Monthly Archives: January 2019

Guest Blog: Local perspectives on a global phenomenon & global changes in local places (Part III)

In the final blog of a three part series contemporary artist and researcher Sonia Mehra Chawla writes about the research she undertook in Aberdeen in June 2018 to inform an upcoming residency with Edinburgh Printmakers.

Local perspectives on a global phenomenon & global changes in local places – Talking about ‘scales’ and the urgency of the contemporary moment

Location and its influence on my artistic inquiry

My artistic practice is concerned with notions of selfhood, nature, ecology, conservation and sustainability. My art spans many other disciplines and areas, and I often find myself questioning, dissecting and re-imagining spaces that exist at the interface between art and science, nature and culture, production and perception, self and the other. My work over the past few years has often been a result of sustained collaborations with Scientific and Research Institutions, Non Profit and Non-Governmental Organizations and Trusts in India, as well as interactions with fishing, farming and agricultural communities, indigenous people, and tribal communities of rural and semi-urban regions of India.

In my opinion, local dynamics are worth worrying about, and localities can make a difference. Many of the individual phenomena that underlie environmental processes such as population dynamics, economic activities and resource use, for instance, arise at a local scale.

As a cultural practitioner and researcher it is imperative for me to consider how local places contribute to global changes, what drives those changes, how do these contributions change over time, how and where scale matters, what are the interactions between macro-structures and micro-agencies, and how efforts at mitigation and adaptation can be locally initiated and adopted.

These are also some of the vital questions that I attempt to address, probe and analyse through my research.

Guest Blog: Local perspectives on a global phenomenon & global changes in local places (Part III)

Exhibition view of Sonia Mehra Chawla’s film ‘Altered Growth: Inner Life of the Transformed’, from ‘The (Un) Divided Mind, International Art+ Science Residency at Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi. (2018) Image credit: Khoj International Artists’ Association, New Delhi.

Interconnected processes & locale specific answers to global changes in climate

Climate change and agriculture are interrelated processes. The current and ongoing phase of my artistic practice marks a close engagement with the present and future of India’s agriculture, with a focus on the impacts of climate change and salinity on rice ecosystems in coastal regions of India. This includes research on both indigenous and transgenic rice in India, climate adaptation and mitigation, and food and nutrition security.

Rice is one the most consumed foods on Earth. It is a staple in many countries including India where a large part of the population depends on the grain for sustenance. In fact, more than 90% of rice is produced and consumed in Asia. An enormous portion of rice production is lost to various abiotic stresses such as drought, flood, and salinity, and biotic stresses such as diseases and pests. In addition, changes in global climate are likely to make things vastly complicated for rice production in the future.

Essentially, fragility resulting from adverse environmental conditions linked to climate change, fundamentally alters the linkages between agriculture and nutrition outcomes. When margins are slender, vulnerability to adverse climate is magnified.  Sometimes this is a chronic and steadily worsening process that encourages migration with its own consequences, or even worse consequences with catastrophic climate events. Food shocks are a part of this. Then again, without the right kind of sustenance and security, climate refugees, people who are internally displaced today may become asylum seekers, refugees, or international migrants in the future.

Agriculture and rural development, on a local scale can make a strong contribution to meeting the global challenge of addressing large movements of refugees and migrants.

Again, if I look at my research on the impact of climate change on rice production and increasing sensitivity of rice to salinization, and because salinity tolerance in plants is a multi-genic trait, (which means that a single gene cannot confer the ability to be saline tolerant) there isn’t a single answer to the problem. The key idea then, is to raise a crop for locale specific as well as regional areas, which would provide locale specific answers to global changes in climate.

A work from Sonia Mehra Chawla’s ‘Scapelands’ series.

Work from Sonia Mehra Chawla’s ‘Scapelands’ series. Medium: Photopolymer etchings on archival paper. Printed in the UK in collaboration with London Print Studio. The research, production and International Residency at London Print Studio in 2014-15 was supported by British Council India and Charles Wallace India Trust. Image credit: British Council India.

A living vicious cycle of depredation

I have been exploring the fragile and endangered coastal and mangrove ecosystems along India’s Coromandel and Malabar coasts for over half a decade. The mangroves in India are over exploited and are declining and degrading rapidly. India has already lost over forty percent of its mangroves during the last century.  The Mangroves around coastal mega-cities in India like Mumbai for example, form a fragile ecosystem, and time and again, the rains in Mumbai and the disaster that follows has demonstrated the consequence of tampering with the ecology of these sensitive ecosystems.

The mangroves provide a preview of the challenges ahead for ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots across the planet. ‘Scapelands’ and ‘Critical Membrane’ are extensive series of works that I created between 2012 and 2018 on coastal and mangrove ecosystems of India. While ‘Scapelands’ explores the rich mangrove biodiversity of India, ‘Critical Membrane’ speaks about vast landscapes of loss, exploring past histories, politics, economics of consumption, and livelihoods and systems in flux. Documented extensively in degraded mangrove belts across India, these decaying ecosystems speak volumes about a living vicious cycle of depredation that is the tale of 21st century globalization.

