Monthly Archives: August 2021

Job: Public relations manager

Creative Carbon Scotland, Job Posting
We have a fantastic opportunity for a skilled public relations manager to join us on a part-time (three days/week) basis. 
  • Do you have a proven track record of profile-raising with the media, government departments, and other influencers? 
  • Are you keen to support our work and strengthen our position as a change agent in both the cultural and climate change worlds? 
  • Are you an experienced and persuasive writer? 

If this sounds like you, we’re keen to hear from you.

The role in a nutshell 

Hours: Part-time 0.6FTE (22.5 hours per week)  

Salary: Â£18,786pa (£31,310pa pro rated to 0.6FTE), plus 3% employer contribution to pension 

Fixed term role: ASAP to 31st March 2022 (with a view to extend depending on funding). Alternatively, we are open to considering a freelance contract by negotiation.   

Location: Creative Carbon Scotland is based in Edinburgh, but remote working is standard at present. Any change to this prior to the end of the contract will be discussed with the postholder. If the role is extended past 31st March 2022, the postholder will be required to work in the office for a negotiated number of days each week. 

Deadline for applications: 11:59pm, 5th September 2021  

Interviews (including a 15-minute written exercise): Virtually, in the week commencing Monday 13th September 2021 

Read summary details of the role [HERE] and download the PDF of the full job description and person specification.

Please complete the form at the end of this page to apply.

More about the role  

Creative Carbon Scotland supports the cultural sector in contributing to Scotland’s transformation for a climate-changed world. We are seeking a public relations professional with at least three years’ experience. Our new colleague will be proactive and highly organised with excellent writing skills, attention to detail, and the ability to scout out the best opportunities for promoting an organisation’s work and activities. They will be a confident and persuasive communicator and a positive collaborator. We are looking for someone with flair and imagination. 

Creative Carbon Scotland promotes a diverse and inclusive working environment. We value the range of views and experiences that new colleagues can contribute to our thinking and so we welcome applications from everyone with suitable skills and experience for this role. Our equalities policy is available on our website alongside our Safe Working Statement if you wish to read them prior to completing your application. 

Main purpose of job: 
  • To manage the organisation’s external media communications and public relations activities in order to strengthen our reputation and position us a change agent in both the cultural and climate change worlds. 
Main tasks: 
  • Be the first contact for all proactive and reactive media work, locally, nationally and internationally, to raise awareness of Creative Carbon Scotland’s work and the importance of the cultural sector’s contribution to tackling climate change (70%) 
  • Support and contribute to other communications activities in liaison with the communications manager, general manager and other CCS colleagues e.g., social media, website, fundraising (20%) 
  • Contribute to CCS team initiatives and discussions (10%) 

Your application information 

Before we pass your application to our recruitment panel, we will remove your personal data to help them avoid bias during the shortlisting process. 

We will only use the personal data you provide in your application for the purpose of completing this recruitment process. All records created during the course of this process will be permanently deleted once the appointee is under contract. For more information on how we handle your data, take a look at our Information Security and Data Protection Policy.

How to apply

Applications will only be accepted via the application form below unless alternative arrangements are made. If you wish to make alternative arrangements or have any problems in using the site (for example, if you are experiencing digital exclusion or have specific accessibility requirements), please contact Gemma Lawrence or phone/text 07533 832467 to seek assistance in good time before the closing date of 11:59pm BST on 5th September 2021. Your interactions with us on accessibility will remain confidential and will not be shared with the recruitment panel. 

Download the job description and person specification and study it carefully prior to completing the application form below. We will use evidence of the skills and experience in your application, compared against our person specification, to select candidates for interview. Please make sure that you fit the requirements and demonstrate this in your answers to the questions on the application form.

As part of your application, please complete our Equal Opportunities Monitoring Survey. The application form will ask you to confirm that you have done so. NB: This is anonymous and the information provided will not affect your application in any way.

If you would like to discuss the role or have any questions, please contact Gemma Lawrence.

The closing date for applications is 11.59pm on Sunday 5th September 2021.

Interviews will be held remotely via MS Teams in the week commencing Monday 13th September and will include a 15-minute written exercise. Shortlisted candidates will be contacted via email to arrange.

APPLY HERE

NB: due to the fixed-term nature of the role and Creative Carbon Scotland’s circumstances, this opportunity is only open to those who already have the right to work in the UK.

The post Job: Public relations manager 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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Guapamacátaro Art & Ecology: Interdisciplinary Residency in Art & Ecology

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3 WEEKS OF RENEWAL,
COLLABORATION AND CREATIVITY

Our program has been around for 15 years, granting space and production support for people who are doing innovative work worldwide, across the arts and sciences. During their stay (25 days), participants use the hacienda grounds as a laboratory for the creative process and engaging with the local community. They are free to work whenever desired in the provided studios and anywhere in the property. Experimentation is encouraged as is discourse and collaboration. 

WINTER SESSION: JANUARY 10 – 30, 2022

Up to 8 people per session are selected from a mix of the following disciplines:

  • Performing Arts (Music, Dance, Performance, Theater, Puppetry, etc)
  • Visual Arts (Painting, Drawing, Mixed-Media, Photography, Video, etc)
  • Sculpture and Installation
  • Design and Architecture
  • Humanities and Social Sciences (Anthropology, Philosophy, Writing, etc)
  • Natural Sciences (Ecology, Hydrology, Biology, Geology, etc)
S U P P O R T
  • LIVE/WORK SPACE: Single or double occupancy bedrooms and studios, plus common areas at the hacienda, at NET COST.
  • PRODUCTION ASSISTANCE to realize one or more projects while in residency.
  • PUBLIC EXHIBITION at the Open House event on the last week of the residency.
C O S T S
  • LIVING EXPENSES: All utilities, cleaning services, drinking water and three prepared meals per day at NET COST: $1,200 USD for the 25 days ($40 USD per day).
  • TRANSPORTATION: We do not cover transportation expenses beyond the arrival and departure van from/to Mexico City, but can assist you in pursuing additional funding with other sources, to cover expenses such as international flights and additional local transportation. Some funding options here:
A D D I T I O N A L    S U P P O R T
  • 1 HALF SCHOLARSHIP (pay only 50% of the living expenses) for participants residing in Mexico, Central America, South America or the Caribbean. Awarded based on merits and financial need. Must provide proof of residence. 

SIMPLE ONLINE APPLICATION – DUE SEPTEMBER 1st AT MIDNIGHT

DETAILS

APPLY

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The Guapamacátaro Center for Art and Ecology is a site-basedand community-oriented initiative where artists from different disciplines, scientists, educators and activists converge to foster culture, collaboration and sustainable development.

M I C H O A C A N,  M E X I C O
www.guapamacataro.org

Scottish Classical Music Green Guide Released

Creative Carbon Scotland

The Scottish Classical Music Green Guide is out now! A free guide written collaboratively by over 30 orchestras, ensembles, festivals and individual musicians from across Scotland, it contains knowledge on how to reduce carbon emissions in all aspects of your work. The guide is intended to be relevant and useful to you whether you are an individual musician, part of a team, or in a position of leadership.

Read and download the Scottish Classical Music Green Guide here

The guide was put together by The Scottish Classical Sustainability Group. Founded in 2020, the group – for the first time – brought together all of Scotland’s major orchestras, as well as many of the other ensembles, festivals and individual musicians that comprise the nation’s thriving classical ecosystem, to discuss their responses to the climate crisis on a regular basis. The group was inspired by the flourishing Green Arts Initiative, and the work of Creative Carbon Scotland, with whom the group partnered to produce this guide.

