Monthly Archives: August 2016

Opportunity: Imagining a Climate Ready Future: Cultural practices in place-making and social transformation

Creative Carbon Scotland, Open Calls

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Call for Arts and Humanities to join in a climate change conference and help shape thinking about our future

ECCA 2017 is Europe’s major conference on preparing for and resilience to climate change, and it’s happening in Glasgow from June 6th – 9th 2017. Creative Carbon Scotland, Sniffer and Future Earth Europe are keen to encourage artists and others working with culture and climate change to join in the conference. Your contribution can take any form that can be incorporated into the conference format: short performance, intervention, digital engagement or a traditional slide presentation. Surprise us!

The ECCA2017 website seeks contributions under Cross-cutting and Sectoral themes (see below). To ensure that audiences from other fields see the potential of culture in this area we are proposing to the selection committee two ‘sessions’ under the banners Arts and Place-making and Arts and Social Transformation, and encouraging them to spread arts and humanities contributions throughout the conference in relation to their theme. We therefore encourage you to propose contributions under one of the two banners as well as identifying one of the themes below which most closely matches your work. This will mean that the programme committee that assesses proposals will know to consider yours within one of the themes but also considers it alongside other contributions from the arts and humanities.

The deadline for proposals is 30 September. Please head to the ECCA2017 website for details of the submission process.

ECCA Cross-cutting themes

  • Evidence for action: data, climate services & communication
  • Planning ahead: delivering resilience in the face of climate uncertainty
  • Business and finance: mobilising investment in climate change adaptation and building low carbon, climate resilient economies
  • Making it happen: organisations, policy, governance, justice & ethics
  • Working together: co-production of knowledge between science, business, policy, practice and local communities
  • Adaptation in practice: case studies, monitoring, support tools and guidance
  • Global challenges: climate adaptation and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
  • Whole system sustainable solutions: acting across multiple sectors and scales

Sectoral themes

  • Urban, energy and infrastructure
  • Agriculture & forestry
  • Water security & flooding
  • Biodiversity, ecosystem services & nature-based solutions
  • Health & wellbeing

Our background rationale for calling to the Arts and Humanities to join us
The more extreme projections of climate change suggest that adaptation preparedness needs to go beyond incremental ‘change around the margins’ to curating transformed societies with resilience for a sustainable and climate ready future. Such high-end climate change brings altered growing seasons, flooding, drought and other extreme weather to which our local cities, our food chains, and our infrastructure, are mostly maladapted. Low-end climate change requires equally big changes for societal and technological transformation from high to zero to negative emissions. Both adapting to high-end and delivering on low-end climate change challenge all our values and preferences for a ‘steady state’ and require a large amount of hope and imagination. How are the arts and humanities helping to bring about these changes?

Asher Minns, Head of Communication Future Earth Europe

Ruth Wolstenholme, Managing Director Sniffer

Ben Twist, Director Creative Carbon Scotland

The post Opportunity: Imagining a Climate Ready Future: Cultural practices in place-making and social transformation appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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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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Winner Announced of the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award 2016!

Creative Carbon Scotland, Fringe

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

The 2016 EFSPA was announced by the Center of Sustainable Practice In the Arts and Creative Carbon Scotland at a ceremony at the Festival Theatre on Friday August 26th.

The award, celebrating sustainable design, content and production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, was given to VOU Fiji Dance for their production Are We Stronger Than Winston?, performed at Greenside @ Nicolson Square.

A representative of the company received the award piece, created by local maker Coral Mallow, and presented by comedian Holly Burn, who hosted the event. Other speakers included Brendan Miles from the List magazine, Ian Garrett from the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts and Phil Brady from PR Print and Design.

Are We Stronger Than Winston?  was created in response to the cyclone Winston, which devastated the South Pacific Islands in February this year. The dance piece depicts the horrors of the natural disaster, as well as the locals’ resilience in dealing with the strongly-felt impacts of climate change. They convinced the judges with this direct approach to the theme of sustainability in its form of human adaptation to a changing environment, as well as their excellent and moving performance. Moreover, they are conscious of their carbon emissions through travel and aimed to offset this by planting trees in their homeland. The company concluded their spring European Tour with the Edinburgh Festival Fringe run, appearing at Greenside @ Nicolson Square from August 5th to August 13th. In the company’s words:

Are We Stronger Than Winston

‘Fiji is my home, my land… my interconnected relationship of unconditional love and protection. But my land is disappearing. When it is gone, I am gone. But I refuse to die; I will fight! I am reclaiming ownership of my existence – as a people and a land. Fighting to save the land of my birth!’

VOU Fiji Dance emerged as the winner from a highly competitive field. With more applications than ever before, the judges agreed to shortlist 24 productions and choose 7 finalists. This unusually large selection reflected the high quality of the productions as well as their scope across all areas of sustainability. Judges assessed shows based on their artistic quality, their engagement with themes relating to social, economic and environmental sustainability, and their thoughtfulness around decisions relating to sustainable practice.

The full shortlist can be found here.

The other shows making it to the finalist stage were revealed at the ceremony to be (in alphabetical order):

  • Bird, Sita Pieraccini in association with Feral

For expressing the fragility of life in a dangerous environment through consistently expressive physical movement, sound and high production values. Engages by provoking questions rather than providing answers.

  • Eden, Less Theatre

For its intentional and considered use of found objects in a way that transforms them into magical characters and for making a strong connection with the environment and waste as exhibited in material choices.

For its exploration of a future where climate change has restricted our travel and lives, and the emotional impact of such a societal shift. A production where the ramifications of living unsustainably were at the heart of the plot.

For using delightful and inventive upcycled puppetry to explore the human role in nature, and the importance of harmony in the world. It created an approachable context for children to understand the cycles of nature, and our need for it.

  • World Without Us, Ontroerend Goed, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Vooruit, Richard Jordan Productions

For a purely executed, uncompromising look at human transience and how that manifests in the unsustainability of our built world.

For their continued excellenve and ambition both concerning artistic vision and sustainable practice of the company itself. Having won the award in 2014 and being shortlisted several times, they received a special commendation for their continued achievements.

Holly Burn introducing the awards

Each year the award is given to a production that exhibits high quality artistic integrity and engages the company and audiences with the issues of sustainability in all of its forms. It celebrates different approaches to sustainable practice both in content and in the production of shows, and rewards those that take responsibility for their social, environmental and economic impacts and think creatively about how the arts can help grow a sustainable world.