Guest Blog: Local perspectives on a global phenomenon & global changes in local places (Part III) 5

Details from Sonia Mehra Chawla’s site specific installation ‘Residue’ at Yinchuan Biennale 2016. Image credit: Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China.

Through my work I hope to explore the relationship between the presented history and the contemporary moment and address such questions as: What does the current prominence of these works say about this moment in India’s history and society? How do the struggles of the past resonate with the protests of the present? Do these works represent a watershed year or a seminal moment in the representation of the nation’s history and culture? If so, what is the larger significance of these works and this historical moment?

A human centred approach – Connecting global, national and local standpoints

India is a supporter of climate justice. There is an urgent need to respect and protect human rights, and the rights of the most vulnerable while supporting the right to development, where the burden of climate change is fairly allocated and dispensed. Global warming is after all, not just environmental in nature, it is a political, social and ethical issue as well, which connects the local to the global, and developing nations to the developed nations of the world.

What we require most in a time of crisis is a human-centred approach.

There is an urgent need for a combined effort in mitigation and adaptation. Historical responsibilities matter and those who have greatest responsibility for greenhouse gas emissions and maximum capacity to act, must act in more meaningful ways to completely cut emissions.

Adapting to climate change is both a challenge and an opportunity. We need a cultural shift in our value-systems and ambitions to build a sustainable future block-by-block. There is an urgency to explore more inclusive, more flexible and more effective approaches to social transformation. A cultural shift provides a space for collective, improvisational and reflective modes of acting on, and thinking about a world of differentiated, multiple and uncertain futures, creating an emotional engagement and understanding needed to motivate meaningful change.

The artistic project (2018-2020)

I was invited to undertake the research arm of an artistic project with Edinburgh Printmakers in Aberdeen in June 2018. This research will inform an intensive print residency at Edinburgh Printmakers in spring 2019, and the outputs from this residency will be presented as part of a solo exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers beautiful new home at Castle Mill in 2020.

Edinburgh Printmakers will transform the former North British Rubber Company HQ- Castle Mills, into a vibrant new creative hub opening to the public in 2019.

Choosing focus areas

I hope this artistic project will serve as a platform and starting point for dialogue and conversations around some of the significant and pressing issues of our time such as the future of energy, the future of our oceans and marine life, society’s dependence on fossil fuels, just transitions, the global challenges of energy transitions, carbon reduction goals, as well as the human dimension of crisis.

End of Part III

This is the third blog of a three part series. Read Part I and Part II. 


Sonia Mehra Chawla is a contemporary Indian artist and researcher. She completed a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from College of Art, New Delhi in 2004-05. Her artistic practice explores notions of selfhood, nature, ecology, and sustainability. Sonia works in a variety of media including photography, printmaking, drawing, painting and video.

Sonia was a British Council India & Charles Wallace Scholar to the United Kingdom in 2014-15, for research in printmaking, and is currently the recipient of an International ‘Art+Science’ Grant Award instituted by Khoj International Artists’ Association India & the Wellcome Trust UK/DBT Alliance for 2017-18. She has recently been awarded a six-month Fellowship from the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Germany for the Art, Science and Business Program. Her works have been exhibited at the Institut Fur Auslansbeziehungen, Germany (Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations), Tate Modern, London, Essl Museum of Contemporary Art, Austria, Museum of Contemporary Art, Yinchuan, China, Goethe Institut, Mumbai, India, CSMVS Museum, Mumbai, India, ET4U Contemporary Visual Art Projects, Denmark, and Today Art Museum, Beijing, China.

The artist lives and works in New Delhi, India.

Further reading and information:

The artists’ official website: http://soniamehrachawla.in/

Edinburgh Printmakers: https://www.edinburghprintmakers.co.uk/

On Turning Toward: ‘Critical Membrane’ by Sonia Mehra Chawla, Heather Davis looks at the work of Sonia Mehra Chawla, as part of her look into Four Figures of Climate Change, July 2017

http://theo-westenberger.tumblr.com/post/162458052219/on-turning-toward-critical-membrane-by-sonia

Down To Earth, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/

‘The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable’, by Amitav Ghosh. Published by Penquin India.

‘Everybody Loves a Good Drought’, by P.Sainath. Published by Penquin India.

‘Ecology without nature: rethinking environmental aesthetics’, by Timothy Morton. Published by Harvard University Press.

‘Soil, Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an age of Climate Crisis’ by Vandana Shiva. Published by Penguin Random House.

‘Water Wars’, by Vandana Shiva.

‘From Green to Evergreen Revolution: Indian Agriculture, Performance & Challenges’, by Prof. M S Swaminathan. Published by Academic Foundation.

‘In Search of Biohappiness: Biodiversity and food, Health and Livelihood security’, by Prof. M S Swaminathan. Published by World Scientific.

‘Oil Strike North Sea’, by Mike Shepherd. Published by Luath Press.

‘The Klondykers’, by Bill Mackie. Published by Birlinn, Edinburgh (2006)

‘Old Torry and Aberdeen Harbour’, by Rosie Nicol & Particia Newman. Published by Stenlake Publishing Ltd, UK.

