culture

Cape Farewell

Cape Farewell, cultural producers Shrinking Space, and pioneering Virtual Reality & Immersive Content studioHammerhead VR, have teamed up with the Environmental Research Group at King’s College London, to create an immersive Virtual Reality experience for Utopia, at Somerset House in October 2016.

This experience will allow visitors to virtually interact with the physical environment of The Strand – the busy area surrounding Somerset House. Through the implementation of behavioural, scientific and technological changes, individuals will transform and de-carbonise their city into a greener, more peaceful neighbourhood, that no longer poses a threat to health nor contributes to climate change.

Across the world, scientists, environmentalists and entrepreneurs are taking up the challenge of pollution and climate change – carbon neutral urban environments are easily achievable – the Energy Renaissance project places individuals at the centre of London’s evolution, where their actions form vital steps towards this feasible, safer and healthier post-carbon urban future.

The project draws on gaming, immersive theatre, and stunning graphics to create a visceral experience, not one set in a fictional future but one that is inspired and informed by present day reality.

About Utopia:

Energy Renaissance is part of Utopia 2016: A Year of Imagination and Possibility. Utopia 2016 is a collaboration between three neighbours: Somerset House, King’s College London and The Courtauld Institute of Art, in partnership with The British Library, the AHRC, and the British Council. The London School of Economics will also engage many of the 300 plus creative organisations, artists and makers resident at Somerset House.

Full details will be available at www.utopia2016.co.uk

More about Energy Renaissance:

Energy Renaissance is a varied ongoing programme that brings together the world’s best expert informers and creatives, to develop informed blueprints of what a carbon neutral society would look like.

Technological and economic change cannot exist without public approval, excitement and engagement. Cape Farewell collaborates closely with varied partners to engage the public through dialogue, education, exhibitions, workshops, social media and video.

Included projects:

Tidal Lagoon – We are the cultural partner to the Swansea Tidal Lagoon project – a 250MW power plant that will produce 120 years of clean energy, granted planning permission in July 2015. Cape Farewell is responsible for the commissioning and management of the world’s first ‘Tidal Lagoon Sculpture Park’ ready for launch in 2021. Visitors will explore, enjoy and embrace the beauty, possibilities and benefits of clean energy through the 9 surrounding, monumental, educational art works produced as part of Energy Renaissance.

Earth Can You Hear Us – We also partnered with 100% renewable energy company Good Energy to build an engagement programme promoting the switch to renewables with the general public, leading to ‘Earth Can You Hear Us’ – a major event as part of our Global Climate Festival,ArtCop21.

Summer School: Artistic and other Creative Practices as Drivers for Urban Resilience

Open Calls

September 5-7, 2016, Museu Municipal de Espinho (Portugal)

Summer school organized by the Centre for Social Studies (CES) at the University of Coimbra, in collaboration with the ESA Research Network Sociology of the Arts, and linked to the Midterm Conference being held in Porto on September 8-10, 2016.

The summer school is being held immediately before the 9th ESA RN2 Midterm conference, in the small coastal town of Espinho, within the Metropolitan Area of Porto.

Course description summary
Urban sustainable development requires enhancing urban resilience. In this Summer School, we look at resilience as a space for translocal bottom-up learning, emerging artistic-cultural-ecological approaches or as a ‘Space of Possibilities’: Resilience as openness, possibility, emergence, praxis, mutual learning and doing . . . not a 10-point governmental program to be implemented.

Several key characteristics of resilience (redundancy, diversity, learning modes, and self-organization) can potentially be fostered in urban neighborhoods through creative practices entangling natural and cultural resources and processes such as “ecological art” and “social practice” interventions, “urban gardening” projects, autonomous social-cultural centers fighting against gentrification, and artivist actions that question unsustainable city planning and societal behaviours. However, how far does the potential of such practices reach? When and how do they scale up to wider urban institutions as drivers of transformations, fostering systemic innovations? What limits and challenges do they encounter? How far do they foster urban resilience towards sustainability as a transformative search process of fundamental change, or are they coopted into neoliberal urban development?

The summer school, conceived as an extended workshop, will explore comparative insights across different urban initiatives and projects. We invite researchers, artists, and practitioners to address together several sets of questions and reflect on their empirical research, previous project experiences, and expertise from different cities.