The award for Sustainable Practice at the Fringe was first launched in 2010 Previous recipients include:  The Pantry Shelf , produced by Team M&M at Sweet Grassmarket; Allotment, produced by nutshell productions at the Inverleith Allotments in co-production with Assembly; The Man Who Planted Trees, produced by the Edinburgh’s Puppet State Theatre; How to Occupy an Oil Rig, by Daniel Bye and Company, produced by Northern Stage; The Handlebards: A Comedy of Errors/Macbeth, produced by Peculius at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh and Lungs, by Paines Plough at Roundabout at Summerhall.

The Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award is a collaboration between its founder, the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CSPA), and Creative Carbon Scotland (CCS), working together with media partner the List magazine and sponsor PR Print & Design, supported by the Arts & Business Scotland’s New Arts Sponsorship Grants programme.

Ian Garrett and Miranda Wright founded the CSPA in early 2008. The organization provides a network of resources to arts organizations, which enables them to be ecologically and economically sustainable while maintaining artistic excellence. Past and Present partnerships have included the University of Oregon, Ashden Directory, Arcola Theatre, Diverseworks Artspace, Indy Convergence, York University, LA Stage Alliance and others.

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. CCS believes cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

Image credit Gemma Lawrence for Creative Carbon Scotland and VOU Fiji Dance

The post Winner Announced of the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award 2016! 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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Meghan Moe Beitiks reviews Soil Culture

ecoartscotland

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

SoilCulture: bringing the arts down to earth, from theCentre for Contemporary Art in the Natural World (CCANW) and Falmouth Art Gallery published in collaboration with Gaia Projects is the culmination of years of work—comprehensive documentation of a significant exhibition, nine curated artist residencies, and a Soil Culture Forum. It includes photographs and essays detailing the contributions of the artists involved, as well as personal reflections on theForum, and descriptions of events held at Plymouth University, and at Create, Bristol City Council’s environmental centre, all coordinated to coincide with the United Nations International Year of Soils in 2015.

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Floodplain soil developed in sand, North Wales.  Photo: Bruce Lascelles

After a brief introduction by the directors of the CCANW, we are, fittingly, introduced to soil – both in an “Homage” by Patrick Holden, and more in-depth, in “What is Soil?” by Dr. Bruce Lascelles. It’s really refreshing to pick up an art book about a given subject and begin reading about that subject from the point of view of a scientific researcher. We do not begin with say, soils’ depiction in art through the ages, or with some overly poetic meandering about the modern cultural meanings of soil (though Daro Montag gives a good overview of soil in culture in “Speaking of Soil,” detailing soils’ relationships to language). Instead, we begin with a very practical overview of what soil is, on a scientific level, after an extended essay from Holden about the importance of microbial communities, comparing the function of the soil to that of the human gut.

In beginning with these scientific facts and research on soil, the book reminds us that soil is a global entity, and something upon which we are interdependent. It acknowledges that within the UK there are several hundred varieties of soil, and opens up space for potentially complex dialogue. While there are a diverse number of approaches to making art with/and/about soil included in the book, they remain rooted in conceptual methodologies and approaches. A workshop described later in the book as replicating a Japanese technique for making soil-balls is one of the rare non-Western perspectives that the book holds. It makes sense, to a certain extent, that a UK-based exploration of soil would be culturally- and site-specific in nature, and the examination of work within the contemporary conceptual is in-depth. But the potential for an even more global, expansive dialogue is sometimes lost.

AJG-AMe-00028e

Stills from ‘Alma Silueta en Fuego (Silueto de Cenizas)’ 1975.  Super-8 colour silent film transferred to DVD. Photo: The Estate of Ana Mendieta Collection

From its material, scientific beginning, the book goes on to detail a major traveling exhibition, Deep Roots, featuring the works of known artists like Mel Chin, Richard Long and Ana Mendieta, as well as potentially less internationally known names, such as Paolo Barrile. Within these works, we see soil positioned as a pigment, a currency, and as a site for research.

soil erg alle

Claire Pentecost, Soil Erg, installation in dOCUMENTA(13) in Germany 2012. Image courtesy of the artist.

It’s great to see Claire Pentecost’s work Soil Erg featured, a re-imagining of soil as a currency, complete with soil ingots and soil-paper currency notes (full disclosure: I was a student of Pentecost’s at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago). Each artist is given a two-page spread in the book, with large images and text. The work is primarily contemporary conceptual: there’s no attempt to incorporate, say, more traditional clay sculpture, or other folks forms of making art with soil. But overall, the exhibition documentation gives a good overview of soil as engaged with by a series of contemporary, established artists.

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Mel Chin, Revival Field, 1991-ongoing

One point of disappointment, especially given the books’ promising relationship to science, is the treatment given to the research connected to Mel Chin’s Revival Field. This work is so singularly important to environmental art it has become a kind of sacred cow. While it’s true that Revival Field has a significant impact on research in phytoremediation, Sue Spaid has noted previously that it was concerns about perceptions of the validity of the science that prompted subsequent re-plantings.* In SoilCulture, these re-mountings are referred to simply as other versions of the project. There’s a limited amount of space given to each artist in the book, but it’s a shame that more time wasn’t taken in this volume to unpack the relationship between the scientific research and this project over time, as this is a less-often discussed but important aspect of the legacy of the work. Moments like this represent opportunities lost for a more expansive, critical discourse, especially since this art/soil/science relationship proves to be consistently important to the documented programming. If this was something that was expanded on in the live events, it isn’t made clear in the publication.

karenguthrie_soilculture_hauserwirthssomerwset-3p6TDI

Karen Guthrie, Residency 2014, Hauser & Wirth Somerset

The book moves on to focus on nine emerging artists who were given the opportunity to embed themselves in various context to explore soil with scientists, at farms, and in a botanical garden, in a section called Young Shoots. These explorations include a distilled soil work by Karen Guthrie, a “Brest Plough o’ metric” by Paul Chaney, and an attempt to manufacture soil by Something & Son. The works bridge the scientific and the artistic in engaging and effective ways, and speak to emerging interdisciplinary practices. In these projects, soil and its culture are regarded as inspirational material in-and-of-itself, a further remove from historical art cannons, informed by science, engineering, and ecological imperatives.

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Detail of ‘Breast Plough’o’metric’. Photo: Martyn Windsor

.

This bridges very well into Soil Culture: Dig it, a chapter based on an exhibition of the same name, in which the studio and the scientific laboratory are brought into the same space. Residency artist Lisa Hirmer (DodoLab) worked alongside Dr. Rob Parkinson, an Associate Professor in Soil Sciences and some colleagues from the School of Biological Sciences in Plymouth University, exploring peat and atmospheric carbon, among other collaborations, and the exhibition space displayed research tools and samples from scientific as well as creative explorations. A fitting exploration for the arc of the project.