I am grateful for conversations and interactions with:

Dr. Prof. M S Swaminathan, Prof. Colin Moffat, Dr. Leslie Mabon Sass, Alison Stuart, Erik Dalhuijsen, Nicola Gordon, Dr. James Howie, Gemma Lawrence and Dr V.Selvam.

I am grateful to Edinburgh Printmakers. I extend my warmest thanks to Sarah Manning Shaw, Alastair Clark, Judith Liddle, and the brilliant team of Edinburgh Printmakers for their unfailing support, and look forward to a significant and meaningful collaboration over the next two years.

Contact:

soniamehrachawla.in

soniamehrachawla@gmail.com

admin@edinburghprintmakers.co.uk

The post Guest Blog: Local perspectives on a global phenomenon & global changes in local places (Part III) 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: The 34th Chelsea International Fine Art Competition

34th Chelsea International Fine Art Competition—Opens on February 5th, 2019

Agora Gallery is pleased to invite artists from across the globe to enter the 34th Annual Chelsea International Fine Art Competition. Selected artists will receive prizes and opportunities that will grant invaluable exposure, boost recognition, and promote career growth.

The 2019 competition awards are valued at more than $70,000. In addition to cash prizes, other awards include participation in the collective exhibition, featured magazine profiles, valuable PR opportunities, and an honorable mention. A portion of the gallery’s proceeds from artwork sales will be donated to the Children’s Heart Foundation.

The 2019 Chelsea International Fine Art Competition will be accepting submissions between February 5th and the deadline March 12th, 2019. Results will be announced on April 16th, 2019, with the competition exhibition slated for August 10–20, 2019.

Are you ready to take your career to the next level? Apply to be recognized by Agora’s reputable jury. Visit http://www.agora-gallery.com/competition for more information and detailed instructions on how to enter. You can also contact us at competition@agora-gallery.com.

The post OPPORTUNITY: The 34th Chelsea International Fine Art Competition 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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News: Black Coffee & Vinyl Presents: Ice Culture

Black Coffee & Vinyl Presents: Ice Culture features art, music and literature.

Black Coffee & Vinyl Presents: Ice Culture explores the beauty and mystery of our world’s ice, and reveals the necessity of ice to our human survival. The project explores the traditions and cultures of people connected to ice from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica, and raises vital concerns about climate change that can no longer be ignored. As climate change affects the weather and composition of our planet, our ice continues to melt. This reality affects all of us, regardless of where we live.

Ice Culture celebrates the physical and spiritual nature of ice. Ice has soul. It has a song. Ice radiates; it glows. It’s precious. Ice is a resource. Ice Culture showcases ice in all of its forms, from majestic glaciers to ice-carved musical instruments.

The diverse collection features art, music and literature by artists living and working in countries such as Greenland, Iceland, Canada, Germany, Norway, Japan and United States.

Check it out at www.blackcoffeevinyl.com.


Share your news!

This story was posted by Black Coffee & Vinyl. Creative Carbon Scotland is committed to being a resource for the arts & sustainability community and we invite you to submit news, blogs, opportunities and your upcoming events.

The post News: Black Coffee & Vinyl Presents: Ice Culture 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

Powered by WPeMatico

The Birth of a Climate Commons for Theatre and Performance

by Lanxing Fu

On a weekend in June, I sat in a blackbox theatre for three days with a group of mostly strangers.

We talked. We ate. We laughed. We challenged. We listened.

I heard the same refrain over and over again those three days. Wow, I’m so happy to be with others for once. It’s nice to be… un-lonely.

The Theatre in the Age of Climate Change Convening, hosted in Boston on 8-10 June 2018 gathered people together around a common purpose: to galvanize the community around making theatre and live performance in the age of climate change, to dissect and challenge the present ideas in this emerging field, and to distill all this talk into concrete, positive actions. Our earnest surprise at feeling seen and the joy of solidarity in people who felt they had spent years, decades, their entire lives talking into a void about the intersection of performance and climate are testament to how needed this convening was.

After we took some time to understand the landscape of this intersection of climate and performance, we broke off into groups to develop ideas for action. There were hard questions to ask and attempt to answer. Whose voices were not represented in the room that needed to be there? How can we use our collective power, and the many twisting, interconnected arms of this work to nourish our communities and our non-human brethren? What kinds of shifts in thought do we need to undertake ourselves as we work to shift larger consciousness? How can our collective action outrun the changing atmosphere? It was rich. It was inspiring as hell. The breadth of skills and knowledge expanded my mind like crazy. The voices in the room were beautifully articulate at calling in others who were not. It was far from smooth and sometimes contentious. We all fought the urge to perform when the microphone was in our hand and the cameras were on our faces. Some got lost in the language. Others struggled to be heard. We were as human as can be, as human as any group of humans trying to do something together— the weight of our own egos held in taut balance with strong, strong passion for our collective goal.

The weekend had started off with a cold splash of water to the face. We learned in our opening conversation that The Guardian’s Carbon Countdown Clock gives us just over eighteen years until we exceed the IPCC’s 2C carbon budget, if our emissions stay as they are now. Eighteen years to figure this mess out. Eighteen years to put systems in place to take care of people as the effects of climate change get worse and worse, to shift radically the way we relate to each other, our economy, and the land. In the same span of time as it takes the average American kid to journey from infanthood to adulthood, we need to “fucking save the planet.”