Participants
Researchers (multidisciplinary), graduate students and post-docs, artists, and practitioners working with community-based artistic and sustainability/resilience initiatives

During the pre-registration process, applicants are asked to submit [HERE] a brief statement on the relevant project(s)/initiative(s) with which they are involved, and why they want to attend the summer school. These statements will be reviewed as part of the participant selection process.

Deadline: Sunday, May 1, 2016.
All applicants will be notified of selection process results by Monday, May 16, 2016.

Coordinators
Nancy Duxbury (CES) and Sacha Kagan (Leuphana University Lüneburg; ESA RN2)

Core Team

  • Nathalie Blanc, Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), France
  • Hans Dieleman, Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México, Mexico; Cultura21
  • Nancy Duxbury, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal
  • David Haley, Manchester Metropolitan University, England
  • Verena Holz, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany
  • Sacha Kagan, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany; ESA RN2; Cultura21

Registration
Earlybird rate (by May 31): € 150
Late rate from June 1: € 165

Fee includes: Summer School registration and materials | Welcome BBQ or dinner on Sept 5 | Lunch on Sept 6 and 7 | Breaks (5). (Accommodation and dinner on Sept. 6 at own cost.)

Maximum number of registrations: 25 | Minimum number of registrations: 20

This is a self-funded, non-profit Summer School.

For the full course description, detailed programme, bios of the core team, online pre-registration, and more, please visit: http://www.ces.uc.pt/cessummerschool//index.php?id=13412&id_lingua=2&pag=13413

Opportunity for Project Artist – Hawick Flood Protection Scheme

ecoartscotland, Open Calls

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Excellent opportunity for an artist to be part of a team working on flood protection – looks like a chance to shape thinking. Comes from CABN in the Borders.

May 2016 – October 2016
Deadline for applications:  Monday 25th April 2016
Fee:  £4000

A unique opportunity has arisen for a Project Artist to work closely with the engineering and project team around the Hawick Flood Protection Scheme (HFPS) and engage communities in the development and design of proposals which can be taken forward within the scheme.   The key priority of the HFPS works is to protect the town from the effects of a ‘1 in 75’ year flood event on the River Teviot, but the works also offer opportunities to incorporate imaginative place-making proposals, including for permanent public artworks, which can be taken forward into the second phase of the HFPS.

This opportunity has been enabled through a partnership between Scottish Borders Council, CH2M (scheme engineers) and the Creative Arts Business Network (CABN), and has already involved initial engagement with community groups around potential proposals.

More information is available on the CABN website –http://www.cabn.info/opportunities/project-artist-hawick-flood-protection-scheme.html

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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Broadway Up-cycled

Broadway Green Alliance

This post comes to you from the Broadway Green Alliance

Broadway Up-cycled

By Joseph Napolitano

The magic of Broadway turns guitar strings into bracelets, playbills into flowers, and trash into Tony Award-winning set designs. With roots in folk art, the use of salvaged materials deliberately raises the intrinsic and monetary value of recycled objects. It gives items a second life, and transforms the mundane into the extraordinary. Through the manipulation of forms, mass and surfaces, individuals craft waste into functional products and works of art.

Popping up at events like BroadwayCon, and selling out at the Broadway Flea Market and Grand Auction, Crafters are now coloring the Great-White-Way green with special up-cycled novelties unique to the theatre Industry. Theatre enthusiast & librarian, Ronni Krasnow creates “collage art with a theatrical twist” from Playbills, flyers and magazines (Facebook.com/broadwayglue). Ms. Krasnow started upcycling when she wanted to create a gift for her dear friends, songwriters Lynn Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty. She enjoyed the experience so much that she continued working on pieces that focus on particular shows, composers, themes, and sometimes just based on a color alone. “I love that all my materials are upcycled. It’s fun to create something new and different from something familiar”

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Ronni Krasnow, Broadway Blues, 2014, 11×14 inches, mixed media collage

“It’s a little like doing a jigsaw puzzle, just figuring out where the various pieces fit,” Ms Krasnow says. Her two cats fancy her work as well, and love interfering with her layouts from time to time.