Here are some suggestions from the Scottish Classical Sustainability Group for how to make the most of the guide:

  • Share it widely within your network: with friends and colleagues, different teams across your organisation – including musicians, and with senior management staff, and board/committee members.
  • Discuss it: online or in person. A discussion of the guide will provide a good opportunity to create momentum, engage in meaningful conversations and agree on actions.
  • Make it visible: the more people who read the guide, the more effective it will be! You can share it on social media and add news stories or blog posts to your website linking to the guide.
  • Arrange an event: if you would like to arrange an event for staff or audiences to talk about the ideas in the guide, and would like members of the Scottish Classical Sustainability Group to talk at this, drop them an email at: georgina@nevisensemble.org

The post Scottish Classical Music Green Guide Released 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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Elegizing Ice

Artists and Climate Change

By Susan Hoffman Fishman

New York-based artist and educator Jaanika Peerna grew up in Estonia during the Soviet era. Her drawings, installations, and performances all embody a sense of constant movement and change, either chaotic or orderly, that personifies the elements of water, ice, wind, air, and light. Peerna attributes many of the choices she has made about the materials she uses as well as her working methods to her childhood in her native land of ice and greyscale colors along the Baltic Sea. It was there where her body learned to embrace the movements specific to gliding on ice, where she observed the varied lines that skates made on the surface of ice, and where she mastered the use of the limited art materials available in the local Soviet-style school system – especially drawing with pencils on paper. To this day, she sees all of her work as drawing, “whether it is video or light installations, placing works in a room, drawing in space, leaving lines on paper, traces of movement and now performance.”

Ice skaters in Tallin, Estonia, Jaanika Peerna’s hometown. She spent four to five months each year outdoors on the ice.

Peerna moved to the United States 23 years ago. In 2009, she discovered the polyester film known as Mylar in her father-in-law’s architectural studio. It subsequently became the primary material she uses for her work. With its transparent, durable, and smooth qualities, Mylar reminded Peerna of ice. Around the same time that she adopted Mylar as her material of choice, she came across Stabilo water soluble, pigment pencils and admired the fat, dense lines they made. By chance, she moved one of the black pencils across a sheet of Mylar in her studio and saw how the line glided along the surface of the material without friction, like ice skates on ice. Using these black pencils on Mylar and with broad movements of her body, she began a number of large-scale drawings, which she ultimately called her Maelstrom series.

Movements in Grey, showing Jaanika Peerna at work in her studio, 2015

In 2009, Peerna exhibited her new work in Beacon, New York at the Go North Gallery and then in 2010, exhibited a second series of drawings on Mylar that she called Storms. Looking out of the window at the opening reception for the Storm drawings, she saw her friend Jane Thornquist, a dancer, moving her body outside in response to the drawings. Delighted at her friend’s reaction to her work, Peerna suggested that they develop a performance during which she would draw and Thornquist would then react to the drawing with movement. Based on the success of that effort and Peerna’s growing interest in performance, they collaborated a year later in New York City on a second piece that became a “call and response,” with each responding to what the other was doing. 

Maelstrom, pigment pencil on Mylar, 36” x 36”, 2010

Over the following years, Peerna continued to develop large-scale work with Mylar as well as performances at exhibition openings and/or closings. In 2014, she spent a pivotal year in Berlin where there were many more opportunities to practice public performance than had been available to her in the U.S. In 2018, wanting more direct interaction with her audiences, she created her iconic work, Glacier Elegy, an on-going project which incorporates audience members as critical components of the performances themselves. 

Glacier Elegy consists of Peerna herself, one or more large “scrolls” of Mylar or other sculptural elements formed from Mylar, water soluble pigment pencils (or not) and a block of ice (or sometimes more than one), and sometimes other performers. Each performance varies according to the site and ultimately evolves according to the choices that audience members make while they are participating. Although Peerna conducts the performances in silence, the sounds emanating from the movement of the Mylar itself become another element of the creative process.  

For example, in 2019, at Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut, Peerna performed Glacier Elegy surrounded by drawings of her work on the walls of the large gallery. (See video above.) Slowly entering the space, she moved towards two rolls of Mylar, which were suspended from the ceiling, and unhooked them so that they unrolled and furled down towards the floor. After she moved under and around, interacting with the Mylar herself, she motioned without using words to two members of the audience to do the same. 

Glacier Elegy, October 22, 2019 at Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut

As the performance proceeded, Peerna began to make lines on the Mylar with the pigment pencils and invited others to join her. Because the material was in motion, they too moved as they marked. Dozens of individuals filled the Mylar with lines and markings. She then introduced a block of ice, holding and embracing it as if it were the last, precious piece of ice remaining on Earth. Walking to the Mylar with the ice, she rubbed the melting ice over the lines, which began to bleed and run. Once again, with welcoming gestures, she invited others to help her “erase” what they had just made. 

Without words and with simple, accessible materials, Glacier Elegy effectively and viscerally addresses the climate crisis, and more specifically, the demise of glacial ice caused by human interference with the environment. On November 16, 2021, Glacier Elegies, an in-depth book on Peerna’s entire Glacier Elegyproject, will be published by Terra Nova Press. In addition to essays by Robert McFarlane, Janet Passehl, and Celina Jeffrey, the book includes an interview with Joana P. Nevers as well as extensive images of Peerna’s artworks and performances. 

Ice Memory, Peerna’s latest work, which combines both performance and exhibition together into one piece, is currently on view through August 29 at Gallery 222 in Hurleyville, New York. Measuring 12 ft. wide by 20 ft. long, the exhibition consists of a room-size drawing on Mylar, which hangs from the ceiling to the floor in a sloped curve “like a sledding hill.” At the opening for the exhibition, Peerna filled a plastic perforated tube, attached at the top of the work, with ice. As the ice melted onto the drawing over the course of the reception, visitors were mesmerized by the water dripping slowly down the mylar, in much the same way that one might be hypnotized watching waves repeatedly crashing onto the shore. 

Ice Memory, room size, sculpturally-installed drawing made with pigment pencil on Mylar, 12’ x 20’, 2021
Ice Memory, room size, sculpturally installed drawing made with pigment pencil on Mylar, 12’ x 20’, 2021 after one of eight ice melts over a two-month time period

Ice Memory will continue to evolve over the course of the exhibition during weekly “Melting Events” hosted by the gallery. With additional ice added to the perforated tube, many of the lines in the drawing will bleed into one another and eventually be erased. As the gallery notes, the process is “not unlike the changes we witness in our natural landscapes.” 

With all of her exhibitions and performances to date, Peerna has deferred from using explanatory text of any kind. For Ice Memory, however, she has provided a quotation from Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane as part of the exhibition because she finds his description of ice to be particularly moving and especially relevant to her work. 

Ice is a recording medium and a storage medium. It collects and keeps data for millennia. Unlike our hard disks and terabyte blocks, which are quickly updated or become outdated, ice has been consistent in its technology over millions of years. Once you know how to read its archive, it is legible almost as far back – as far down – as the ice goes. Trapped air bubbles preserve details of atmospheric composition. The isotopic content of water molecules in the snow records temperature. Impurities in the snow – sulphur acid, hydrogen peroxide – indicate past volcanic eruptions, pollution levels, biomass burning, or the extent of sea ice and its proximity. Hydrogen peroxide levels show how much sunlight fell upon the snow. To imagine ice as a “medium” in this sense might also be to imagine it as a “medium” in the supernatural sense: a presence permitting communication with the dead and the buried, across gulfs of deep time, through which one might hear distant messages from the Pleistocene.