Lanxing Fu and other convening participants. Photo by Blair Nodelman.

From this urgency, this joy of togetherness, this friction of brains and bodies meeting, grew an idea like a sprig of bamboo racing towards the sun. One working group, though I cannot separate this group from the work of the group at large, seeded the idea of a Climate Commons for Theatre and Performance. An expression of our desire for horizontal connectivity, the Climate Commons takes its shape from mycelia, the underground, branching, threadlike fungal colonies that can grow to the size of 1600 football fields. We imagine that this is a network of interconnected nodes of activity at the intersection of performance and ecology, sharing knowledge, strategies, resources like mycelia share sustenance, across vast distances and through all forms of terrain. These nodes could potentially consist of geographic clusters of people already present at the conference; Miami, Boston, New York City, New Orleans, DC, Los Angeles, Standing Rock, Amherst, São João del Rei, London, Abu Dhabi. And it should necessarily expand to include people and geographies not present in the conference, in the Global South, in rural communities, in the Arctic, in the East. You can visit the HowlRound Theatre in the Age of Climate Change Convening page for updates on our progress with Climate Commons, and to learn how to get involved as it grows.

Convening participants. Photo by Carolina Gonzalez.

One big statement of intent that came forward is that we want to foster the kinds of imaginations that are needed in the future. We want to specifically examine what live performance can bring to the table in service of that pursuit. How do we tackle such a huge endeavor? Step one, understand what we have to work with. Because we were together for a short, intensive period of time, we left Boston having only scratched the surface of the wealth of knowledge and experience in the room. A few members of this group are leading an interview series, in which we who attended the convening interview each other, to dive deeper into the work we do in our home communities in order to gain a holistic understanding of where we are beginning. We want to uplift each other by tapping into and amplifying the abundance of energy, artistry, resilience, and skill that has been driving these kinds of revolutions for centuries.

Without knowing exactly where we are going, or what our ultimate goal is, we are moving forward with the knowledge that we want to keep connecting. We want to keep connecting because it’s easy to not. It’s easy to silo ourselves off into the narrowness of day-to-day life and keep putting on the lenses that already fit. Because the challenge of a global crisis demands that we be more expansive than we are individually built to be, we hope to establish a body that acts as a broker across distances and differences, bringing people together around the shared goal of using performance to change the story around climate and build a more equitable world.

(Top image: Convening participants having a small group discussion. Photo by Blair Nodelman.)

This article was originally published on HowlRound, a knowledge commons by and for the theatre community, on September 18, 2018.

For more on the convening, read MJ Halberstadt’s Art on a Damaged Planet: The Theatre in the Age of Climate Change Convening.

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Lanxing Fu is a Chinese-American writer, director, and performer. She is the co-director of Superhero Clubhouse, for which she is program director of The Living Stage NYC and a co-creator of Pluto (no longer a play) and Jupiter (a play about power). She has collaborated on and led interdisciplinary projects on globalization and the environment through research in Sri Lanka, Morocco, Turkey, and the United States through The Center for 21st Century Studies, as previous associate director of Critical Point Theatre, and as an ensemble member of Building Home, working in the New River Valley. She participated in JACK’s “Creating Dangerously” series, led by Virginia Grise and Kyla Searle, has trained with SITI Company for two years, and is an alumnus of Orchard Project’s Core Company. She holds a B.A. in Humanities, Science, and Environment and a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Virginia Tech.

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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: CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS! Our Space, Our Place: Creating Ecofeminism

Proposals for 20-minute contributions for Our Space, Our Place: Creating Ecofeminism.

The event:

Our Space, Our Place: Creating Ecofeminism
Glasgow Women’s Library
Saturday 30th March 2019 10am-4pm

Global ecological activism is built on the work of women. Yet the value of women’s environmental campaigning and action often remains invisible.

Our Space, Our Place: Creating Ecofeminism, a partnership between researchers at universities across Scotland and Glasgow Women’s Library, calls together ecofeminist academics, environmental campaigners, writers, artists, community workers and performers for a day of papers, performances and workshops, exploring how ecofeminist theory and practice can unite to imagine and realise optimistic responses to our changing world.

Our aim is to share and discuss the diverse and daring work being done by women around environmental themes, including academic research, creative explorations and in participation with communities.

Invitation for proposals:

We invite proposals for 20-minute contributions from women with an interest in researching, understanding and describing women and ecology, women and the land and ecofeminism. We welcome proposals for academic papers in language accessible to the non- expert, performances, monologues, readings, presentations, workshops, demonstrations, film showings and any other original, interactive suggestions.