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Ronni Krasnow, Some of Sondheim, 2014, 11×14 inches, mixed media collage

Recycling breaks consumer materials down so that their base materials can be used in new consumer products. Items that are up-cycled become refashioned, but still maintain their characteristics. “I am a librarian,” Ms. Krasnow says, ”so I am always looking at the various materials we discard to see if there is anything I can (re)use.” When looking at a book or magazine now, I am much more focused on typeface, color, and word size than on the actual articles!”

While quite beautiful, the nature of up-cycled work is inherently a political statement. For BGA member & communications guru Sasha Pensanti, it’s a lot of both. Sasha began up-cycling While working on multiple Broadway productions. Show after show, she watched as Playbills were continually thrown away. ”I kept asking why we couldn’t do something,” she said. “The answer always had to do with union rules. I didn’t like that answer.” Sasha decided to take it upon herself to make paper flowers from the discarded playbills. From there Ms. Pensanti developed a whole line of products: frames, jars for the flowers, canvases, hair clips/headbands… (https://www.etsy.com/shop/SomeOtherMe).

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Color Playbill Bouquets by Sasha Pensanti

“I’ve become conscious of a lot more waste than before. I’m also really careful to use recycled boxes when shipping my flowers, and instead of buying bubble wrap I use the extra playbill pieces, crumble them up and they make great packing materials! 100% recycled!” Ms. Pensanti said. Similar circumstances precipitated collage artist Stephen Winterhalter (The Art of Broadway: https://www.etsy.com/shop/theartofbroadway) to begin up-cycling playbills into works of art. Stephen’s work emerged when he wanted to do something with his enormous Playbill collection so they wouldn’t end up in the trash. “It started out as a small idea that just kept growing. By time the holidays rolled in I had over 100 orders,” Stephen said.

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Custom Broadway Playbill Art Collage by Stephen Winterhalter, 12×12 inches

Stephen has also been working with WICKED on Broadway since 2005, and calls the Gershwin Theatre his second home. As of late, people have taken to his collages. “People buy them to commemorate a trip they took to NYC, all the shows from their favorite composer, or as a gift for a Broadway fan,” Stephen says. “I also get a lot of theatre educators contacting me about pieces for their school.”

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Custom Broadway Playbill Art Collage by Stephen Winterhalter, 12×12 inches

“The idea of giving a second or third life to Playbills is what ultimately propels these projects,” Stephen says. “People get a Playbill at a show, and sometimes they just leave them on the floor afterwards. This is the perfect opportunity to take those Playbills and turn them into something new. Another example is when a show closes or there’s a major cast change that renders a batch of Playbills unusable at the theatre. I can use those!” Stephen’s idea of getting multiple uses out of a single Playbill is sustainable thinking.  His friends contact him when they are discarding their playbills, sometimes by the bin, and he always collects them. All of Stephen’s work is crafted by hand. He creates the frames, and uses the excess paper from inside the frames as gluing mats so nothing is wasted. Stephen also relishes in the idea of the puzzle. “It’s really satisfying when you finish a piece and think, man, these all look great together!” Check out Stephen’s instagram for more of his work @Art_of_Broadway

You can also find products where function influences form, and familiar every-day items and accessories are fabricated from waste material. There are chairs made from street signs, dresses made from candy wrappers, and homes made out shipping containers; the list goes on, and the possibilities are endless. Bagitude, a company based out of Chicago, creates handbags from playbills. Now it’s your turn! If you or someone you know is a Broadway fan and creative up-cycler, share your work with us on twitter: @broadwaygreen, facebook.com/BroadwayGreenAlliance, & instagram: broadwaygreenalliance.

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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

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The Air We Breathe

Artists and Climate Change

This post comes from the Artists and Climate Change Blog

by Guest Blogger Katie Craney

I live on the edge of the earth’s largest contiguous temperate rainforest that connects with over 25 million acres of federally protected wild land. Annual precipitation ranges from 25 to 140 inches along this coastal panhandle. It is here that water defines our identity, our way of life, our values, and our survival. Some would argue it is salmon that defines Southeast Alaska as the bounty of nutrient-rich tidal inlets and glacier-fed rivers and streams have provided ample human habitation for thousands of years. Sacred Tlingit song and dance about salmon abundance and return has been passed down for hundreds of years. Salmon fill our freezers and shelves, fuel our regional economy and culture, feed our families and the bears which ultimately feed the forest to complete an inexhaustible cycle of nutrients.