It’s followed by Soil Culture at Create, an overview of live and educational programming at Bristol City Council’s environmental centre. A series of “Soil Saturdays” framed workshops, talks, culinary demonstrations, performances, and artistic interventions around the theme of soil, in temporary explorations. It serves well as documentation (each Saturday has a photo and a summary), but is probably best read by itself in a separate sitting, since at that point the reader has been steadily subsumed in the art/soil/science exploration, and it is a condensed format.

Thankfully, the next section is a series of short essays in response to the Soil Culture Forum, a three-day symposium converged by Research in Art, Nature & Environment (RANE) at Falmouth University. This section of the book is both satisfying and frustrating. Its personal tone and short form makes the reader feel a bit like they were in a room with a bunch of well-informed folks reminiscing, reflecting both on soil and on the event of the Forum. Valid questions are raised about culture’s relationship to soil: one of the most satisfying passages comes from Mat Osmond’s report on Richard Kerridge,

Of course, this comes after Holden’s assertion that the micro-organism is drastically important to the soil, so rather than reframe the arts as small, humble, or insignificant, this statement has the effect of positioning the arts as deeply embedded, important, in dialogue with its surroundings. I personally deeply appreciated this reframing.

Unfortunately, it is followed in other shorter essays by familiar tropes in sustainability culture, like the demand for a universal spiritual connection to the Earth, or a singular definition of love that includes the non-human (Stephen Harding’s assertion, for instance, that ‘the only way we can address these problems is through love’). These demands do much to flatten the attempts at diversity in the dialogue. It’s a common problem in the creation and discussion of environmental work that the overwhelming impetus to celebrate has the effect of universalizing, normalizing, and undermining safe spaces for questioning or critical discourse. It’s easy to make such beautiful statements—who can argue with love? But they unintentionally undermine a greater diversity of respectful relationships to soil.

microscopesSoilCulture is, ultimately, the documentation of a strong collection of artists exploring soil at a time when its importance and preciousness is politically and ecologically pressing. This puts some artworks in the position of celebrating or propagandizing. While these efforts may be needed, the conversation that SoilCulture frames also points to the importance of diversity and critical discourse in ecological/cultural work, largely because such elements are sometimes lacking in its own curation. Regardless, the projects put forth solid juxtapositions of scientific and artistic research with soil, including artist/scientist collaborations, and research processes reframed. It is a fascinating snapshot in time of artists engaging with a crucial issue.

* 2002. Ecovention: current art to transform ecologies, Cincinatti, Ohio: The Contemporary Art Center, p.7

Full disclosure: the author is colleagues with one of the residency artists, formerly worked for one of the Soil Culture Forum presenters, and was, as noted above, a student of Claire Pentecost, one of the professionally exhibited artists featured in the book.

All images provided by the publishers.

BIOGRAPHY
Meghan Moe Beitiks is an artist and writer working with associations and disassociations of culture/nature/structure.  She analyzes perceptions of ecology though the lenses of site, history, emotions, and her own body in order to produce work that analyzes relationships with the non-human. She was a Fulbright Student Fellow, a recipient of the Claire Rosen and Samuel Edes Foundation Prize for Emerging Artists, and a MacDowell Colony fellow. She has taught performance at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and exhibited her work at the I-Park Environmental Art Biennale, Grace Exhibition Space in Brooklyn, Defibrillator Performance Art Gallery in Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the House of Artists in Moscow, and other locations in California, Chicago, Australia and the UK. She received her BA in Theater Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her MFA in Performance Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. www.meghanmoebeitiks.com

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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#GreenFests: Our Top Picks of Take One Action Film Festival

Creative Carbon Scotland

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Take One Action Film Festival is back in Glasgow and Edinburgh from 14-25 September, bringing together filmmakers, artists, activists, audiences and journalists and premiering the most acclaimed international documentaries focusing on social and environmental justice.

This year’s programme showcases a fantastic range of films and events that offer different perspectives on the environmental challenges we face and, most importantly, celebrate the people who are pushing for change. All of our events are accompanied by audience-led discussions offering inspiring opportunities for effective personal action!

Here are their Top Picks for those interested in arts and sustainability – but you can explore the full programme here.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow_MAIN_Image“This playfully made exposé should be required viewing for anyone wondering what they could do to pitch in and save the planet,” Hollywood Reporter

This inspiring globe-trotting journey explores how activists, community organisers and everyday citizens are working together to make the world a better, greener, more sustainable place.

(Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Wed 14 Sept | 20:30, £10/8, £4.50 Under 21)
(CCA, Glasgow, Thurs 15 Sept | 19:00, £6/4.50)

10 Billion: What’s on your Plate?

10Billion Main ImageWith the world’s population expected to reach ten billion by 2050, how will we continue to feed ourselves?

Amidst heated debate 10 Billion is a clear-headed exploration of global food production and different visions of the future, including artificial meat, insects, industrial farming and urban gardening.

(Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 16 Sept | 17:50, £10/8 £4.50 Under 21)
(CCA, Glasgow, Sat 17 Sept | 19:00, £6/4.50)

Fractured Land

FracturedLandMainImage“A powerful film… a skillful study in landscape as well as character,” Globe and Mail.

Caleb Behn is an inspiring First Nations law graduate, taking on the oil and gas industry to protect his people’s land, water and culture in the wilds of Northern Canada. Mixing breath-taking cinematography with candid interviews, Fractured Land captures Caleb’s emerging sense of purpose as he embarks upon a new journey: to represent his people in the centuries-long battle to protect their land and the very core of their culture.

(Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 23 Sept | 20:35, £10/8 £4.50 Under 21)
(CCA, Glasgow, Sat 24 Sept | 19:00, £6/4.50)

The True Cost

True Cost Main Image“Let the story absorb you, transport you and take you under. Engaging with the ugly side of fashion will lead to changing it.” The Guardian

What is the price of fast fashion? This urgent wake-up call provides a shocking overview of the consequences of our addiction to cheap, disposable clothing, via investigations across the globe from the garment factories of Bangladesh to the cotton fields of India.

This screening will be accompanied by an afternoon of engaging activities exploring sustainable fashion, including mending workshops with ReMade and Oxfam DIY and a showcase of sustainable design.

(Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Sat 17 Sept | 14:00, FREE)
(Grassmarket Centre, Edinburgh, Sun 18 Sept | 14:00, FREE)

When Two Worlds Collide

When Two Worlds Collide Main Image“A potent chronicle of the fight between indigenous tribes and government-supported business interests in the Peruvian Amazon” Variety

Capturing a volatile political and environmental crisis with breathtaking access and unflinching camera work, this Peruvian documentary exposes a titanic clash between the country’s president, hungry for economic legitimacy, and his country’s most outspoken environmentalist, who is desperate to protect indigenous communities’ ancestral lands from environmental destruction.