Jaanika Peerna interprets our world as it exists today through line and motion. She invites us to join her in engaging with the elements of water, ice, wind, air, and light in all of their conditions. Using simple body movements and drawn gestures, she compels us to consider the transformations that have occurred in the natural environment and to mourn their passage. 

(Top image: Glacier Elegy Brooklyn, performance in public space with three performers and audience members, one block of ice, two sculptural elements, Brooklyn waterfront, New York City, October 20, 2020. All images 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 and climate disruption a focus of their work and on the growing number of exhibitions, performances, projects and publications that are appearing 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 and writer whose work has been exhibited widely in museums and galleries throughout the U.S. Since 2011, all of her paintings, installations and photographs have addressed water and climate change. She co-created a national, participatory public art project, The Wave, which addresses our mutual need for and interdependence on water and has inspired thousands of adults and children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds to protect this vital resource. Her most recent work, called In the Beginning There Was Only Water is a new story about the creation of the world, a re-imagining of the natural world without humanity’s harmful impact upon it.

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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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Conscient Podcast: e52 mahtani – listening & connecting

Conscient Podcast

If we can find ways to encourage people to listen, that can help them to build a connection, even if it’s to a small plot of land near them. By helping them to have a new relationship with that, which will then expand and help hopefully savour a deeper and more meaningful relationship with our natural world, and small steps like that, even if it’s only a couple of people at a time, that could spread. I think that nobody, no one person, is going to be able to change the world, but that doesn’t mean we should give up. 

dr. annie mahtani, conscient podcast, june 11, 2021, united kingdom

https://vimeo.com/578650709

Note: This episode is dedicated to World Listening Day on July 18 2021 on the theme of The Unquiet Earth. It was published on that day, which is also the birthday of Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. For more information see https://www.worldlisteningproject.org/

Dr. Annie Mahtani is an electroacoustic composer, sound artist and performer working and living in Birmingham (UK). She studied with Jonty Harrison at master’s and doctoral level at the University of Birmingham, completing her PhD in 2008. Annie’s output encompasses electronic music composition from acousmatic music to free improvisation. As a collaborator, Annie Mahtani has worked extensively with dance and theatre, and on site-specific installations. With a strong interest in field recording, her work often explores the inherent sonic nature and identity of environmental sound, amplifying sonic characteristics that are not normally audible to the naked ear. Annie is a Lecturer in Music at the University of Birmingham and is co-director of SOUNDkitchen, a Birmingham-based collective of curators, producers and performers of live electronic music and sound art. 

I first met Annie at The Global Composition gathering in Dieburg, Germany (with thanks to organizer Sabine Breitsameter) where she presented some of her audio work and ideas on soundwalking and technology. 2 years later I had the pleasure of presenting a workshop on Reality, Extinction, Grief and Art at the BEAST FeAST 2021: Recalibration on April 23, 2021 in Birmingham (via Zoom), which explored greater appreciation of the environment, reconnection with the environment and deeper awareness of human effects on the environment. 

This workshop with 30 or so audio artists from around the world had a profound affect me. It helped me understand some of the issues my community of audio artists were facing and reminded me of the burden placed on young people as they inherit this troubled world. I also appreciated their guarded optimism and resilience. One participant suggested that, given the climate emergency, maybe all music should be acoustic ecology (the study of the acoustic environment as a whole as opposed to only the art of music) from now on. Maybe… 

This quote from the episode summarizes Annie’s thinking on the role of the festival:

For the (BEAST) festival we wanted to look at what COVID has done to alter and adjust people’s practice, the way that composers and practitioners have responded to the pandemic musically or through listening and also addressing the wider issues: what does it mean going forwards after this year, the year of uncertainty, the year of opportunity for many? What does it mean going forward to our soundscape, to our environmental practice and listening? We presented that goal for words, as a series of questions, you know, not expecting necessarily any answers, but a way in a way to address it and a way to explore and that’s what the, the weekend of concerts and talks and workshops was this kind of exploration of our soundscapes, thinking about change and thinking about our future.

I would like to thank Annie for taking the time to speak with me about our shared interest in electroacoustic music, for her excellence as a composer and curator, for her commitment to social justice and her passion for listening. 

For more information on Annie’s work, see http://www.anniemahtani.co.uk/

*

(translation)

Si nous pouvons trouver des moyens d’encourager les gens à écouter, cela peut les aider à établir un lien, même si c’est seulement avec une petite parcelle de terrain près de chez eux. En les aidant à avoir une nouvelle relation avec celle-ci, qui s’étendra ensuite et les aidera à savourer une relation plus profonde et plus significative avec notre monde naturel, et des petits pas comme ça, même si ce n’est que quelques personnes à la fois, cela pourrait se propager. Je pense que personne, pas une seule personne, ne sera capable de changer le monde, mais cela ne veut pas dire que nous devons abandonner. 

dr. annie mahtani, podcast conscient, 11 juin 2021, royaume-uni

Note : Cet épisode est dédié à la Journée Mondiale de l’Écoute du 18 juillet 2021 sur le thème de La Terre Inquiète (The Unquiet Earth). Il a été publié ce jour-là, qui est aussi l’anniversaire du compositeur canadien R. Murray Schafer. Pour plus d’informations, voir https://www.worldlisteningproject.org/

Annie Mahtani est une compositrice électroacoustique, artiste sonore et performeuse qui travaille et vit à Birmingham (Royaume-Uni). Elle a étudié avec Jonty Harrison au niveau de la maîtrise et du doctorat à l’Université de Birmingham et a obtenu son doctorat en 2008. La production d’Annie englobe la composition de musique électronique, la musique acousmatique et l’improvisation libre. En tant que collaboratrice, Annie Mahtani a beaucoup travaillé avec la danse et le théâtre, ainsi que sur des installations spécifiques. Avec un intérêt marqué pour l’enregistrement sur le terrain, son travail explore souvent la nature sonore inhérente et l’identité du son environnemental, en amplifiant les caractéristiques sonores qui ne sont normalement pas audibles à l’oreille. Annie est maître de conférences en musique à l’université de Birmingham et codirectrice de SOUNDkitchen, un collectif de conservateurs, de producteurs et d’interprètes de musique électronique en direct et d’art sonore basé à Birmingham. 

J’ai rencontré Annie pour la première fois lors du rassemblement The Global Composition Ã  Dieburg, en Allemagne (grâce à l’organisatrice Sabine Breitsameter), où elle a présenté une partie de son travail audio et de ses idées sur la marche sonore et la technologie. Deux ans plus tard, j’ai eu le plaisir de présenter un atelier sur Laréalité, l’extinction, le deuil et l’art lors du BEAST FeAST 2021: Recalibration le 23 avril 2021 à Birmingham (via Zoom), qui explorait une plus grande appréciation de l’environnement, la reconnexion avec l’environnement et une conscience plus profonde des effets humains sur l’environnement. 

Cet atelier réunissant une trentaine d’artistes audio du monde entier m’a profondément marqué. Il m’a aidé à comprendre certains des problèmes auxquels ma communauté d’artistes audio était confrontée et m’a rappelé le fardeau qui pèse sur les jeunes lorsqu’ils héritent de ce monde troublé. J’ai également apprécié leur optimisme prudent et leur résilience. Un participant a suggéré que, compte tenu de l’urgence climatique, peut-être que toute la musique devrait désormais relever de l’écologie sonore (l’étude de l’environnement acoustique dans son ensemble, par opposition au seul art de la musique). Qui sait. 