As an artist in Alaska, salmon seem an obvious theme to base research on. As I began sifting through the ecological significance of salmon for my own survival, I took a step back to see the larger picture of what ocean processes are needed for salmon to thrive in this environment – all of which can be summed up in two words: marine plants. Specifically plankton, the microscopic ocean drifters that create a biological pump in our oceans and are indicators of how anthropogenic climate change and ocean acidification will continue to alter the nature of our planet.

As a gardener I’ve learned the importance of maintaining proper pH levels in the soil to grow my own food. I can add nutrients, including fish fertilizer, what we call ‘fish juice,’ and organic matter to create the appropriate balance between acidic and alkaline soils. Some plants, such as blueberries and potatoes require more acidic soil, a soil with lower pH levels. Other varieties, like arugula or beets, can tolerate higher pH. The beauty of my garden is I have easy control of nutrient levels and can, in a reasonable timeframe, change the overall soil composition.

That’s not the case for maintaining a basic level of pH in the ocean. The ocean acts as a sponge and has absorbed about one-third of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere. This absorption causes chemical reactions to occur, ultimately dropping the pH level, leading to “ocean acidification.” With this environment the lowered pH impacts the smallest members in the food chain – chlorophyll producing marine plants such as phytoplankton and the organisms that feed on those plants to secure the life cycle stasis of Alaska’s beloved wild salmon and so much more.

Plankton fall into two main categories: phytoplankton (plants) and zooplankton (animals.) Research suggests that due to their photosynthesis, phytoplankton provide up to 75% of the earths atmospheric oxygen, providing a significant amount of the oxygen we breathe. Not only do these tiny organisms allow humans to survive at the most basic level, they are the basis of the entire marine food chain. The balance necessary for these plants to exit should be applauded, honored, and respected.

For Plankton

Another factor in marine chemistry is glacier runoff. At the speed of current glacier melt, nitrates and iron levels flushed into marine waters will increase, can harm the productivity of plankton, and have a rippling effect through the food chain from salmon to sea birds and beyond. As ocean temperatures rise, surface waters where plankton drift will see reduced nutrient levels. This is especially important for plankton survival during the winter months. Think about how a bear hibernates over winter – plankton do the same by slowing down their metabolism and go a long time without eating, however, as surface temperatures warm earlier in the winter season, plankton burn through their fat reserves before regular food sources become available.

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*Ongoing research will continue to develop and help us comprehend the breadth of plankton’s role in our every day life. This is only a brief description of how I have come to understand and observe changes at a basic level.

*   *   *   *   *

The more I learn about the significance of the ecosystem that surrounds me, the more I want to shout from the rooftops that it’s not too late! We can learn and change and encourage responsible clean energy and development while taking care of the 7.5 billion+ people on the planet. Right? I think so. I hope so. Through artmaking, I embrace an ecological perspective towards the biggest challenge we face and hope to encourage others to do the same. By creating a visual statement of what is at stake, I hope viewers of my work will take the time to ask questions and learn that we are all connected and in this together.

The small vignettes I create are my way of interpreting the complicated, long-term social and ecological nature of climate change. By working with wax on small pieces of metal and wood I explore the contrast between the malleability of the wax and the rigidity of the metal, which is symbolic to human – animal relationships within an ecosystem. Working with reflective metal allows for the viewer to be directly included in the composition to challenge boundary lines, barriers, and misunderstandings of how Alaska is changing.

For OxygenWhen there are moments of discouraging news I recall Aldo Leopold’s philosophy that the things we understand, can see, feel, love, or have faith in, will determine how we treat the land. For me, the place I call home is all encompassing and easy to love and treat respectfully. Though my art I hope others sense this passion and engage in conversations in their own communities to bring change. My friend Kim Heacox said it best in his book The Only Kayak: A Journey Into The Heart of Alaska, “We must pass through the prism of our own destruction to see a new and better light.”

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Inspired by the mountains, glaciers, rivers, and ocean that surround her, Katie Craney’s work reflects the juxtaposition of natural and human landscapes and her understanding of what it means to rely on the land for survival. Craney’s work can be found in the Museums Alaska permanent collection and is currently exhibited at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and at the Museum of Art & History in Lancaster, California.

 

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Artists and Climate Change is a blog 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 the Artists and Climate Change Blog

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