Themes could include, but are not limited to:

  • Women and climate change
  • Women and the politics of environment/environmental policy
  • Barriers to women’s participation in environmental activism
  • Diaspora and women’s experiences of environment and
    ecology
  • The individual and the community in environmental thought
  • Global women’s perspectives
  • The history of ecofeminist theory and practice
  • ‘Mother Earth’ and ‘Mother Nature’ as helpful/problematic ideas
  • Periods, pollution and poverty
  • The role of language in environmental discourse
  • Women and food sovereignty
  • Sensory responses to the landscape, nature and ecologies
  • Women and vegetarianism/veganism
  • Environmental degradation as a factor in women’s power
  • Ecofeminism and the geopolitical
  • LGBTQ+ ecological action
  • Representations of women and environment in film and literature
  • Women and non-human animal rights and welfare
  • Disability and accessibility in environmental activism
  • Race, racism and the environmental movement
  • Women’s labour on the land, including agriculture and gardening
  • Creative and artistic interpretations of activism and environment
  • Women and cartography

How to submit a proposal:

We welcome all proposals and would invite you to get in touch with any questions about the event. Please send a short proposal (300 words max) and a brief biography (200 words max) to creatingecofeminism@gmail.com by Friday 25th January 2018

The post OPPORTUNITY: CALL FOR CONTRIBUTORS! Our Space, Our Place: Creating Ecofeminism appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

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

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

Powered by WPeMatico

What Gives You Hope?

The least we can say is that 2018 has been challenging – politically, socially, environmentally. At times, many times, it seemed like for every step forward, we took two steps back. Not only did the political pendulum swing dangerously towards authoritarianism this year, but basic civil rights were taken away, and our sense of safety was severely challenged by an onslaught of natural disasters.

The publication of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in October, which warned that we have less than fifteen years to lower our carbon emissions and keep warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, also contributed to this unease. Our window of opportunity for preventing the worst is closing fast and the actions being taken by those in power are still dreadfully inadequate.

But still, life goes on and we have to find ways to push ahead despite the challenges; in fact, we have no choice but to embrace the challenges. So, to mark the end of the year and the metaphorical turning of the page, the Core Team of Artists & Climate Change asked a few people what gives them hope. What makes them get out of bed in the morning? How do they stay positive in the face of so much uncertainty? We invite you to answer the question too, by leaving a comment below. We all need these beacons of light as we embark on a new year and get ready for what lies ahead.

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Eve Mosher

Susan Hoffman Fishman: Eve Mosher is an environmental artist living and working in New York City. Her large-scale interactive, public art projects address cultural and social issues of the urban ecosystem. One of Mosher’s most well-known work is High Water Line | NYC, which she first created in 2007 and has since adapted for the cities of Miami, Philadelphia, Delray Beach and Bristol, England. The project uses art to visualize how climate change will specifically impact individual communities. I chose Eve because I am particularly drawn to the way in which she develops inventive and effective ways of engaging the public in her work.

Eve: I have been closely watching the school strikes on behalf of climate change solutions, which were started by Greta Thurnberg in Sweden and then taken up by students in the UK, Australia and Germany. (and on Friday, December 7th, by young people in New York City). These young voices rising up around the world are speaking their own generation’s truth.

We have solutions, we have the knowledge for combatting climate change, which are available from indigenous people, scientists, individuals working in and with the land and water, etc. but world leaders lack the will (right now) to make these changes. It will take a shift in culture to move more people to action around climate solutions. And the culture shift is already being tackled by many active and passionate cultural producers around the world. Artists, musicians, performers, designers and others are showing us all what is possible.

With a rising up of voices and a shifting of culture around climate solutions, we can make a new world. I read plenty of articles around climate disasters, I am not blind to that, but imagining a world in which the solutions are realized, where there is more justice, better infrastructure and radical ideas that are reshaping our environment – that is what gives me hope.

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Modesto Flako Jimenez

Chantal Bilodeau: Modesto Flako Jimenez is a Dominican-born, Bushwick-raised theatermaker, producer, and educator. He is best known for original productions and three signature festivals – Ghetto Hors D’Oeuvres, One Catches Light, and Oye! Avant Garde Night! – produced with his company Oye Group. In 2018, Flako became the first Dominican-American Lead Artist in The Public Theater Under The Radar Festival with his show Oye For My Dear Brooklyn. He was also a guest speaker at the 2018 Artists & Climate Change Incubator, has worked extensively with Superhero Clubhouse, and is someone I love to turn to for some good, down-to-earth insights.

Flako: To be honest, what gives us hope in terms of climate change at the Oye Group is the younger generations of kids working hard to learn more about our environment and ways to protect it.  When we were kids, we weren’t spending nearly enough time in school learning about how to recycle, compost, or use materials in an eco-friendly way. Now, through our involvement with New York Public Schools, we  are seeing that kids are striving more and more to use things in an environmentally friendly way. It’s inspiring me to make more steps in my life and my art to be more green and hopefully inspire the generations older than us to do the same.  

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Blake Sugarman

Julia Levine: Blake Sugarman is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. He finds expression as an actor, musician, poet, and activist but is best known for his unusual solo performances which have been described as “spoken word and installation art in a theatrical duet.” Earlier this year, I wrote about Blake’s latest solo piece, Prelude to the Apocalypse (For What It’s Worth). I wanted to circle back to Blake, in the context of his involvement with Sunrise Movement during this midterm election year.