Cette citation de l’épisode résume la pensée d’Annie sur le rôle du festival :

Pour le festival (BEAST), nous voulions examiner ce que le COVID a fait pour modifier et ajuster la pratique des gens, la façon dont les compositeurs et les praticiens ont répondu à la pandémie musicalement ou par l’écoute, et aussi aborder des questions plus larges : qu’est-ce que cela signifie pour l’avenir après cette année, l’année de l’incertitude, l’année de l’opportunité pour beaucoup ? Que signifie l’avenir de notre paysage sonore, de notre pratique environnementale et de notre écoute ? Nous avons présenté cet objectif sous forme de mots, comme une série de questions, sans attendre nécessairement de réponses, mais comme une façon de l’aborder et de l’explorer, et c’est ce que le week-end de concerts, de discussions et d’ateliers a permis de faire : une sorte d’exploration de nos paysages sonores, une réflexion sur le changement et sur notre avenir.

Je tiens à remercier Annie d’avoir pris le temps de me parler de notre intérêt commun pour la musique électroacoustique, pour son excellence en tant que compositrice et commissaire, pour son engagement en faveur de la justice sociale et pour sa passion de l’écoute. 

Pour plus d’informations sur le travail d’Annie, voir http://www.anniemahtani.co.uk/

The post e52 mahtani – listening & connecting appeared first on conscient podcast / balado conscient. conscient is a bilingual blog and podcast (French or English) by audio artist Claude Schryer that explores how arts and culture contribute to environmental awareness and action.

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About the Concient Podcast from Claude Schryer

The conscient podcast / balado conscient is a series of conversations about art, conscience and the ecological crisis. This podcast is bilingual (in either English or French). The language of the guest determines the language of the podcast. Episode notes are translated but not individual interviews.

I started the conscient project in 2020 as a personal learning journey and knowledge sharing exercise. It has been rewarding, and sometimes surprising.

The term ‘conscient’ is defined as ‘being aware of one’s surroundings, thoughts and motivations’. My touchstone for the podcast is episode 1, e01 terrified, based on an essay I wrote in May 2019, where I share my anxiety about the climate crisis and my belief that arts and culture can play a critical role in raising public awareness about environmental issues. The conscient podcast / balado conscient follows up on my http://simplesoundscapes.ca (2016–2019) project: 175, 3-minute audio and video field recordings that explore mindful listening.

Season 1 (May to October 2020) explored how the arts contribute to environmental awareness and action. I produced 3 episodes in French and 15 in English. The episodes cover a wide range of content, including activism, impact measurement, gaming, arts funding, cross-sectoral collaborations, social justice, artistic practices, etc. Episodes 8 to 17 were recorded while I was at the Creative Climate Leadership USA course in Arizona in March 2020 (led by Julie’s Bicycle). Episode 18 is a compilation of highlights from these conversations.

Season 2 (March 2021 – ) explores the concept of reality and is about accepting reality, working through ecological grief and charting a path forward. The first episode of season 2 (e19 reality) mixes quotations from 28 authors with field recordings from simplesoundscapes and from my 1998 soundscape composition, Au dernier vivant les biens. One of my findings from this episode is that ‘I now see, and more importantly, I now feel in my bones, ‘the state of things as they actually exist’, without social filters or unsustainable stories blocking the way’. e19 reality touches upon 7 topics: our perception of reality, the possibility of human extinction, ecological anxiety and ecological grief, hope, arts, storytelling and the wisdom of indigenous cultures. The rest of season 2 features interviews with thought leaders about their responses and reactions to e19 reality.

my professional services

I’ve been retired from the Canada Council for the Arts since September 15, 2020 where I served as a senior strategic advisor in arts granting (2016-2020) and manager of the Inter-Arts Office (1999-2015). My focus in (quasi) retirement is environmental issues within my area of expertise in arts and culture, in particular in acoustic ecology. I’m open to become involved in projects that align with my values and that move forward environmental concerns. Feel free to email me for a conversation : claude@conscient.ca

acknowledgement of eco-responsibility

I acknowledge that the production of the conscient podcast / balado conscient produces carbon. I try to minimize this carbon footprint by being as efficient as possible, including using GreenGeeks as my web server and acquiring carbon offsets for my equipment and travel activities from BullFrog Power and Less.

a word about privilege and bias

While recording episode 19 ‘reality’, I heard elements of ‘privilege’ in my voice that I had not noticed before. It sounded a bit like ‘ecological mansplaining’. I realize that, in spite of good intentions, I need to work my way through issues of privilege (of all kinds) and unconscious bias the way I did through ecological anxiety and grief during the fall of 2020. My re-education is ongoing.

Go to conscient.ca

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Photovoltaic Poetics

Artists and Climate Change

By Joan Sullivan

In the Global North, we do it every day, dozens of times every single day. Mindlessly, without nary a thought about how different life must have been 100 years ago before electricity became widely available. 

A simple flip of the switch, and voilà! Our lives are instantly transformed: night becomes day; air-conditioners offer temporary respite from heat domes; elevators whisk us to the top floors of skyscrapers; emails and text messages race across the globe; and increasingly, portable air purifiers filter coronaviruses and other airborne contaminants from our indoor lives.

Electricity. Our most intimate yet mysterious source of power, according to Barry Lord, author of Art & Energy: How Culture Changes. Most of us take it for granted, using it 24/7 for nearly every aspect of our modern lives, without really understanding what primary energy source produced it.

As a digital photographer, my entire artistic toolbox is 100% dependent upon a reliable supply of electricity. Not just when working in my office but perhaps more critically when I am out on a shoot. The list is endless: recharging batteries (for camera, flash, gimbal, drone); editing photos in Lightroom and Photoshop; storing and backing-up files; maintaining a website and creating online galleries for clients; taking advantage of online training programs and webinars; entering photo contests; applying for photo grants; uploading/downloading images to/from WeTransfer; sharing images on social; writing for this blog; keeping my cellphone charged and updated to communicate via text, email or FaceTime. And now Zoom! 

Access to 24/7 energy is a defining hallmark of our 21st century lives. But as dependent as we all are on a seemingly endless, uninterrupted supply of electrons, very few among us have taken the time to question where all this electricity comes from and/or how it is transported to power our homes, offices, schools, and businesses.

In his new book, A History of Solar Power Art and Design, Alex Nathanson argues convincingly that it’s high time for artists and designers to think seriously about energy in general, and about electricity from solar energy in particular. For me, the big takeaway from Nathanson’s book is that artists are uniquely qualified to help the rest of us think more deeply about electricity: not just where it comes from, but perhaps more importantly what it means to live such energy-dependent lives.

Before diving into Nathanson’s book, I think it’s important to remind ourselves that electricity is not synonymous with energy. Electricity is not a source of energy, but rather an application of other energy sources. These other energy sources are normally divided into two broad types: non-renewables versus renewables. However, there is another way to distinguish between these two types of energy: fuels (coal, oil, gas, nuclear) versus non-fuels (wind, water, solar, geothermal). 

After having photographed the energy transition for more than a decade, I am convinced that many more artists would take a second look at the energy transition if they visualized it as a transition from fuels to non-fuels. And here’s the teaser: non-fuels produce energy that is invisible, i.e., it’s mostly electrons. And who better than artists, poets, and musicians to express themselves through a medium that is invisible as well as infinite?