(GFT, Glasgow, Sun 18 Sept | 14:45, £5/4.50 with GFT Youth Card)
(Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Mon 19 Sept | 20:35, £10/8 £4.50 Under 21)

In Edinburgh for the Fringe? Join Take One Action for fantastic films and inspiring conversations at our bike-and-solar powered Wee Green Cinema! Their unique pop-up cinema will be pitching up in Edinburgh Princes Street Gardens from 13-20 August with a daily programme of shorts, feature films and guest speakers from a wide range of fantastic green initiatives based in Edinburgh, all of which are FREE to attend.

Each day will have a different focus ranging from climate change, energy or transport to women’s empowerment. Go to www.takeoneaction.org.uk for the full line-up of events.

Take One Action is a member of our Green Arts Initiative: a community of Scottish arts organisations committed to reducing their envir

The post #GreenFests: Our Top Picks of Take One Action Film Festival 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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What We Talk About When We Talk About Climate Change

Artists and Climate Change

Featured Image: Members of the Tidelines Ferry Tour from left to right: Hoonah high schoolers Cecilia George and Mary Jack, artists Heather Powell, Michelle Kuen Suet Fung, Chantal Bilodeau, and Allison Warden at the ferry terminal in Ketchikan. Photo by Peter Bradley.

This post comes from the Artists and Climate Change Blog

by Guest Blogger Peter Bradley

This article originally appeared in the Capital City Weekly, June 22, 2016.

We were at the Fish House in Ketchikan early in April, talking about climate; the room was full and the conversation was lively. Outside, the berries were blooming and the snow was gone. Ketchikan was the third stop of the Tidelines Journey, a nine-town ferry tour organized through my work at the Island Institute, a Sitka based nonprofit dedicated to fostering resilience by promoting creative, collaborative explorations of the connections between place and community. I was traveling for the month with a group of storytellers, artists, and culture bearers, all of us working in our own ways to better understand the relationship between the changing climate and our changing cultures. A week into the tour it was becoming clear that other people in Southeast Alaska are as preoccupied with climate change as I am.

For my entire adult life there’s been an environmental alarm in the background of my consciousness, sometimes faint, sometimes loud, but always buzzing away. I’ve come of age alongside our society’s growing recognition of climate change, and I think about it every day. I’ve heard people compare that feeling to what they experienced during the Cold War — a looming threat of global proportions far beyond their control or even the daily experience of any individual. The ferry tour was a way to step back from the distancing global perspective of climate change — the unprecedented environmental disasters, the ugly politics, the terrifying forecasts — to try to capture the Alaskan perspective on the ground.

Toward that end, we hosted conversations in nine coastal communities on the ferry network. We asked people to share observations about changes they’ve seen in the land, what they expect to see in the future, and what climate change means to them. We were excited to have these conversations because of the incredible eloquence of Alaskans when it comes to describing the natural world. As much of the country and world has gone through rapid urbanization and domestication, many Alaskans remain attached to seasonal rhythms, taking direction from seasonal cues and activities, engaging with wildness as a daily practice.

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Allison Warden speak with three classrooms of students at Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School in Juneau as her rap persona, Aku-Matu. Photo by Simone Machamer.

We believe that the world needs to hear those sorts of perspectives, and all of that knowledge and experience made for expansive conversations on our ferry tour. What we learned is that when Alaskans talk about climate change, there isn’t much that we don’t talk about. We talk about migration and exodus, blueberries and cedar, carbon and nitrogen. We talk about the snow-melt and the spawning salmon. We talk about higher tides, glacial rebound, and green mountaintops. We talk about forest fires and algal blooms and seabird starvation. We talk about steamer clams and the red tide and the forced decline of longstanding subsistence practices. We talk about jobs and lifestyles, about dependence and independence, about war and collapse and expansion and contraction and carrying capacity and our capacity for caring, about unpredictability and the difficulty of adaptation. We talk about winning and losing. We talk about grandparents and grandchildren. We talk about language and the words we won’t need or will need more than ever.

As the tour continued, we came to realize that most of us don’t have the scientific tools to differentiate between climate-related changes and the other forms of environmental imbalance that we’re witnessing. That’s why when we talk about climate change, we can’t help but talk about seals loaded with lead, about wastewater from cruise ships, tailings from mines, and coastlines riddled with trash from around the world. We talk about how mountain lions have arrived on Kupreanof Island as a result of moose arriving as a result of willow growing as a result of humans logging. We talk about science, but we also talk about storytelling, about tradition and about technology, about responsibility, and about regret.

As the tour unfolded, the conversations about climate change started to feel more and more like conversations about the values of Alaskans. We learned that the forces that have defined Alaska’s financial growth and expansion in recent decades are not the forces that define Alaskans as people.

At the Public Library in Petersburg, at the Salvation Army in Kake, at the Elks Lodge in Wrangell, and at the Center For Coastal Studies in Homer, we heard a great yearning to maintain the connection to the land that defines us as Alaskans. We heard people express that disconnection from nature and the unwilding of humanity have sparked climate change among a suite of other social ills. We heard people talk about finding hope in the idea of committing to ancient strategies and technique in the modern world. We heard the idea that culture and language grow out of place, and that within a language are keys to long-studied ways of living rightly in a place. We heard that intergenerational knowledge, communal wisdom, and hard-earned intuition capture more of the spirit of a place than technology can, and we heard that respecting the land as a vast, uncontrollable, and powerful entity is an essential part of moving forward.

Tidelines Ferry Tour (3)

Weaver Teri Rofkar and her husband Denny on the ferry between Juneau and Kodiak.

As a state, Alaska is reeling from the collapse of oil and coming to terms with the precariousness of our financially dependent relationship on this extractive industry. As people, however, Alaskans are reeling from the idea of collapse of the ecosystems on which our well-being and chosen lifestyles depend, coming to terms with the precariousness of our reciprocal relationships with the rich web of life.

As people the world over try to understand the implications of a warming world, Alaskans have an opportunity to share our knowledge about the wealth of the world around us, and the importance of establishing and maintaining sustainable practices that honor the earth. The world needs to hear the voices of people whose daily practice includes measured, close observation of the patterns and movements of the vast ecosystems they are part of.

Often, people feel small, insubstantial, and vulnerable in the context of climate change.

We’re used to that combination here, though it comes in a different form: awe. It’s a breathless feeling of tininess that we can experience standing atop a mountain, or rocking in heavy swell, or interacting with a bear. At our final event of the tour, at the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies in Homer, we asked people to share their stories of awe. Those stories of humble respect for the whims of the wild seem essential as we come to terms with climate change and talk about the damage that humanity has wrought by trying to tame and control the planet.