Blake: The thing that gives me hope right now is the radical new leadership we’re seeing emerge in the fight for a Green New Deal. Young people from Sunrise Movement helped get Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez elected and now she’s walking the talk and sticking by our side. Together, Ocasio-Cortez and Sunrise made waves last month after a sit-in at Nancy Pelosi’s office and are forcing a more meaningful and urgent conversation around climate. The call for a “Green New Deal” seems to really resonate with people in a way that market-driven climate policies in the past have not. I think the “12 years” slogan (based on the latest IPCC report) could be a game-changer too as it shakes people from the delusion that this is something we can afford to put off. Democrats can no longer just say “climate change is real” and move on to something else – young people won’t let them. Sunrise came back to Capitol Hill in December with even greater numbers. I was able to attend this time and was very inspired. I urge you to tell your representative to “support the creation of a Select Committee for a Green New Deal” in the House. This could be a big moment!

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Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI)

LAGI, Land Art, Land Art Generator, Elizabeth Monoian, Robert Ferry

Joan Sullivan: In my previous post, I explained that “While renewable energy art is not yet mainstream, it is definitely headed in that direction, thanks in large part to the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI), whose tagline Renewable Energy Can Be Beautiful speaks for itself.” Founded in 2009 by co-directors Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry, LAGI is a bold multi-faceted, multidisciplinary global collaborative platform to accelerate the energy transition by challenging creatives – artists, architects, designers, landscape architects, engineers and scientists – to design site-specific public art installations that generate carbon-neutral utility-scale clean electricity. It is called solutions-based art: part renewable power generators, part large-scale public art installations. More than any other organization, LAGI is helping us all to visualize – to imagine – what our post-carbon future will look like. And it promises to be beautiful.

Elizabeth & Robert: The thing that most keeps us grounded is the gravity of this time in human history – the great energy transition. The naysayers and denialists are still out there, but it’s easier to remind ourselves of how inevitable the transition is when we see how community groups, municipalities, and businesses have taken up the mantle. Global investors and reinsurers are issuing warnings louder than the climate scientists, pointing to a carbon bubble of soon-to-be stranded assets. The falling price of solar and other renewable energy technologies means not only that their implementation will continue to increase, but that their use can become more democratized as well. It opens up opportunities to use clean energy technology in creative and inclusive ways, and to engage the community in the design of the distributed energy systems and microgrids that power their neighborhoods.

While it may not be so easy to see the forest for the trees (especially when they are burning), we are already living in a new culture of stewardship. The 20th century ways of thinking about systems and infrastructure design through the lens of dominion over nature are falling away. As creatives living during this time, we have an opportunity to help design beautiful renewable energy landscapes that can stand for generations and serve as monuments to future generations, reminding them that, when we awoke to the crisis of anthropogenic climate change, we did our best to respond to the challenge.

What gives us hope are youth climate activists and innovators such as Georgia Hutchinson, age 13, who won the top prize of $25,000 at the Broadcom Masters nationwide STEM competition for middle-school students for her invention – a data-driven dual-axis solar tracker for solar modules that can locate the sun at any time by relying on geospatial information and publicly available databases. Her innovation may have just brought the price of solar down yet again, and we’re looking forward to seeing how her generation will bring forward the heyday of the great energy transition in ways that are equitable and beautiful. 

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Mike van Graan

Chantal Bilodeau: Mike van Graan is the President of the African Cultural Policy Network and an award-winning playwright. He is the 2018 recipient of the Sweden-based Hiroshima Foundation for Peace and Culture Award in recognition of his contribution to the fight against apartheid, to building a post-apartheid society and to the interface of peace and culture both in South Africa and across the African continent. Mike is also one of the 50 playwrights writing for Climate Change Theatre Action 2019 and someone who lives in one of the regions most affected by climate change.

Mike: According to Greenpeace, Africa contributes relatively little to global warming and yet as a region, it does – and will increasingly – suffer the effects of climate change with 180 million Sub-Saharan Africans estimated to die by the turn of the century as the result of unpredictable rainfall patterns, lower crop yields, higher food prices and increasing desertification.

There is an urgent need for changes in
economic structures, political leadership and culture to arrest and reverse
climate change, and the greed, intransigence and selfishness reflected in
societies that currently enjoy globally hegemony tends us towards pessimism.

But my generation has lived through the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the break-up of the Soviet Union, the demise of apartheid, the ridding of dictatorships in various Arab countries, not least through sustained active citizenry. History appears to happen in cycles and while we may be in a dark cycle now, through active citizens globally, the wheel WILL turn and, and history will smile on greater humanity.

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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.

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Opportunity: Call for applications for artists residency on Urban Rejuvenation

Residency in Luxembourg for young European visual artists to work on the theme of urban rejuvenation

The European Investment Bank Institute is looking for ONE visual artist (born after 1 January 1984) from an EU Member State to work on the theme of “Urban rejuvenation: Limerick as a source of inspiration”. The beneficiaries will be offered a 6 week-long residency in Luxembourg, enabling them to develop their practice and create a new (body of) work(s), boosted by the mentorship of a high-profile established artist. In 2019, the recipients will each be mentored by acclaimed Finnish artist Jorma Puranen.