There’s so much potential here! 

Imagine JMW Turner with a 21st century palette: light, energy, transformation, hope…

Cell phone photo of JMW Turner’s Sun Setting over a Lake c.1840, taken in March 2021 at the breathtakingly beautiful exhibit Turner and the Sublime, Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec, Québec, Canada.

Now, back to Alex. Alex Nathanson is a multimedia artist, technologist, designer, and educator. He coined the term “the poetics of photovoltaics”, which I have unabashedly flipped for the title of my post. For his recently completed M.S. in Integrated Digital Media at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering, Nathanson’s thesis became the outline for his new book, to be published next week by Routledge.

In an email exchange, Nathanson explained one of the main motivations for writing it:

There is a long history of artists and designers using photovoltaics (PV) for a very wide range of activities. These have included poetic and abstract explorations, critical and conceptually complex artworks, practical consumer devices, and in collaboration with scientists to support cutting edge scientific research initiatives. Up until now, all of these various activities were very isolated from one another. The public, and even many practitioners, have been unaware of the important work going on in this space. By looking at all of this activity in a cross-disciplinary way we can think about the possibilities and challenges of the energy transition differently.

The 211-page book is divided into 10 chapters, the first three of which introduce readers to the basic technical aspects and history of early PV design. I was particularly interested in Chapter 4, “Solar Art Comes Alive.” Here, Nathanson transports us back to the mid-20th century to better understand the enormous obstacles – including the lack of affordable solar components – that the first generation of PV artists had to overcome in order to incorporate some form of solar power into their avant-garde works.

I have bookmarked Chapter 4 for future reference; I will return to it frequently for my own research. Think of it as a Who’s Who of pioneering visionaries whose dogged determination resulted in a new solar aesthetic: Ted Victoria, Max Neuhaus, Joe Jones, Alvin Lucier, Jürgen and Nora Claus, Mark Tilden, Érik Samakh, Ulrike Gabriel, Allan Giddy, Christina Kubisch, Benoît Maubrey, and Joyce Hinterding.

According to Nathanson, these and other artists were motivated to embrace solar for a variety of environmental, political, social, financial, and technical reasons. He cites the three most common ways that artists have utilized PV to date:

  1. Artists who have PV technologies as the center of their work because of the unique affordances of the technology. These artists may be attracted to the material because of the precariousness and variability of solar power or other unique attributes of the technology (Nathanson describes this as the poetic attributes of PV).
  2. Artists who want to leverage an understanding of the technology to explore ideas relating to climate and the energy transition.
  3. Artists who want to use PV to power artworks, but are not necessarily concerned with it being perceived by the viewer. These artists may want to use PV because it is more environmentally friendly or because it allows them to site an artwork in a remote area.

Whatever their motivation for experimenting with and/or incorporating PV into their work, artists and designers have a key role to play in the energy transition, says Nathanson. He writes:

In order to integrate sustainable energy technologies, and PV in particular, into our lives in a way that is equitable, sustainable, and responsive to local needs, it must be accessible to the communities most impacted by the climate crisis and the infrastructure changes this crisis is forcing upon us. Whether it is through making PV more culturally relevant, teaching engineering concepts through STEAM pedagogy, making its electrical functions clearer to the non-engineer, or poetically reframing the way we think about energy infrastructure, there are many crucial roles that artists and designers can play, particularly in the context of energy justice. Sustainable energy art and design is about far more than simply something looking good. It is about building a more equitable future.

Of all the solar artists mentioned in Nathanson’s book, three have left a deep impression on me. I will dig further into each of their lives over the coming months to better understand their respective contributions to the new solar aesthetic.

Allan Giddy is a New Zealand-born sculptor and installation artist based in Sydney, Australia. Originally trained as an electrician, Giddy describes himself as “a pioneer in, and one of Australia’s foremost proponents of, sustainable energy systems, electronic interconnectivity and interactivity embedded in the physical art object.” For more than 20 years, Giddy has collaborated across disciplines to create a wide range of public art that, according to Nathanson, “often makes visible or audible natural phenomena, systems and cultural history through poetic installations rife with symbolism.”

One of Giddy’s solar installations, described in a short paragraph on page 76 of Nathanson’s book, caused me to involuntarily shout out “YES!” while reading. In 1998, Giddy installed Ice Heart on a public beach in Sydney. It featured a heart-shaped ice sculpture that was kept frozen by… you guessed it, solar power. Giddy describes the installation on his website:

A small glass chamber containing a heart moulded from ice sits atop a tiled pyramid. A solar-powered refrigerator unit hidden within the pyramid cools the chamber to freezing. Solar cells lying on beach towels around the pyramid provide the energy with which the ice heart is maintained. 

Yes, yes, yes, yes! More like this please!

I was also excited to read about the fruitful collaboration between two German artists, Jürgen and Nora Claus, now living in Belgium. The couples’ lives and work are centered around their bold vision of biospheric art – a return to art as a vehicle for connecting the viewer to natural rhythms, processes, and environments. In 1984, Jürgen was one of the earliest artists to use solar PV in outdoor public sculpture, starting with his Pyramid of the Sun. In 1993, the Claus duo co-founded the SolArt Global Network to unite artists worldwide using the power of sunlight as a creative medium or, in their own words, using the sun as “a partner and creator of art installations” with the ultimate goal of “sharpening our awareness of solar energy.”

Twenty-six years ago, Jürgen wrote about the importance of this global network; it could so easily have been written today. Nathanson paraphrases below: 

The necessity for the [SolArt Global] network, Claus wrote, was driven by the increasing urgency of ecological issues, awareness of the limits of fossil fuels, the growing desire for decentralization in politics and energy, and the growing demands of disenfranchised people globally to attain a higher quality of life. He argues that ecological stability in the 21st century must be rooted in cultural change and the loose network of artists sharing his vision for a “solar age” was a mechanism to achieve that goal. He goes on to say that this work is needed urgently and must begin immediately in order to address these issues by the year 2025, a call to action that society unfortunately did not hear.

Nathanson’s book introduces us to dozens of other cutting-edge solar artists, including textile artists, sound artists, electronic and multimedia artists. Cross-disciplinary collaboration is what unites them all, as Giddy suggests in the video above. For those artists interested in exploring the energy transition, I encourage you to get your hands on Nathanson’s book (use code FLY21 for 20% off when you purchase through Routledge’s website). It will jump-start your thinking about how to move beyond the blue rectangle of solar PV and, in Nathanson’s words, help you to embrace the poetic precariousness and variability of both the weather and solar power.

As the provocative creators of Juice Rap News reminded us back in 2014, we are “still living in the dark ages” by ignoring the most obvious fact: that the sun, at the center of our universe, should also be at the center of our energy strategies. Amen.

Top image by Joan Sullivan.

This article is part of the Renewable Energy series.

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Joan Sullivan is a Canadian photographer focused on the energy transition. In her monthly column for Artists and Climate Change, Joan explores the intersection of art and the energy transition. She is currently experimenting with abstract photography as a new language to express her grief about climate breakdown. You can find Joan on Twitter and Visura.