Tidelines Ferry Tour (3)

A beautiful scenery seen from the ferry during the Tour. Photo by Chantal Bilodeau.

At the Island Institute, we’re working to find more ways to gather the knowledge that Alaskans have about climate change, and share it among Alaskan communities and with the wider world. Our next step is to create a radio and podcast series. Through these stories, we hope to inspire our listeners with the lives of the adaptive people and species that will continue to have a close relationship to the land in the midst of change. We also hope to catalyze a larger commitment toward becoming more engaged participants in, and observers of, the broader natural world around us.

We’d like to hear from you. If you’re interested in sharing your perspective, observations, or ideas about what climate change means for you or for Alaska, please emailradio@iialaska.org or write to Island Institute / PO Box 2420 / Sitka, AK 99835.

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Peter Bradley is the Executive Director of the Island Institute, a Sitka based non-profit which runs a variety of artist residency programs, community conversations, and storytelling events, along with the Sitka Story Lab, a creative writing and storytelling program for youth. You can reach the Island Institute by emailing peter@iialaska.org, writing to PO Box 2420 / Sitka, AK 99835, or calling 907-747-3794.

______________________________

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Filed under: Editorial, Guest Blog Series

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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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Opportunity: Nature and Culture to Revitalize an Island

ecoartscotland, Open Calls

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

International Creative Workshop in Megijima, Japan
2016 October 2-9 (long session) / October 8-9 (short session)
hosted by SocieCity and Final Straw
with Patrick M. Lydon, Suhee Kang, and Kaori Tsuji

Ecological activism, creative practice, and community building come together on the Island of Megijima, Japan this October, and we want you to be a part of it.

The team at SocieCity & Final Straw are assembling an international cast of creative thinkers and doers to join us in a small Japanese village, where we will discover and highlight the social and ecological treasures of this island together. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to explore in depth, the nature and culture of a small island together with other creative minds from around the world, and to help build an ecological future for this community.

patrick-natureart-workshop

Our program begins with participants enjoying an in-depth look at the island, it’s nature, and its people. We have arranged special tours of the island’s ecological and cultural history, and participants will interact directly with locals to hear their stories of the island, it’s natural resources, its farms, and its folklore.

The second half of the program focuses on synthesizing our experiences – the ecology, stories, and personal reactions – into creative prototypes for small products that can be made using local materials. The prototypes are mean both as talismans (souvenirs) for visitors, and celebrations of the island’s unique nature and culture.

All prototypes produced by workshop participants will be voted on by the local villagers, with the winning design having a chance to be put into production locally in order to support the island.

Participants can choose to stay for only the intensive course (October 8th – 9th), or an extended internship (October 2nd – 9th) that will include becoming part of the larger community regeneration activities we are undertaking on the island. The extended internship, though not required, is especially recommended for international visitors.

To Apply, please send the following topatrick@finalstraw.org by Sept 1, 2016:

  • Your Name / Street Address / Email / Phone / and Website (if available)
  • Either five still images or five minutes of video showing previous work. Images must be JPEG format and around 500kb – 1mb in size each, attached to the email. Videos must be submitted as a links to YouTube, Vimeo, or another streaming service. If a video is longer than 5 minutes, please note that we can only watch the first 5 minutes.
  • An image list with location, title, and short description for each image or video
  • A short statement (less than 300 words) about your practice
  • A short statement (less than 300 words) about why you wish to join the workshop
    Please include all text in the body of the email, not as an attachment.

Conditions (Please Read Before Applying):

Accommodation – The rate for accommodation is $40 (2 days / 1 night) or $180USD (7 days / 6 nights). This covers the cost of private room hotel accommodation on the island.
Tuition – The workshop tuition is done using the “pay it forward” system. This means that there is no predetermined rate for tuition, and participants are welcome to pay what they can. However, Pay it Forward also means that your project coordinators are volunteering their time, they are not getting paid to produce and lead these workshops. Your tuition payment is the only way we can continue to conduct more workshops for future participants.

Travel and Meals – All participants must cover their own travel and expenses of getting to Japan and during their stay. Meals are not included in the tuition fee, though there are a few options for eating on the island, and group-cooked dinners will be arranged for those who wish to take part in them.

Applicants are expected to be proficient in speaking English. Japanese language experience is a bonus, but certainly not required.

Previous experience with community engaged arts, craft skills, or creative practice, although not explicitly required, is recommended and should be reflected in your work and statement.

Learn More About Our Work:
SocieCity / Creative actions for inspiring tomorrow –www.sociecity.org
Final Straw / Food, Earth, Happiness – www.finalstraw.org

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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Nka Foundation announces INTERNATIONAL EARTH SCULPTURE SYMPOSIUM for October 3 – 31, 2016

Open Calls

BETENIM, Ghana – June 24, 2016 – PRLog — VENUE: Abetenim Arts Village near Kumasi in Ghana

DATE: October 3 – 31, 2016

Nka Foundation invites creative practitioners from around the world for the 2016 International Earth Sculpture Symposium at Abetenim Arts Village in Ghana. Practitioners in the visual arts, building arts, landscape architecture, environmental design and others are all welcome to participate. We will immerse ourselves in the local environment and create site-specific works through use of earth and other materials from the environment. Our rural arts village provides the participant with time and space away from the everyday stresses of city/studio life to focus and investigate own practice, creating the possibility for discovery, collaboration and growth. The arts village has an openair theatre, workspaces and guest houses for your accommodation. Most evenings will be used for reviewing workshop progress along with artist lectures, impromptu performances and presentations by workshop participants. By alternating work and dialogues, we anticipate cross fertilization of ideas. Join us!

WORKSHOP DIRECTOR: Mantey Jectey-Nyarko, PhD. Lecturer, College of Art and Built Environment, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi.

COST: Food and accommodation 80€/week (flight costs are not included).

CONTACT: http://www.nkafoundation.org / info@nkafoundation.org for application form.

Revival of SEEDS in celebration of Earthdance’s 30th Anniversary

news

SEEDS 2016 is an interdisciplinary arts and ecology festival gathering artists, community activists, scientists, spiritual leaders, permaculture practitioners, and more for ten days at Earthdance, an artist-run workshop, residency, and retreat center located in the Berkshire hills of Western Massachusetts.

September 16, 2016 – 5:00pm – September 25, 2016 – 3:00pm This year we are directly working with the connections between environmental racism, intersectional oppressions, power/territory, and privilege.