Eligibility

  • Born after 1 January 1984 (≤35 years old)
  • EU nationality
  • Fluency in English

Budget and duration

The EIB Institute will cover the artists travel costs to and from Luxembourg (for the residency), and to and from Jorma Puranen’s studio (before the start of the residency). The artists will receive a EUR 100 flat-rate daily allowance intended to cover their subsistence costs during the period of residency and all or part of their production costs, and will be provided with a living/working space.

In addition to the above, the artists will be granted, at the beginning of the residency, a contribution towards production of EUR 500 and, at the end of the residency, a success fee of EUR 1 000, provided that they have produced a work or body of works. The residency in Luxembourg will take place between the end of May and the beginning of July 2019.

Upon completion of the residency, the EIB might consider acquiring an artwork produced on-site from the artist. In the event that the EIB agrees to acquire an artwork, it will feature in the exhibition Belonging – works from the collection of the European Investment Bank, to take place in Limerick, Ireland, in 2020.

Application procedure

  • CV (in English)
  • Scanned copy of the passport or identity card of the applicant evidencing nationality
  • A letter of motivation, in English, with ideas to be explored during the residency, in line with the proposed theme (maximum 500 words)
  • Portfolio of visual documentation of works, maximum 8 images, best representing the art of the applicant (in PDF format, A4 pages)
  • Names and contact details of two professional referees familiar with the art of the applicant
  • A brief reference in the body of the email to how the applicant found out about the programme

Selection procedure

A jury – consisting of Jorma Puranen (the mentor), external art advisers and members of the EIB Arts Committee – will select the candidates based on the artistic quality of their work, their motivation and their potential to make the most of the opportunity offered by the residency, and the relevance of their practice to the cultural context of the EIB Institute.

The selected candidates will be informed of the jury’s decision by email in March 2019.

Application deadline

Midnight (GMT+1) Wednesday, 23 January 2019.

Applications packages should be sent by e-mail to Ms Delphine Munro and not exceed 12 MB.


The post Opportunity: Call for applications for artists residency on Urban Rejuvenation 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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Imagining Water, #15: When Antarctica Comes to Town

Environmental artist Xavier Cortada is highly passionate about the reality of rising seas, the loss of biodiversity and how the inevitable floods to come will literally “drown” his hometown of Miami, Florida. In response to this urgent existential threat, Cortada has focused much of his recent work on climate change within his own community, including: (1) Underwater HOA, an inventive participatory project using 6000+ lawn signs happening this month in Pinecrest, Florida; (2) Global Coastlines, an exhibition of his Antarctic ice paintings currently taking place at Pinecrest Gardens, a 20-acre park in Pinecrest, and; (3) his ongoing mangrove Reclamation Project now in its twelfth year. Cortada’s commitment to creating art on climate change in general, and rising seas in particular, was influenced by a number of pivotal experiences in his life. In a recent phone conversation, Cortada and I discussed the circuitous path that led him to this moment as well as the conceptual framework behind his work.

To begin with, Cortada did not always make art. With graduate degrees in business and law, he entered the professional world in 1991 working with juvenile delinquents and gang members as what he called “a community-based problem solver.” In subsequent years, as he conducted similar projects in numerous developing countries, he started using art as a problem-solving vehicle that provided participants with a non-threatening way to express themselves and develop connections with one another. At the same time, he was honing his community building skills.

Reclamation Project

Cortada became a full-time professional artist in 1996, but it wasn’t until 2006 that he developed his first large-scale environmental art project. As he explained to me, it was the destruction of his “beloved mangroves” for the purpose of widening the road along an 18-mile stretch connecting the continental US to the Florida Keys that moved him to create the participatory eco-art project entitled Reclamation Project. Serving as breeding grounds for fish and protection against erosion during storms, mangroves are vital for coastal ecosystems in tropical and sub-tropical climates. Today, 50% of the world’s mangrove forests have been destroyed. Cortada’s goal was to invite individuals in the Miami-Dade County to learn about and then participate in addressing the disappearance of this important native vegetation.

For the initial project, community volunteers gathered mangrove propagules (seedlings) and planted them in plastic cups that were installed in a grid format in shop and restaurant windows along Lincoln Road in Miami Beach during the international art fair Art Basel 2006. Three weeks later, when the propagules matured, they planted them at designated areas on the coastline, “reclaiming the place for nature.” This process continued from 2006-2012 until the Miami Science Museum agreed to host the project as its on-going citizen volunteer coastal restoration project, which continues today and follows the original model developed by Cortada. Reclamation Project has also been installed in numerous other sites across Florida and outside the state. Cortada calls the project “art in the service of science” and is so significant that a curriculum on the mangroves has been developed by the Science Museum and taught in every public school in the county.

IMG_3970.jpg
Xavier Cortada, “Reclamation Project.” Mangrove propagules propagating in cups in a wall grid installation. Courtesy of the artist.

 Global Coastlines

 Just as the destruction of a stretch of mangroves in his own neighborhood became a pivotal event in the development of Cortada’s art, so too was his experience as a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artists and Writers program fellow in 2006-2007. As he described it,

Sitting in the McMurdo lab, I saw the spectacular mountains and valleys. Scientists brought back sediment samples and natural elements… it was an extraordinary experience to see the micro elements that created the continent.