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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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Conscient Podcast: e51 hiser

Conscient Podcast

What motivates me is talking to students in a way that they’re not going to come back to me in 10 years with this look on their face, you know, Dr. Hiser, why didn’t you tell me this? Why didn’t you tell me? I want to be sure that they’re going to leave the interaction that we get to have that they’re going to leave with at least an idea that someone tried to help them see that reality.

dr krista hiser, conscient podcast, may 19, 2021, hawai‘i

https://vimeo.com/575839936

Krista is a longtime Professor at KapiÊ»olani Community College in Hawai‘i where she teaches composition, climate communication, and climate fiction. Her PhD in Educational Administration focused on students as stakeholders in sustainability curriculum. She has published on service-learning, community engagement, organizational change, and post-apocalyptic and cli-fi literature. She is currently serving as director of the University of Hawai‘i System Center for Sustainability Across Curriculum where Krista’s work is to facilitate change management, coordinate sustainability across the curriculum, and facilitate interdisciplinary dialogue and professional development opportunities for faculty interested in teaching sustainability, climate change, and resilience. Krista is motivated by a quote from David Orr who said, â€œstudents deserve an education relevant to the future they will inherit.”

I first heard about Krista work at a meeting of a group of climate educators, organized by Jennifer Atkinson and Sarah Raquette Ray, where Krista spoke about some of her research. I also heard her in conversation with my fellow art and climate podcaster Peterson Toscano on Citizens’ Climate Radio Ep. 51: Art & identity in a time of climate change.

I enjoyed my lively conversation with Krista, notably about how our brains try to protect us for the reality of the climate emergency and how to understand the levels of grief that we can experience and how to overcome it. I was also impressed by her thoughts on ungrading (which I shared with my two children, both University students). 

Some of my favourite quotes from our conversation include: 

The art space is maybe the last open space where that boxiness and that rigidity isn’t as present.

The shift is that faculty are really no longer just experts. They are knowledge brokers or knowledge intermediaries. There’s so much information out there. It’s so overwhelming. There are so many different realities that faculty need to interact with this information and create experiences that translate information for students so that students can manage their own information.

There’s a whole range of emotions around climate emergency, and not getting stuck in the grief. Not getting stuck in anger. A lot of what we see of youth activists and in youth activism is that they get kind of burned out in anger and it’s not a sustainable emotion. But none of them are emotions that you want to get stuck in. When you get stuck in climate grief, it is hard to get unstuck, so moving through all the different emotions — including anger and including hope — and that idea of an anthem and working together, those are all part of the emotion wheel that exists around climate change.

As I have done in all episodes in season 2 so far, I have integrated excerpts from soundscape compositions and quotations drawn from e19 reality, as well as new field recordings and moments of silence, in this episode.

I would like to thank Krista for taking the time to speak with me, for sharing her deep knowledge of climate education, her passion for literature and music and her courage to speak the truth to power through her work. 

For more information on Krista’s work, see https://www.hawaii.edu/sustainability/staff-item/krista-hiser-phd/ and https://www.gcseglobal.org/bio/krista-hiser

Links

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(translation)

Ce qui me motive, c’est de parler aux étudiants d’une manière telle qu’ils ne reviendront pas vers moi dans dix ans avec ce regard sur leur visage, vous savez, Dr Hiser, pourquoi ne m’avez-vous pas dit ça ? Pourquoi ne me l’avez-vous pas dit ? Je veux être sûre qu’ils quitteront l’interaction que nous aurons et qu’ils repartiront avec au moins l’idée que quelqu’un a essayé de les aider à voir cette réalité.

dr krista hiser, balado conscient, 19 mai 2021, hawai’i

Krista est professeur de longue date au KapiÊ»olani Community College à Hawai’i où elle enseigne la composition, la communication climatique et la fiction climatique. Son doctorat en administration de l’éducation portait sur les étudiants en tant que parties prenantes dans les programmes d’études sur la durabilité. Elle a publié des articles sur l’apprentissage par le service, l’engagement communautaire, le changement organisationnel et la littérature post-apocalyptique et cli-fi. Elle est actuellement directrice du University of Hawai’i System Center for Sustainability Across Curriculum, où le travail de Krista consiste à faciliter la gestion du changement, à coordonner la durabilité dans les programmes d’études et à favoriser le dialogue interdisciplinaire et les opportunités de développement professionnel pour les professeurs intéressés par l’enseignement de la durabilité, du changement climatique et de la résilience. Krista est motivée par une citation de David Orr qui a dit que â€œles étudiants méritent une éducation adaptée à l’avenir dont ils vont hériter.”

J’ai entendu parler pour la première fois du travail de Krista lors d’une réunion d’un groupe d’éducateurs climatiques, organisée par Jennifer Atkinson et Sarah Raquette Ray, où Krista a parlé de certaines de ses recherches. Je l’ai également entendue lors d’une conversation avec mon collègue Peterson Toscano, podcasteur spécialisé dans l’art et le climat, sur Citizens’ Climate Radio Ep. 51: Art & identity in a time of climate change.

J’ai apprécié la conversation animée que j’ai eue avec Krista, notamment sur la façon dont notre cerveau tente de nous protéger de la réalité de l’urgence climatique et sur la façon de comprendre les niveaux de chagrin que nous pouvons éprouver et comment les surmonter. J’ai également été impressionné par ses réflexions sur la notion de ‘ungrading’ (que j’ai partagées avec mes deux enfants, tous deux étudiants à l’université). 

Voici quelques-unes de mes citations préférées de notre conversation : 

L’espace d’art est peut-être le dernier espace ouvert où le caractère fermé et la rigidité ne sont pas aussi présents.

Le changement réside dans le fait que les professeurs ne sont plus seulement des experts. Ils sont des courtiers ou des intermédiaires du savoir. Il y a tellement d’informations qui circulent. C’est tellement écrasant. Il y a tellement de réalités différentes que les professeurs doivent interagir avec cette information et créer des expériences qui traduisent l’information pour les étudiants afin que ceux-ci puissent gérer leur propre information.

Il y a toute une gamme d’émotions autour de l’urgence climatique et il ne faut pas s’enliser dans le chagrin. Ne pas s’enfermer dans la colère. Une grande partie de ce que nous voyons chez les jeunes activistes et dans l’activisme des jeunes, c’est qu’ils s’épuisent dans la colère et ce n’est pas une émotion durable. Mais aucune d’entre elles n’est une émotion dans laquelle vous voulez rester coincé. Lorsque vous êtes coincé dans le chagrin climatique, il est difficile de se décoincer, donc passer par toutes les différentes émotions – y compris la colère, l’espoir – et cette idée d’un hymne et de travailler ensemble, tout cela fait partie de la roue des émotions qui existe autour du changement climatique.

Comme je l’ai fait dans tous les épisodes de la saison 2 jusqu’à présent, j’ai intégré dans cet épisode des extraits de compositions de paysages sonores et des citations tirées de e19 reality, ainsi que de nouveaux enregistrements de paysages sonoresd et des moments de silence.

Je remercie Krista d’avoir pris le temps de s’entretenir avec moi, de partager ses connaissances approfondies de l’éducation climatique, sa passion pour la littérature et la musique et son courage de dire la vérité au pouvoir à travers son travail. 

Pour plus d’informations sur le travail de Krista, voir https://www.hawaii.edu/sustainability/staff-item/krista-hiser-phd/  et https://www.gcseglobal.org/bio/krista-hiser . 

Liens

The post e51 hiser appeared first on conscient podcast / balado conscient. conscient is a bilingual blog and podcast (French or English) by audio artist Claude Schryer that explores how arts and culture contribute to environmental awareness and action.