Through workshops, residencies, discussions, performances and artistic investigations, SEEDS aims to explore the potent space of art, allyship, movement practice, and ecology. By working with the connections between environmental racism, intersectional oppressions, power/territory, and privilege, SEEDS makes space for multiple voices and forms of participation while creating a space for embodied intelligence and collective inquiry. The festival is curated by Olive Bieringa, Margit Galanter, Hana Van der Kolk, Chris Galanis amd Melinda Buckwalter.

The festival includes:

WORKSHOPS with Benoit Lachambre, Sherwood Chen, Emily Johnson, Marbles Jumbo Radio, permaculture with Kay Caffaso + Will Shields.

20 local, national and international artists, activist and scholars will be in residence during SEEDS 2016 and include Bibi Calderaro, Cara Judea Alhadeff, Cindy Stevens, Colleen Bartley, Cristina Lella, Deborah Black, JoAnna Mendl Shaw, Joe Dumit, John Shade, Kelly Bitov, Laressa Dickey, marbles, Marlon B Solano, mayfield brooks, Melissa Tuckey, Paige Tighe, Pedro Alejandro, Stephanie Loveless, Valvalval Smith and Susana Matienzo.

SEEDS Mini-Festival Weekend -Friday eve, September 16th – Sunday, 18th which includes SEEDS Exchange -Sunday, 18th a resource, knowledge and skill sharing market.

Community Day – Saturday, September 24th 12pm-12am with performances, workshops, research presentations, and dancing all day long. All are welcome! Donations collected at door. Please RSVP tocontact@earthdance.net

Workshop Descriptions & Teacher Bios:

Transforming Notions of Presence with Benoît Lachambre Friday-Sunday, September 16-25

Dance may be practiced as poetic action, conscious stimulation, and creative dreaming. Benoît Lachambre does research on arousing the senses with support from weight and force. Through a radical pedagogical approach, he works with the body’s auto-direction centres. He invites participants to process and recognize the dynamics of interior and exterior movement, and enables a holistic understanding of the body and its environment. He works with participants’ alignment and imagination, inviting them to deepen and increase sensual acuity by becoming aware of the nature of gesture in a specific context, a living space. The goal is to open the mind while harmonizing stimulated internal spaces.

Benoît Lachambre has been evolving in the field of dance since the 1970s. He discovered the release technique in 1985–a kinaesthetic approach to movement and improvisation – causing a shift in his choreographic style. He devoted himself to an exploratory approach of movement and its sources, with the aim to seek the authenticity of the gesture.

His significantly radical approach is based on the awakening of senses, imagining the dreaming body transformating outside the notion of self, with the analyses of gesture in the context of a living environment. In his creations, he equally aims at modifying the performer’s empathic experience with the audience. Among those artists who influenced him the most are Meg Stuart and Amélia Itcush. Beyond his work as choreographer and dancer, Benoît Lachambre has gained a high degree of recognition as a teacher through his renowned workshops and classes that he has offered around the world for over 20 years. In 1996, Benoît Lachambre founded his own company Par B.L.eux in Montréal: “B.L.” for Benoît Lachambre, and “eux” for “them.” He continues to develop artistic encounters and dynamic exchanges, collaborating with numerous international choreographers and artists from different disciplines: Boris Charmatz, Sasha Waltz, Marie Chouinard, Louise Lecavalier and again with Meg Stuart and musician Hahn Rowe; with the latter he created one of his masterpieces Forgeries, Love and other Matters in 2003 for which he received the prestigious Bessie Award in 2006.

Benoît Lachambre is one of the major artists/choreographers of his generation, has created 15 works since the foundation of Par B.L.eux, participated in more than 20 others productions and was the choreographer of 25 commissioned works, for example I is memory (solo for Louise Lecavalier in 2006) andJJ’s Voice that he created for Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm in 2009. In March 2013, he created High heels too, a new choreography commissioned by the Cullberg Ballet. In 2013, Benoît Lachambre received le Grand prix de la Danse de Montréal 2013, for the work Snakeskins. In 2014, he received the ‘Best Choreography’ award from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, for Prisms, a Montréal Danse commissioned-work.Hyperterrestres, a co-production with French choreographer Fabrice Ramalingom and composer Hahn Rowe, had its North American premiere during the Festival TransAmériques in Montréal in May 2015. Lifeguard his latest creation will be presented during June Events in Paris on June 17th and 18th, 2016.

Second Natures with Sherwood Chen Wednesday-Sunday, September 21-25

This workshop includes: rhythmic studio training, sensory exercises, partnered movement research, and building personal and collective imagery to generate landscape-driven and/or landscape-derived work. We work with our direct senses, physical limits and sense memory towards a porosity between flesh, bone, imagination, and space, yielding impossible and/or newfound bodies.

Let’s track tension and interplay between dancing within a terrain and dancing a terrain. Let’s recognize the body as colony. To investigate strategies and performative yield of what it could mean to be danced by a terrain. Let’s admit identification as parasitic colonizer. To tread upon the dangers and values of a danced anthropocentrism.

How do we hone consciousness of our imported projections upon a specific land with which most of us have had recent and/or no history? How do we negotiate caution, hubris, and mutuality in the name of constructing individual and collective dances in nature?

Dress for the weather. Dress to sweat. Bring your curiosity and your inquisitive, receptive body.

Sherwood Chen (US/FR) has worked as a performer with artists including Anna Halprin, Xavier Le Roy, Min Tanaka, l’agence touriste, Sara Shelton Mann, inkBoat, Ko Murobushi, Grisha Coleman, and Liz Santoro. He co-founded the dance collaborative Headmistress with Oakland-based choreographer Amara Tabor-Smith. He has lead movement workshops internationally in-studio and in natural and urban landscapes in places including Ménagerie de Verre (Paris), Oficina Cultural Oswald de Andrade (São Paulo), Independent Dance/Siobahn Davies Studios (London), Centro Nacional de las Artes (Mexico City), Chez Bushwick (Brooklyn), Arlequi (Banyoles), and EDEN / Dock 11 (Berlin). For over twenty years, he has contributed to Body Weather research initiated by Tanaka and his associates.

Embodying Permaculture with Kay Cafasso & Will Shields Friday-Sunday, September 16-18

Explore and orient with the outer and inner grounds of permaculture as we develop vegetative swales and rain garden projects at Earthdance. Sessions will include: Permaculture Design Activities, Plant and Nature Connection, Garden Meditations, Deep Ecology, and Movement Awareness for Gardeners and Permaculturists. Each session will offer resources of design skills and permaculture techniques to bring to your home.

Kay Cafasso is a certified permaculture designer practicing the thoughtful design of ecological landscapes. Kay is Director of Sowing Solutions Permaculture Design & Education, offering ecological garden design services for homeowners and land stewards. Sowing Solutions also offers Permaculture Design Certification Courses twice a year in Western MA, and has led over 20 Permaculture Design Certification Courses (PDC’s) to date nationwide over the last decade. Kay is inspired by contemplative practices in the gardens, and passionate about growing medicine and healing through music and dance.

Will Shields is a pupil of systems and their intrinsic relationship to other systems. Ecologically motivated, he weaves a myriad of subjects into a more integrated holism. By connecting the realms of music theory, herbalism, physics, living pharmacies, ecology, edible ecosystems, regenerative design, and bio-intensive gardening, he hopes to create a fabric of land management that enhances current systems at Earthdance. He also aims to facilitate environmental literacy while simultaneously broadening interest in systems design. The heartbeat of motivation for this avid permaculturist is a harmonious livelihood that cooperates with nature and builds a healthy community.

Earthdance Environmental Action & Performance Project with Will Shields Monday-Thursday, September 19-22

For the Earthdance Environmental Action & Performance Project we will be investigating simple earthworks by building a vegetative swale that will redirect parts of our current hydrological/irrigation system into greater harmony with the rest of our watershed. With an emphasis on community building/bridging, we will journey through a subtle demarcation between interdisciplinary performance and environmental action. All are welcome to come participate and perform simultaneously.

Wrecking Walden: Landing Stories with Marbles Jumbo Radio

A practice and exploration of belonging for people of color Friday-Sunday, September 16-18 (first weekend)

What does it require for us as artists, academics, and interventionists of color to feel into our bodies in a culture and place that has been historically unrepresentative of and inaccessible to us? What would our practice become if we did not side step the impacts of racism, but rather included our whole experience as we move, write, and perform/observe the marginalized body back into the landscape? What will it take to dismantle the scripts that, thus far, prevented certain experiences from feeling they belong here?

The curriculum, process, and discussions, will reference bell hooks’ Belonging: A Culture of Place and journal excerpts from Jumbo Radio’s ongoing community initiative. Some questions/prompts to feed our movement investigation and conversation: What does entering a zone of white flight require of our nervous systems and brains, and what does that raise in our embodied sensory experience? What soil amendments are needed for such restorative justice?

What knowledge, histories, fictions, desires, and memories of ours are left out of these spaces out of fear that they too will get appropriated/colonized? DO TELL/embody how complicated it is.

Marbles Jumbo Radio places the queered, marginalized body as a central subject through dance and physical practice. Their work has been presented in New York at HERE, Danspace Project, and Joyce SOHO, and in Los Angeles at REDCAT, Dance Camera West, Anatomy Riot, Pieter, and LACE. They are a 2008 CHIME grant recipient, and with mentor Simone Forti, they created the performance and practice of Ice Bergs. More recent projects include performance for Meg Wolfe’s New Faithful Disco, Andrea Geyer’s video installation, Truly, Spun, Never, and their on going collaboration with Yann Novak in Johanna Breiding’s installation, We Love Our Parents, We Fear Snakes. www.vimeo.com/takemetomarbles

Activating Allyship with Aiyana Masla, Hana van der Kolk & Margit Galanter Friday-Sunday, September 16-18 (first weekend)

Alongside with and in support of Marbles’ Jumbo Radio’s workshop Wrecking Walden, Aiyana Masla, Hana van der Kolk, Margit Galanter, and a team of facilitators offer a concurrent forum on white privilege and allyship specifically for the context of SEEDS and Earthdance. We will break down the basics of white privilege and bare witness together to the historical and current white supremacy in contemporary dance/art, science, academic, and environmental activist spaces, paying particular attention to environmental racism and the intersectionality of racism, classism, and ecological crisis.

Drawing from conscious communication, embodiment and mindfulness practices, as well as the Internal Family Systems therapy model, the workshop leaders will then facilitate a non-hierarchical space for sharing, listening, and skill exchange around how, as artists, environmentalists, academics, activists, teachers, and community members, we might continue or begin to activate allyship in our personal and professional lives. How does the radical space of not-knowing required of us as artists offer tools for new ways of thinking and acting outside our art practices? What can movement and awareness in our lived body offer to this understanding?

Anyone identifying as an ally or committed to the possibilities therein, regardless of race, is welcome to join.

Aiyana Masla is a mover, educator, writer, musician and performance artist. She recently spent time as a resident artist in Ashfield, MA with Double Edge Theater, co-creating and training in the physical theater lineage of Jerzy Grotowski and Rena Mirecka. Aiyana is dedicated to working with the imagination and the body to deconstruct systems of oppression and injustice. Focusing her work with young people, she often works using mindfulness techniques, MBSR, and physical theater training in the tradition of Grotowski’s Laboratorio. Aiyana’s undergraduate thesis from Naropa University is a case study done with families immigrating from Mexico to cities in Colorado on nature deficit disorder, contemplative education and exercises designed to empower imagination and self reflection. She has worked with youth and children internationally, most recently creating performance art with youth at the Paulo Freire Social Justice School, The Youth Ambassadors program, and with Moonseed Teen Leadership Program, where she has been an assistant director for 4 years. She works curating events, performing and in a lab exploring various movement based artistic training techniques and relational practices as a part of the movement collective, Aorta. She also performs original work with the Royal Frog Ballet. Aiyana grew up back and forth between rural western MA and rural Jalisco, Mexico, and brings this cross-cultural background to her work as a white, jewish, queer, cis gendered woman committed to collaborating towards healing and justice for all people. She also works with Migrant Education foundation, teaching ESL, and is passionate about the natural world and all people’s place as a part of it.

Hana van der Kolk makes dance-centric performances, events, videos and writing that investigate community/collaboration and how thought shapes moving, how moving shapes thought, and how being thoughtful movers might positively destabilize our notions of gender, sexuality, work, nature, power, and politics. She is a graduate of the Level 1 training in IFS (Internal Family Systems) therapy, a dedicated meditator in the Insight Meditation Tradition, and a practitioner of sexual healing work encompassing elements of massage, mindfulness, and BDSM. Hana is based in Troy, NY where she is a contributing facilitator of communityLAB, an organization that offers workshops that challenge participants to identify and let go of self-limiting beliefs that hold them back from stepping into the role of change agent. She also co-hosts Troy’s bi-monthly queer dance party, Polly, which acts as a fundraiser for a different Capitol Region initiatives. Hana has taught dance, performance, and yoga internationally and collaborates with numerous activists and artists including Shanna Goldman, Tomislav Feller, Asher Woodworth, Ethan Keirmaier, Guy Schaffer, Jane Pickett, Tove Sahlin, Winnie Superhova, Jason Martin, LN Foster, and Jack Magai.