Cortada began to improvise with the materials at hand and for the first time, created abstract, conceptual pieces, which reflected the melting ice that scientists said would be coming to coastlines all over the world. In all, Cortada made 100 of these images using sea ice, sediment and mixed media. Thirty-eight paintings have been shown in previous exhibitions – the remaining sixty-two have never been seen and are currently on view at Pinecrest Garden, Florida, where Cortada now serves as an artist-in-residence.

astrid.jpg
Xavier Cortada, “Antarctica Ice Painting.” Sea ice from the Antarctica Ross Sea, sediment from Antarctica’s dry valleys and mixed media on paper, 2007. Courtesy of the artist.

Underwater HOA

 In partnership with the Village of Pinecrest, Florida, the University of Miami’s Abess Center for Ecosystem Science and Policy, Florida International University Sea Level Solutions Center as well as Eyes on the Rise, and using the community building skills he has honed over the years, Cortada developed Underwater HOA (Home Owner Association), his latest large-scale, participatory art project. Beginning on December 2, 2018, and coinciding with Art Basel (December 6-9), Cortada encouraged 6000 households in Pinecrest, “to place lawn signs on their properties that designate how many feet of glacier ice must melt before the individual properties are fully under water.” The numbers on the signs range from 0-17. By mapping the town in this way and putting images from his ice paintings on the signs themselves, Cortada is involving an entire community in asking the question, “What are we going to do about this problem?” As he explained to me, he is “making the invisible visible.” He is bringing the reality of melting ice and rising tides to participants’ homes and doorsteps, the personal places that are supposed to feel safe. Cortada’s choice to use what he calls “strange, conspicuous lawn signs,” which call to mind political election paraphernalia, is a nod to the political factors that are holding back solutions to this inevitable danger.

An HOA or home owner association is usually associated with the group of individuals/families who, together, determine the rules and fees that will govern condos or other forms of common property. HOA is part of the project’s title because, beyond the lawn sign installation, Cortada has developed a homeowner association for the families that participated in “Underwater HOA.” It is Cortada’s hope that by creating a vehicle for them to come together to talk with one another about sea level rise, he is creating a “cadre of informed and sophisticated residents” who will work together and with relevant entities to “start problem solving for the future.” Although Cortada admits that he is often depressed, angry and frustrated by the lack of progress towards a solution to climate change issues, he considers himself an optimist and “still believes in the ability of mankind to get this right” before Antarctica comes to town.

(Top image: Xavier Cortada, Underwater HOA sign marking how many feet the sea must rise in order to flood this property, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.)

This article is part of Imagining Water, a series on artists of all genres who are making the topic of water a focus of their work and on the growing number of exhibitions, performances, projects and publications that are popping up in museums, galleries and public spaces around the world with water as a theme.

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Susan Hoffman Fishman is a painter, public artist, writer, and educator whose work has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries throughout the U.S. Her latest bodies of work focus on the threat of rising tides caused by climate change, the trillions of pieces of plastic in our oceans and the wars that are predicted to occur in the future over access to clean water. She is also the co-creator of two interactive public art projects: The Wave, which addresses our mutual need for and interdependence on water and Home, which calls attention to homelessness and the lack of affordable housing in our cities and towns.

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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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Applications Open: Regenerative Travel MFA for Artists of the Anthropocene

The Nomad/9 MFA offers artists a relevant, field-based approach to graduate studies. Created in 2015, Nomad/9 is a rigorous, low-residency program with a high-impact curriculum that includes ecology, history, culture, and craft. The curriculum provides a thoughtfully curated set of residencies which augment each student’s in-depth thesis advising with artists Christy Gast and Mary Mattingly. During residencies, visiting faculty teach courses in that utilize each site as a learning lab, such as:

  • Mark Dion addressing the sub-tropic ecosystems in the Everglades of South Florida
  • Muriel Hasbun on Central American art, cultural memory and diaspora in El Salvador
  • Ramona Kitto Stately teaching Dakota culture through beading in Minneapolis
  • Allison Smith offering a class on protest textiles in her studio in Oakland
  • Linda Weintraub addressing Eco Materialism in Rhinebeck, New York
  • Nico Wheadon teaching Professional Practices for Public Art through the Studio Museum of Harlem
  • Caroline Woolard teaching Art and Economies at Brooklyn Commons

This unusual curriculum is the result of founder and director Carol Padberg’s application of ecological design principals to graduate pedagogy, with a focus on ethical culture. The resulting graduate program is built for a diverse student body of artists from a variety of disciplines and divergent points of view. Socially engaged artists, artist educators, interdisciplinary practitioners, eco artists, craftspeople, and artists with an interest in new forms and collaborations are encouraged to apply. Applications for the incoming Cohort 4 are now available online at nomad9mfa.org, with a deadline for Scholarship Consideration of February 1, 2019.

Additional information
http://www.nomad9mfa.org/
http://www.nomad9mfa.org/how-to-apply/
http://www.nomad9mfa.org/get-in-touch/
http://www.nomad9mfa.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/UHart_IDMFA_18web.pdf
https://www.instagram.com/nomad9_mfa/