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About the Concient Podcast from Claude Schryer

The conscient podcast / balado conscient is a series of conversations about art, conscience and the ecological crisis. This podcast is bilingual (in either English or French). The language of the guest determines the language of the podcast. Episode notes are translated but not individual interviews.

I started the conscient project in 2020 as a personal learning journey and knowledge sharing exercise. It has been rewarding, and sometimes surprising.

The term ‘conscient’ is defined as ‘being aware of one’s surroundings, thoughts and motivations’. My touchstone for the podcast is episode 1, e01 terrified, based on an essay I wrote in May 2019, where I share my anxiety about the climate crisis and my belief that arts and culture can play a critical role in raising public awareness about environmental issues. The conscient podcast / balado conscient follows up on my http://simplesoundscapes.ca (2016–2019) project: 175, 3-minute audio and video field recordings that explore mindful listening.

Season 1 (May to October 2020) explored how the arts contribute to environmental awareness and action. I produced 3 episodes in French and 15 in English. The episodes cover a wide range of content, including activism, impact measurement, gaming, arts funding, cross-sectoral collaborations, social justice, artistic practices, etc. Episodes 8 to 17 were recorded while I was at the Creative Climate Leadership USA course in Arizona in March 2020 (led by Julie’s Bicycle). Episode 18 is a compilation of highlights from these conversations.

Season 2 (March 2021 – ) explores the concept of reality and is about accepting reality, working through ecological grief and charting a path forward. The first episode of season 2 (e19 reality) mixes quotations from 28 authors with field recordings from simplesoundscapes and from my 1998 soundscape composition, Au dernier vivant les biens. One of my findings from this episode is that ‘I now see, and more importantly, I now feel in my bones, ‘the state of things as they actually exist’, without social filters or unsustainable stories blocking the way’. e19 reality touches upon 7 topics: our perception of reality, the possibility of human extinction, ecological anxiety and ecological grief, hope, arts, storytelling and the wisdom of indigenous cultures. The rest of season 2 features interviews with thought leaders about their responses and reactions to e19 reality.

my professional services

I’ve been retired from the Canada Council for the Arts since September 15, 2020 where I served as a senior strategic advisor in arts granting (2016-2020) and manager of the Inter-Arts Office (1999-2015). My focus in (quasi) retirement is environmental issues within my area of expertise in arts and culture, in particular in acoustic ecology. I’m open to become involved in projects that align with my values and that move forward environmental concerns. Feel free to email me for a conversation : claude@conscient.ca

acknowledgement of eco-responsibility

I acknowledge that the production of the conscient podcast / balado conscient produces carbon. I try to minimize this carbon footprint by being as efficient as possible, including using GreenGeeks as my web server and acquiring carbon offsets for my equipment and travel activities from BullFrog Power and Less.

a word about privilege and bias

While recording episode 19 ‘reality’, I heard elements of ‘privilege’ in my voice that I had not noticed before. It sounded a bit like ‘ecological mansplaining’. I realize that, in spite of good intentions, I need to work my way through issues of privilege (of all kinds) and unconscious bias the way I did through ecological anxiety and grief during the fall of 2020. My re-education is ongoing.

Go to conscient.ca

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John Muir Open | Message to the Earth

Creative Carbon Scotland
Applications invited for the John Muir Open 2021
Dunbar Town House Gallery, Dunbar, 4th September to 31st October

This exhibition is proposed to encourage people to think about the current conversations taking place and those that are likely to be shared at COP26, about the sustainability of our earth and the ways in which arts can encourage people to think about how they can contribute.

Artist Natalie Taylor will lead on a community project, which will create a large cloak to walk to the Pilgrimage, collecting soil samples on the way to Glasgow. Headed by artist Jonathan Baxter, the pilgrimage will take walkers on a journey from an opening event in Dunbar.

Artwork can be existing work and take any art form. We are looking for works, which prompt questions or provide potential solutions to the global crisis we are all facing. The invited artist will be Robert Powell and a possible five applicants will be chosen to exhibit alongside.

DEADLINE for applications: Monday 9th August at midnight 2021

Send entries to: jmopen.nla@gmail.com

A panel will decide on the successful applicants and all will be contacted by Friday 15th August.

Installation date: 31st August
Take down date: 31st October

Please ask any other questions you may have.

The post John Muir Open | Message to the 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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Conscient Podcast: e50 newton

Conscient Podcast

There are so many amazing people across this country who are helping to make change and are holding such a powerful vision for what the future can be. We get trapped in thinking about the paradigm limit in which we currently live, we put bounds on what feels like reality and what feels possible. There are no limits, and the arts helps us to push against that limited set of beliefs and helps us to remember that the way that we know things to be right now is not fixed. We can imagine anything. We can imagine the future we want.

teika newton, conscient podcast, may 19, 2021, kenora, ontario

https://vimeo.com/575219275

A lifelong, insatiable curiosity for understanding people and places, and the interrelationships of all things, and a passion for humanitarianism and justice has directed Teika to a career in environmental and climate justice advocacy. Teika’s academic training was in evolutionary biology, but she also has a strong interest in the arts, notably in hearing people’s stories of how we relate to our natural world. She is currently the Membership and Domestic Policy Manager, at Climate Action Network Canada.

I first met Teika in February 2020 at TP3, a strategic gathering in Waterloo, ON convened by the McConnell Foundation and Tamarack Institute to create a coalition of organizations to address the climate crisis, (including through the arts). Teika and I been exchanging about community-engaged arts and climate action ever since.

There were many moments during my conversation with Teika that resonated with me, such as this thought our disconnection with nature: 

I see that there are a lot of ways in which people in my community use the landscape in a disrespectful way. Not considering that that’s someone’s home and that a wild place is not just a recreational playground for humans. It’s not necessarily a source of wealth generation. It’s actually a living, breathing entity and a home to other things and a home to us as well. I find that all really troubling that there is that disconnection and it sometimes does make me despair about the future course that we’re on. You know, if we can’t take care of the place that sustains us, if we can’t live with respect for not just our human neighbours, but our wilderness neighbors, I don’t know how well we’re going to fare in the future. We need to love the things around us in order to care for them.

And this thought about the role of the arts:

Having the ability to come together as a community and participate in the collective act of creating and expressing through various media, whether that’s song, the written word, poetry, painting, mosaic or mural making, so many different ways of expressing, I think are really, really valuable for keeping people whole grounded, mentally healthy and to feel connected to others. It’s the interconnection among people that will help us to survive in a time of crisis. The deeper and more complex the web of connections, the better your chances of resilience.

As I have done in all episodes in season 2 so far, I have integrated excerpts from soundscape compositions and quotations drawn from e19 reality and other episodes, as well as moments of silence, in this episode.

I would like to thank Teika for taking the time to speak with me, for sharing her deep scientific knowledge, her expertise in strategic climate action and her love of the arts and nature.

For more information on Teika’s work, see https://www.linkedin.com/in/teika-newton-926a5477/

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(traduction)

Il y a tant de personnes extraordinaires dans ce pays qui contribuent au changement et qui ont une vision si puissante de ce que l’avenir peut être. Nous sommes pris au piège en pensant à la limite du paradigme dans lequel nous vivons actuellement, nous mettons des limites à ce qui semble être la réalité et à ce qui semble possible. Il n’y a pas de limites, et les arts nous aident à repousser cet ensemble limité de croyances et nous aident à nous rappeler que la façon dont nous savons que les choses sont actuellement n’est pas fixe. Nous pouvons tout imaginer. Nous pouvons imaginer le futur que nous voulons.

teika newton, balado conscient, 19 mai 2021, kenora, ontario

Une curiosité insatiable pour comprendre les gens et les lieux, ainsi que les interrelations entre toutes les choses, et une passion pour l’humanitarisme et la justice ont orienté Teika vers une carrière dans la défense de la justice environnementale et climatique. Teika a suivi une formation universitaire en biologie de l’évolution, mais elle s’intéresse aussi beaucoup aux arts, notamment à l’écoute des récits des gens sur la façon dont nous nous rapportons à notre monde naturel. Elle est actuellement responsable des adhésions et de la politique intérieure au Réseau Action Climat Canada.