Margit Galanter is a movement investigator and dance poet living in Oakland, California. Her inquiries range from performance, teaching, and her private practice to galvanizing larger-scale cultural praxes. Margit’s unique perspective helps people access the potencies of movement, — through the movement arts, the Feldenkrais Method, and Chinese energetics. Margit is dedicated to the prisms of cultural inquiry, conversation, perceptual vibrancy, and nourishing life. Margit was Co-Director of Earthdance from 2006-2009, where she co-founded SEEDS and the Julius Ford/Harriet Tubman Healthy Living Project, an annual intergenerational, interracial critical arts symposium, and continues to instigate projects that meld collective thinking and embodied research in the Bay Area and inter/nationally.

Practice Site: www.physicalintelligence.org *
Art: www.margitg.wordpress.com

Margit and Hana are co-curators of SEEDS 2016. They worked collaboratively to organize a symposium on Embodying Allyship at the Form-In-Question / Dance Improvisation Symposium at NYU this past January. They have a deep belief in the importance of radical presence and unknowing inherent in their dance/art practices, and how these lead us towards the complex, powerful work of recognizing and dismantling white supremacy and learning to become intelligent allies in this process.

Conjuring Future Joy with Emily Johnson - Saturday, September 17 only

We will conjure future joy. We will let nothing exist. What do you want for yourself, your family, your neighborhood, your city? We will talk about this. We will come up with some ideas we can make happen. And we’ll dance. We will improvise movement and stories for and with one another; aware of what we believe about ourselves and what we completely make up. What joys have you experienced? Some stories will be voiced, some silent. (It’s the silent ones that are really exciting to me right now.) We will begin to be comfortable, really comfortable in silence. We will begin to understand and listen to silence. We will watch each other with keen interest, respect, and love. There will be a lot of watching, along with the doing. I told someone once that it might feel like watching a tree: you sit or stand or lay on the ground and watch the wind move through a tree; you notice it is green or brown and that it rests with the sky. (photo by Chris Cameron)

Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. A Bessie Award winning choreographer and Guggenheim Fellow, she is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and New York City. Originally from Alaska, she is of Yup’ik descent and since 1998 has created work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Her dances function as installations, engaging audiences within and through a space and environment—interacting with a place’s architecture, history, and role in community. Emily is trying to make a world where performance is part of life; where performance is an integral connection to each other, our environment, our stories, our past, present, and future. Emily received a 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award; her work is supported by Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, Creative Capital, Map Fund, a Joyce Award, the McKnight Foundation, and The Doris Duke Residency to Build Demand for the Arts. Emily was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Minnesota 2013 – 2014 and an inaugural 2014 Fellow at the Robert Rauschenberg Residency. She is a current Mellon Foundation Choreography Fellow at Williams College. With her collaborators she recently completed the third in a trilogy of works: The Thank-you Bar, Niicugni, and SHORE. She is in the process of making Then a Cunning Voice and a Night We Spend Gazing at Stars, an all night outdoor performance gathering taking place on and near eighty-four community-hand-made quilts. www.catalystdance.com

Learn more and register http://www.earthdance.net/calendar/2016/09/seeds-2016

SEEDS Guide: https://vimeo.com/173273631

Opportunity: Course on Regenerative Art & Public Spaces with art.earth

Creative Carbon Scotland, Open Calls

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Regenerative Art: the aesthetics of renewable energy in public spaces

November 11-13, 2016

Course Leaders: Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry (Land Art Generator Initiative)

Facilitator: Dr. Richard Povall (art.earth and Schumacher College)

art.earth invite you in this unique opportunity to work with two leading proponents of sustainable design within the sphere of public art. The Land Art Generator Initiative is becoming increasingly known and respected across the world for their work with public art, design in public spaces, and aesthetic design for renewable energy.

This short course takes place at the remarkable Dartington Hall in southwest England from 17.00 on November 11 to 16.30 on November 13, 2016 (immediately following on from the international summit meeting Feeding the Insatiable). This extraordinary site sits within some of the UK’s most spectacular landscapes, with more protected areas than anywhere else in the UK.

This practice-based short course provides participants with useful knowledge and experience for creatively integrating renewable energy systems into cherished cultural environments as a part of a larger strategic approach to carbon reduction. The workshop will focus on the Dartington estate and seek to identify opportunities to place new infrastructures in open areas while maintaining shared use with open spaces and other campus functions. Dartington Hall (image courtesy Dartington Hall Trust)

Experience will be applicable to all types of contexts. The outcome will include concept sketches of specific public art ideas based on the Land Art Generator Initiative design model. A document will record the outcomes of the workshop as a planning tool for the College Estate.

We will work with photographs and scale drawings of the estate as a design site, along with other contemporary and historical information about the estate.

Your work will be speculative design – as innovative, challenging and creative as you can make it – for a speculative use on this historic estate. The work is intended to model the real-life experience of designing for a unique site.

Maximum number on the course is 20, and we welcome participation by community leaders, environmental organisations, community energy leaders, artists and arts producers, and architects and designers).

For more information and how to book visit their website here.

The post Opportunity: Course on Regenerative Art & Public Spaces with art.earth appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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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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Opportunity: Aberdeen Climate Conversation

Creative Carbon Scotland, Open Calls

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Opportunity for those working in the arts to directly influence the Scottish Government’s thinking about climate change as they prepare for the publication of an important document, the third Report on Policies and Proposals, in December.

Creative Carbon Scotland is partnering with Sniffer, an Edinburgh-based environmental charity, to enable artists and cultural workers to participate in Climate Conversations, a public consultation on climate change.

This event is part of a wider series, funded by the Scottish Government, which aims to gather public perspectives on climate change for feeding into a report presented to the Scottish parliament this winter.

Creative Carbon Scotland has partnered with Sniffer to run a session in Aberdeen specifically focused on those working in the arts, whether within cultural organisations, in academia or as freelancers. As a sector that is commonly overlooked in relation to the issues surrounding climate change, this is an important opportunity to strengthen the role of the arts and culture in transitioning to a more sustainable Scotland. No technical or special knowledge is required.

The event will be an informal conversation guided by Sniffer, taking place on Thursday 1st September, at the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen, from 18:00 – 19:30. This venue is wheelchair accessible.

By participating in the event you will have the chance to:

  • Discuss climate change and its impacts;
  • Learn about Scottish Government action to reduce our carbon footprint and protect people from the impacts of climate change;
  • Make your views heard by contributing to the RPP3, a report on climate change which will be presented to Scottish Parliament this winter.

Places are limited to allow an in-depth conversation to take place, so please register early and RSVP togemma.lawrence@creativecarbonscotland.com by Monday 29th August.

The post Opportunity: Aberdeen Climate Conversation appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

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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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