J’ai rencontré Teika pour la première fois en février 2020 lors de TP3, un rassemblement stratégique à Waterloo, ON, organisé par la Fondation McConnell et l’Institut Tamarack pour créer une coalition d’organisations pour faire face à la crise climatique (y compris à travers les arts). Depuis, Teika et moi avons échangé sur les arts engagés dans la communauté et l’action climatique.

Au cours de ma conversation avec Teika, de nombreux moments ont résonné en moi, comme cette réflexion sur notre déconnexion de la nature : 

Je vois qu’il y a beaucoup de façons dont les gens de ma communauté utilisent le paysage de manière irrespectueuse. Ils ne tiennent pas compte du fait que c’est la maison de quelqu’un et qu’un endroit sauvage n’est pas seulement un terrain de jeu pour les humains. Ce n’est pas nécessairement une source de création de richesse. Il s’agit en fait d’une entité vivante, qui respire, qui abrite d’autres choses et qui nous abrite aussi. Je trouve tout cela vraiment troublant, cette déconnexion, et cela me désespère parfois quant à la voie que nous suivons. Vous savez, si nous ne pouvons pas prendre soin de l’endroit qui nous nourrit, si nous ne pouvons pas vivre dans le respect non seulement de nos voisins humains, mais aussi de nos voisins sauvages, je ne sais pas comment nous allons nous en sortir à l’avenir. Nous devons aimer les choses qui nous entourent afin d’en prendre soin.

Et cette réflexion sur le rôle des arts :

La capacité de se réunir en tant que communauté et de participer à l’acte collectif de création et d’expression par le biais de divers médias, que ce soit la chanson, l’écriture, la poésie, la peinture, la mosaïque ou la réalisation de fresques, autant de moyens d’expression différents, est, je pense, très précieuse pour que les gens restent ancrés dans la réalité, en bonne santé mentale et se sentent connectés aux autres. C’est l’interconnexion entre les gens qui nous aidera à survivre en temps de crise. Plus le réseau de connexions est profond et complexe, meilleures sont les chances de résilience.

Comme je l’ai fait dans tous les épisodes de la saison 2 jusqu’à présent, j’ai intégré dans cet épisode des extraits de compositions sonores et des citations tirées de la e19 reality et d’autres épisodes, ainsi que des moments de silence.

Je tiens à remercier Teika d’avoir pris le temps de s’entretenir avec moi, de partager ses profondes connaissances scientifiques, son expertise en matière d’action stratégique pour le climat et son amour des arts et de la nature.

Pour en savoir plus sur le travail de Teika, consultez le site https://www.linkedin.com/in/teika-newton-926a5477/ .

———-

About the Concient Podcast from Claude Schryer

The conscient podcast / balado conscient is a series of conversations about art, conscience and the ecological crisis. This podcast is bilingual (in either English or French). The language of the guest determines the language of the podcast. Episode notes are translated but not individual interviews.

I started the conscient project in 2020 as a personal learning journey and knowledge sharing exercise. It has been rewarding, and sometimes surprising.

The term ‘conscient’ is defined as ‘being aware of one’s surroundings, thoughts and motivations’. My touchstone for the podcast is episode 1, e01 terrified, based on an essay I wrote in May 2019, where I share my anxiety about the climate crisis and my belief that arts and culture can play a critical role in raising public awareness about environmental issues. The conscient podcast / balado conscient follows up on my http://simplesoundscapes.ca (2016–2019) project: 175, 3-minute audio and video field recordings that explore mindful listening.

Season 1 (May to October 2020) explored how the arts contribute to environmental awareness and action. I produced 3 episodes in French and 15 in English. The episodes cover a wide range of content, including activism, impact measurement, gaming, arts funding, cross-sectoral collaborations, social justice, artistic practices, etc. Episodes 8 to 17 were recorded while I was at the Creative Climate Leadership USA course in Arizona in March 2020 (led by Julie’s Bicycle). Episode 18 is a compilation of highlights from these conversations.

Season 2 (March 2021 – ) explores the concept of reality and is about accepting reality, working through ecological grief and charting a path forward. The first episode of season 2 (e19 reality) mixes quotations from 28 authors with field recordings from simplesoundscapes and from my 1998 soundscape composition, Au dernier vivant les biens. One of my findings from this episode is that ‘I now see, and more importantly, I now feel in my bones, ‘the state of things as they actually exist’, without social filters or unsustainable stories blocking the way’. e19 reality touches upon 7 topics: our perception of reality, the possibility of human extinction, ecological anxiety and ecological grief, hope, arts, storytelling and the wisdom of indigenous cultures. The rest of season 2 features interviews with thought leaders about their responses and reactions to e19 reality.

my professional services

I’ve been retired from the Canada Council for the Arts since September 15, 2020 where I served as a senior strategic advisor in arts granting (2016-2020) and manager of the Inter-Arts Office (1999-2015). My focus in (quasi) retirement is environmental issues within my area of expertise in arts and culture, in particular in acoustic ecology. I’m open to become involved in projects that align with my values and that move forward environmental concerns. Feel free to email me for a conversation : claude@conscient.ca

acknowledgement of eco-responsibility

I acknowledge that the production of the conscient podcast / balado conscient produces carbon. I try to minimize this carbon footprint by being as efficient as possible, including using GreenGeeks as my web server and acquiring carbon offsets for my equipment and travel activities from BullFrog Power and Less.

a word about privilege and bias

While recording episode 19 ‘reality’, I heard elements of ‘privilege’ in my voice that I had not noticed before. It sounded a bit like ‘ecological mansplaining’. I realize that, in spite of good intentions, I need to work my way through issues of privilege (of all kinds) and unconscious bias the way I did through ecological anxiety and grief during the fall of 2020. My re-education is ongoing.

Go to conscient.ca

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Climate Action – Global Teaching InSights

Open Calls
Climate Action

Transforming how our next generation thinks and acts about the environment and the world requires profound changes in teaching and learning. In PISA, eight out of ten students (78%) reported caring about the environment, and yet less than half of them (38%) felt empowered to participate in activities to protect it. How can we empower students in our classrooms and schools to have a real voice and an active role in this pressing issue for our future?

The OECD, UNESCO and Education International are inviting teachers to:

•   Share initiatives and projects on student empowerment around climate action.

•   Participate in a series of virtual Teacher Forums to collaborate on teaching on climate across borders and cultures.

•   Help us identify, spread and initiate powerful climate insights alongside an international jury.

•   Join the Global Teacher Forum on Climate Action to take part in developing an action plan to implement the leading insights in classrooms, education systems and policies.

To get started, create a free account now and check out our guidance. If you missed the launch event, you can watch it and comment here. 

Make sure to submit your video by 15 August if you would like your initiative to be amongst the first released and to be considered for our first conversation on teaching for climate action!

This initiative is led by OECD, UNESCO and the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030.

This initiative is supported by: