We’re inviting artists of all ages to submit a work as part of a ground-breaking public art initiative; to be reproduced at scale and displayed for millions to see in public spaces across the UK.
Our goal is to build a new and ambitious cultural institution without walls, and to generate a national conversation through art about the important questions of our time. Produced by Artichoke and conceived in collaboration with artist Martin Firrell, this initiative is supported by the Out-of-Home* industry.
The theme for the first exhibition is Straight White Male. – What does it mean to be straight, white and male in 2022? – How does this statement make you feel? Do you relate in any way with the theme, and if so, what would you like to say about that? – Alternatively, does the theme sit uneasily with you and how would you wish to challenge it?
We’re inviting artists to respond to the theme, with the aim of commissioning 9 artists working in varying mediums and from diverse backgrounds with widely differing views about the central theme.
Commissioned artists receive: • A fee of £2,000 • Support from Creative Director and lead artist Martin Firrell • Support from our exhibition Curator • An international platform to exhibit your work • Inclusion in the Digital Programme • The services of a designer to format your artwork for digital and print • Costs of production, mounting, and leasing of the advertising spaces • Photographic documentation of your artwork displayed outdoors • Scheduled online meet-ups with fellow contributing artists and team • Participation in online discussion regarding making art for the public realm • Invitation to exhibition launch (July 2022) including travel and accommodation • Introduction to appropriate networks to support future exhibitions and showings of your artwork
A wider shortlist of approximately 20-30 artists will also feature in our Digital Programme and their artwork will be showcased on the project website and our digital channels.
Submissions must be proposals for two-dimensional works in any media. This includes, but is not limited to, photography, painting, drawing, text work, prints, mixed media and collage.
To apply, please visit Artichoke’s website, read through our information pack and follow the instructions. For more information, questions and alternative methods of application please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Picturing Climate Change 6pm GMT* Monday 21st March Livestreamed throughYoutube
* [North American attendees – Note: Daylight Saving Time begins March 13th, making an event start time of 11am PST/ 2pm EST on March 21st.
Picturing Climate Changeis a free online event exploring the role of photography in ‘what is seen and unseen’ in relation to climate change, both from the ground and from the air. It has been programmed to coincide with the United Nations’ International Day of Forests.
Street Level Photoworks are pleased to host this event in collaboration with climate artists Sylvia Grace Borda (Canada) and J.Keith Donnelly (Scotland), along with contributions from the Rural Association of Betterment of Agro-pastorialists (Ethiopia) and in partnership with NASA’s Crew Earth Observation team (NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas).
The event will provide unique insights into some global climate arts and imaging projects across a series of presentations.
Borda and Donnelly will discuss the role of photography, land art, and community engagement in co-producing contemporary climate photoworks, including their project Internet of Nature for the City of Dundee, which is a virtual panorama of parks profiled from the ground perspective of small creatures, and their pioneering collaboration with the Oromo communities in Ethiopia co-creating photo-artworks that raise awareness of climate change from both the air and the ground.
The Director of ROBA Hussein Watta and Ethiopian urban planner Nura Beshir will discuss the Ethiopian-based project Trees for Life and how culture, trees, and community innovation facilitated through arts and photography can support impactful community resilience and climate mitigation. A short presentation by Street Level will focus on recent projects around climate change, including a screening of the short film By Leaves We Live, film made in collaboration with local school children from the Gorbals and inspired by COP26 themes. Directed by Basharat Khan and supported by Stella Rooney, it is part of Street Level’s Culture Collective programme which sees artists working with local communities in a range of photography and film projects.
Kenton Fisher leads the Earth Science and Remote Sensing (ESRS) group within the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division at Johnson Space Center.Fisher will present a visually stunning and in-depth dialogue about NASA’s first space missions, and the earth imagery captured by satellite and other resources, which highlight both the seen and unseen spaces of the earth which collectively illustrate the ongoing changes and impacts of climate change.
The forum is supported by the British Council Creative Climate Commission and with associates from NASA’s Crew Earth Observation team, Women4Climate, Dundee City Council, Dundee UNESCO City of Design, Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Canada) and ROBA with community participants from schools at Kofele, Koma Mamo, Gormicho, and Usula Moke in West Arsi Zone, Ethiopia.
A publication from the forum will be launched later in the year.
In 2021, Lyth Arts Centre (LAC), in collaboration with Timespan and the Environmental Research Institute (University of Highlands & Islands), were selected as a Creative Carbon Scotland Climate Beacon for a collaborative engagement programme around the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26).
Titled The Land for Those That Work It, our Climate Beacon seeks to explore issues of land justice, climate colonialism and development policies and initiatives for our region.
As part of The Land for Those That Work It, LAC commissioned The Bare Project to create a room of The People’s Palace of Possibility in collaboration with the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (University of Glasgow) here in Caithness. This residency is the subject of this blog.
Room by room
The People’s Palace of Possibility is a long-term project that creates spaces for people to imagine other ways of living through stories, conversation, and play. It is a place to ask how things could be different, fairer. The Bare Project creates frameworks for crunchy conversations to happen through potlucks, storytelling, and playful, beautiful design. Right now, they are building The People’s Palace of Possibility room by room through a series of residencies across the UK. Each room examines a different theme. Eventually, all these rooms will be gathered together in one big, utopian outdoor installation.
With LAC, The Bare Project began to build the first room of the Palace. The theme of this room is human relationships with land. Before building the Palace, we must examine our relationship with the lands on which it will sit. Over two weeks in November, whilst COP26 took place in Glasgow, The Bare Project met with crofters, young people, community foresters, growers, academics, and artists to begin to unpick human relationships with land in Caithness. What are these relationships? And how are they shaped? Through what lenses and languages do we understand and interact with the land around us?
Ownership
The team initially expected a good amount of this residency to be focussed on the Gaelic and Scots languages of the Highlands – whilst this was mentioned, it was not a focus for many collaborators. Instead, the team quickly found that ownership was a crucial component of people’s relationship with land in Caithness, and that the history of clearances, and the contemporary rewilding agenda, were close to the surface in people’s thinking about the land around them. Another major theme was around energy production. Caithness hosts the Dounreay Nuclear Powerplant – indeed, this is one of the biggest employers in the region. The county is also covered with wind turbines, with which local communities have a mixed relationship. Across the first week of their residency, all of this complexity filled up the team’s time and conversations – making them acutely aware of how insufficient a two-week residency was to try and say anything new or meaningful about the human relationships with land in Caithness.Â
A collage of four stills from the film ‘The Fifth Giant’ by Regina Mosch showing a dinner party by candlelight; the table, someone eating, and people chatting.
Enter the giants
The Bare Project are primarily a performance company, so their routes into these crunchy questions is through stories. Enter the giants. Giants in Scottish folklore are often the forces that shape the land around them – they scoop up earth and form lochs, they fall asleep and mountain ranges appear. So, with this in mind, the team questioned who the giants of today’s Caithness would be. Quickly, roughly, The Bare Project sketched out four giants based on our conversations with local people. These giants loosely and poetically represented the big estates and their landlords, the energy companies, well-intentioned land projects (such as rewilding projects), and finally, the giant’s giant who encompassed the wind, the rain, the ocean, the salt, and the soil. They then used these characters to create new mythologies about the lands of Caithness at a big final feasting and storytelling event in Reiss Village Hall. Profiles of these giants have been woven into a film about this brief residency. These characters are starting points, and this residency became a testing ground for whether this approach to thinking about land is fruitful: artistically and politically. We know that stories can help us lose ourselves a bit, to open a realm of possibilities and magic. And from this space, perhaps we are better able to look at the world around us – and to reimagine more reciprocal and respectful relationships with the land upon which we depend.
Acknowledging these giants and naming them, did at times feel scary; Grinshunk, Varnaclay and the other marauding giants were a personification of the massive challenges we face, the huge task we have to take on and a reminder of how small and insignificant we can feel as individuals in this duty. However, what The Bare Project did so well was to ensure a sense of community throughout their residency. Their gentle invitation to the final sharing meal was a reminder of how strong we can be together. The phrase ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ has long been part of the English language, a metaphor and reminder for us to use the understanding of those who have gone before us to make better informed decisions for the future. Too often we think these giants are the great philosophers and thinkers, leaders and governments, but through The People’s Palace we have learnt that these giants instead lie in our communities. That we become massive when we connect with each other – rather than feeling like we have to be individual David’s fighting multiple Goliaths. Whether it is through engaging with indigenous knowledge and practices (such as peatland restoration and the return of ancient grazing practices), or community land buy-outs (like the Dunnet Community Forest), we find our giant’s power in these acts of solidarity.
By Malaika Cunningham (Practice Researcher at Artsadmin) and Charlotte Mountford, Co-Director, Lyth Arts Centre.
The Fifth Giant
This short film is an account of The Bare Project’s time at Lyth Arts Centre in Caithness (also known as The Flow Country) and offers the sketched beginnings of the giants they discovered in their time there. The film was created through a collaboration between filmmaker Regina Mosch, artist/researcher Malaika Cunningham, and sound designer/composer Lee Affen.
Film by Regina Mosch (with audio and composition by Lee Affen)
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.
This is the ’40-minute composition only’ version of episode 99 . See episode 99 for details on winter diary revisited – homage to r. murray schafer. It is intended for those who want to listen to the composition only without the 25′ introduction and 3′ of credits.
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.
Joining us in the Art House is Dr. Krista Hiser with The Ultimate Cli-Fi Book Club. The purpose of the book club is to look at climate-themed literature and consider how it can help us engage differently with interdisciplinary topics and existential threats related to the planetary predicament of climate change.
Dr. Krista Hiser is Professor at KapiÊ»olani Community College. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from the University of Hawai‘i at MÄnoa. She has published works on community engagement, service-learning, organizational change, and post-apocalyptic and cli-fi literature.
In this episode, Krista tells us that the protagonist of A Rain of Night Birds is a scientist who relies on feeling to gauge the environmental phenomena around her. With themes of spiritualism and Indigenous culture, this “literature of restoration†focuses on the concept of doing no harm to protect the world around us.
Next month: Caroline Roberts and her art installation, the present of my life looks different under trees. This immersive installation of cyanotypes has been exhibited at BOX13 ArtSpace and HCC Southwest in Houston, Texas.
As host of Citizens’ Climate Radio, Peterson Toscano regularly features artists who address climate change in their work. The Art House section of his program includes singer/songwriters, visual artists, comics, creative writers, and playwrights. Through a collaboration with Artists and Climate Change and Citizens’ Climate Education, each month Peterson reissues The Art House for this blog. If you have an idea for The Art House, contact Peterson: radio @ citizensclimatelobby.org
———-
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.
A new e-book published by the Boekman Foundation, a leading Dutch institute for arts, culture and related policy, explores how the creative sector is helping to achieve sustainability in seven European countries, and Creative Carbon Scotland (CCS) contributed the chapter for Scotland.
Towards sustainable arts: European best practices and policies offers inspiring examples for artists, cultural organisations and climate change policy makers and scientists who want to harness the power of arts and culture to achieve mitigation and adaptation in the face of the climate emergency.
The Boekman Foundation points out that the book addresses the clear and disquieting message that emerged in 2021 as forest fires, drought and floods raged: that time is running out and the future is now. In seven chapters, experts from the Czech Republic, Finland, Flanders, Germany, the Netherlands, Scotland and Spain investigate how cultural organisations in their country are becoming more sustainable, how artists are engaging with the climate crisis, and which role culture has in the general transition towards a greener society.
The Foundation, which collects and disseminates knowledge and information about the arts and culture in both policy and practice, notes that each chapter contains many inspiring initiatives unique to each country. But, it notes, there are also striking similarities. In most countries sustainability is lacking in national cultural policy, and culture is missing in climate policy. Another significant observation is the importance of collaboration and of networks, which have achieved great results in the countries included in the publication. In fact, the focus of CCS, whose chapter was co-authored by Director Dr Ben Twist and Communications Manager Katherine Denney, is fostering such collaboration and networks.
Twist said,
“We were delighted to contribute to this excellent book and share the three main strands of our work: making the cultural sector more sustainable, creative solutions for the climate crisis, and changing the structures within which cultures works. COP26 being held in Glasgow in November 2021 concentrated the minds of Scottish policymakers on the connections and synergies between arts and culture and achieving a sustainable, adapted Scotland. For example, the Scottish Government Culture Division now has a net zero officer. Towards sustainable arts: European best practices and policies provides strong arguments and case studies that support an ever-closer alignment between culture and climate policy.â€
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.
e99 winter diary revisited - homage to r. murray schafer (25' introduction + 40' composition in 12 parts + 3m credits) is a 68-minute episode that closes season 3 and features a soundscape composition of mine based on an unpublished essay that composer R. Murray Schafer wrote after a 10-day field recording trip that he and I undertook in rural Manitoba in February 1997 to produce a radio program on winter soundscapes for the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (WDR). In this episode, I ‘revisit’ this trip by illustrating Schafer's text with new winter soundscapes recorded in Ontario and Quebec in 2022 as well as archival soundscapes. The final mix was realized and presented as part of a residency at the New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA) in South River, Ontario. 2. e99 (b) winter diary revisited - homage to r. murray schafer (composition only) is the 40-minute composition only (without the introduction or credits). A video version is also available on vimeo. The French language version is cons conscient episode 100. I'll be back with season 4 in the spring.
https://vimeo.com/674316565
e99 winter diary revisited trailer
https://vimeo.com/674639124
e99 winter diary revisited video version
Episode Notes
Barn on the farm of R. Murray Schafer and Eleanor James, Indian River, Ontario, January 19, 2022 (photo by me)
Note: the text below is a transcription of the narration in the episode (sounds are described, with their source where possible)
Welcome to episode 99 of the conscient podcast, the last episode of season 3, which you might recall was on the theme of radical listening.
(fade in of sound of barn)
I invite you to guess what is this space. There are some sonic clues. It’s clearly an indoor space and yet there is a hollowing wind with a deep, rich texture… You can hear the gentle crackling of wood… the occasional slap of a rope… a squirrel.
(fade out sound of barn)
This soundscape was recorded on January 19th, 2022, in a barn, on a farm that belonged to composer R. Murray Schafer and is now the home of his wife, the singer Eleanor James. The farm is located near Indian River, Ontario, about 20k east of Peterborough which is the traditional territory of the Anishinaabe Mississauga people adjacent to Haudenosaunee Territory and in the territory covered by the Williams Treaty.
I went to the farm to record winter soundscapes for this episode, Winter Diary Revisited, which is a soundscape composition dedicated to the memory of composer, writer, music educator, and environmentalist, R. Murray Schafer.
1st floor of barn of R. Murray Schafer and Elanor James, near Indian River, ON, January 19, 2022Eleanor James, January 19, 2022, Indian River, Ontario (photo by me)
While visiting the farm, I had a conversation with Eleanor James about Murray and his relationship to winter. Here is an excerpt:
Claude: I’m with Eleanor James and I just spent some time in your barn. Thank you so much. I recorded a bunch of sounds, and I went into the forest and captured sounds of wind and some of the things that Murray and I did when we did the Winter Diary, which is to do this kind of yelling out, to enliven the space and get a feeling of it.
(sound of snowshoeing and distant ‘Hey’ at the farm on January 19, 2022)
Claude: There are so many things that you could talk about Murray. Any thoughts about soundscapes but also around recording and winter sounds?
Eleanor: There’s a couple of things come to mind, which are in his creative output and one of them is Music in the Cold. It’s a lovely little manifesto done in an artistic style about how it’s better to be in the North than in the South and that music in the cold is tougher and hardier and more austere and (laughs) so he goes into a diatribe about that kind of thing. He really is a Northern personality. So, you have to forgive him for going on a rant about it, but, of course, it was an artistic creation, so it was intended to be hyperbolic. I think it’s quite delightful. It’s got a midnight blue cover and then the title Music in the Cold.
Speaking of which, he has written a wonderful string quartet called Winter Birds which the Molinari quartet of Montreal have recorded, in which his own voice occurs in the very last movement where he describes the winter of 2005 looking out his studio window at the birds feeding. We used to fill the feeders with seeds, and we’d have all kinds of little birds coming and fluttering and going and making little soft sounds. In the string quartet, he describes a whole event of birds, just fluttering and coming and going and the total silence surrounding them, not only acoustically, but visually as well. Nothing but the snow, just like it is today, with snow heaped everywhere and just these little birds making tiny fluttering sounds with their wings.
There’s also the piece that he wrote for choir called Snowforms which is actually quite popular, and he wrote it as a graphic score and it’s written on a sort of pale turquoise green paper, and the choir reads the shapes of snow and again, those shapes were something that he observed looking out his studio window and drew graphically and then composed it so that pitches were associated with these tones. It’s just a marvelous description of winter and so for Murray, all of the soundscape work that he was so interested in fed into his artistic abilities and his artistic gifts as a composer.
I re-read Murray’s Music in the Cold book when I got back home to Ottawa, which he wrote in 1977, when I was 17. It’s interesting to look back at this piece of artistic reflection and provocation. Here are the last 11 lines of the book:
Saplings are beginning to sprout again in the moist earth.
Beneath it animals can be heard digging their burrows.
Soon the thrush will return.
The old technology of waste is gone.
What then remains?
The old virtues: harmony; the universal soul; hard work.
I will live supersensitized, the antennae of a new race.
I will create a new mythology.
It will take time.
It will take time.
There will be time.
(fade in recording of Eclogue for an Alpine Meadow)
I remember back in August of 1985, the late composer Robert Rosen, Murray and I produced a series of ecological radio programs to be performed at Spry Lake, near Canmore, Alberta. Murray was in Banff to present his music theatre piece Princess of the Stars. We each wrote a piece of music for this space. Mine was for bass clarinet and trombone called ‘Eclogue for an Alpine Meadow’ . You can hear me on bass clarinet. Murray was a mentor to Robert and myself on this project, sharing his vast experience in writing music for and with a natural environment.
Note: You can hear the entire piece on the Whom Am I page of the conscient podcast website.
Robert Rosen, R. Murray Schafer and me in Banff in 1985 during ecological radio programs project (photo credit unknown)Excerpt of first page of my ‘Eclogue for an Alpine Meadow’ for bass clarinet and tromboneMe and trombonist (name not known) at Spray Lake, Alberta, recording ‘Eclogue for an Alpine Meadow’ for bass clarinet and trombone (photo credit unknown)
Murray’s music, and in particular his research in acoustic ecology, have had a deep influence on many composers, educators, researchers and sound artists around the world, including myself. Among other things, Murray taught me how to listen deeply, both with my ears and with a microphone.
Me, Kozo Hiramatsu and R. Murray Schafer at Hör Upp! Stockholm acoustic ecology conference, Stockholm, Sweden 1998 (photo credit unknown)
I remember having long conversations with Murray about listening, radio, acoustic ecology, field recording, technology, including how it make a living as a composer. Here is a short excerpt from a conversation I had with him in July of 1990 in a restaurant in Peterborough. I apologise for the poor quality of the recording, but I think you’ll enjoy listening to Murray speak about the art of listening:
You probe by asking further questions. Was it inside? Was it outside? Are there a lot of people assembled there? Is there nobody there? Is this in Canada? Is it outside of Canada? Is it in Europe? You heard a train. Is it Canadian train whistle or a European train whistle? You heard a language. What language was it you heard? Any of these cues that you might have heard that would help you identify where you were and then tell them afterwards where the actual recording was made but force them to really use their ears. Did you hear any birds? Did you hear any of this, did you hear any sounds that would help you to localize? I’m just saying that that’s one sort of type of exercise, which I think someday somebody should put together a package, an educational package.
I just feel that one has to constantly go back to nature and listen again, look again, learn again. It’s as simple as that. Anytime you get too far in touch with it, you’re probably going to be in trouble. If you don’t know how to come, go back and look at a butterfly, because you’re so spell bound by strobe lights or something, I think you’re in trouble, which is not to say that you can’t go back and look at it and reanalyze it. It will change things and then you go back to your old environment and see things differently. In nature, what you’re so conscious of is a cycle of life and death, and rather the interchange, that almost sine wave of life and death, but also of silence and activity and that there are certain times when certain creatures are far and certain other times when they speak and that you take in the natural soundscape. Sometimes it’s hard to find those rhythms in a modern urban soundscape where everybody sounds so aggressively trying to catch the attention of everyone else.
Claude: they lose touch with the balance of their lives.
Murray passed away on August 14, 2021, at age 88 in his farmhouse.
Home of R. Murray Schafer and Eleanor James, Indian River, Ontario, January 19, 2022Studio of R. Murray Schafer, Indian River, Ontario, January 19, 2022
Shortly after his passing, I was honoured to be asked to write a remembrance piece about my personal experience with Murray. This request came from Eric Leonardson, president of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE) an organization that Murray helped found in 1993 at the Banff Centre and that continues its good work to this day. Kirk MacKenzie and Robin Elliott of the University of Toronto also approached me to write a remembrance piece about Murray for a series of memorials they are producing about Murray and his legacy.
I decided to produce a soundscape composition instead of writing an article for this remembrance piece. Here’s the story.
In 1996, Murray received a commission from the Akustische Kunst department of the West German Radio, the WDR, in Germany, produced by Klaus Schöning, to record a radio program about the winter soundscapes of rural Manitoba called Winter Diary. Murray had produced many radio pieces before for the CBC and the WDR, but he needed a hand with this rather large-scale production, so he hired me as a recordist, editor and mixer, but also as a driver and scout. I was 37 at the time and was about to be married to filmmaker Sabrina Mathews and start a family in Montreal, which we did. However back then I still had the time and energy to do a 10-day road trip and to spend weeks afterwards editing it together with Murray. We certainly had a lot of fun together on that trip
(sequence of Claude and Murray laughing during the recording of ‘Winter Diary’ in 1997)
Me in my home studio in Montreal in the 1990’s (photo credit unknown)Letter from R. Murray Schafer to me, September 27, 1998
Winter Diary ended up winning the Karl-Sczuka-Prize for radio art in 1998. I was deeply moved by the jury’s statement, which I think captures the spirit of Murray’s composition and the essence of our collaboration in its production:
It is with great autonomy and imperturbability that Schafer draws the sound spectrum of a Canadian winter into his acoustic image. From the calm sequence of concise sound events an acoustic landscape emerges, almost spatial in its presence. To the point of noiselessness, of silence, everything audible is there concretely and non-arbitrarily. It is a work which ushers its listeners to a place of unhurried, patient listening, insists upon the wealth of nuances in acoustic perception, and takes a stand against sound refuse and staged hyperactivity.
Scan of the first paragraph of Schafer’s Winter Diary (not Dairy :-)) essay, February 15, 1997
While I was doing research for this piece, I found the first draft of an unpublished, 13-page essay in my archives that Murray wrote, at his farm, on February 15th, 1997, about the creation of Winter Diary. I was so excited. It’s a brilliant piece of writing about our adventures in Manitoba, but the essay also includes reflections on a number of other issues: listening, art history, philosophy, his dreams, literature, and use the microphone. I decided to create a composition around his essay. A sonic illustration and interpretation of his words.
But first let me tell a bit of a story about microphones. Murray had a love – hate relationship with the microphone. Here is another excerpt from that July 1990 restaurant conversation where he talks a bit more about distant listening, which is a key element of his aesthetic:
If the microphone replaces your ear, there’s something wrong. And as you see in a lot of our listening that the microphone has replaced the ear. The mere fact that for instance, we demand presence on all recorded sounds and they’re all close mic-ed, is a recognition of the fact that the microphone, which is an instrument for getting closeups, is respected more than our own sort of hearing experience. The fact that we can no longer listen to the distance. Now, if you’re going to get involved, really, with ecology in the environment, you have to rediscover how to listen to the distance, because an awful lot of the sounds you’re talking about are distant.
Claude (in the field from afar, recorded at Adawe Crossing, Ottawa): Now, if you’re going to get involved, really, with ecology in the environment, you have to rediscover how to listen to the distance, because an awful lot of the sounds you’re talking about are distant.
I think you understand what I mean.
Adawe Crossing, Rideau River, Ottawa where I recorded the ‘distant’ passage above, January 2022
While recording these winter soundscapes, and it’s been a cold winter so far as you’ll hear, I kept thinking about what the Karl Szuckaprize jury said about Murray’s interest in the ‘noiselessness of silence’. I also thought about the idea of ushering the listener ‘to a place of unhurried, patient listening’.
I tried to explore the idea of patient, unhurried listening in this piece as well as the notion of radical listening.
Me on January 17, 2022 recording winter soundscapes in Ottawa (photo by Sabrina Mathews)
Before we start, I want to let you know that some recordings are very quiet, at the threshold of what you might be able to hear on speakers or headphones so don’t worry if you hear long silences or can’t make out some of the detail, especially if you are in a car or in a noisier environment. You can listen to the Winter Diary Revisited again, in high resolution.
I am extremely grateful for this opportunity to honour the memory of R. Murray Schafer and hope you enjoy this sonic illustration from his Winter Diary essay.
Script
Note: This script is drawn from R. Murray Schafer’s Winter Diary Essay, first draft, February 15, 1997 (sounds are described with their source where possible)
(door slapping and footsteps approaching the gate and mailbox at Murray’s farm in Indian River)
1. gates
Gate at Murray and Eleanor’s property near Indian River, January 19, 2022 (photo by me)
Claude Schryer came by today to plan the Winter Diary radio program for the West German Radio. After dinner we walked the quarter mile out to the road.
(walking towards the gate)
There was a powdering of light snow, making the landscape bright under the stars. I opened and closed the gate while Claude recorded it; then I went to the tin mailbox and flapped the lid – both are sounds characteristic of rural life in Canada.
(mailbox lid and gate)
The flapping got the neighbour’s dog barking. Then, more distantly other dogs began to bark. Dogs were the original alarm systems in the countryside and remain so despite electronic technology. Could be a thief or a wolf out there. The message is telegraphed from farm to farm and behind every dark doorway a farmer cocks his gun. The dogs grew silent again as we trudged back.
(crossfade entry of house towards fire)
Entering the warm house with a fire burning brightly in the grate, I suddenly realized that we had already discovered a valuable leitmotif for our program: the contrast between warm, populated rooms
(crossfade with quiet cedar forest)
and the vast, cold spaces that surround them during the Canadian winter.
There is a painting by Cornelius Krieghoff (1815-1872) entitled “Merrymaking†that illustrates this drama between interior and exterior.
(my wife Sabrina, son Riel and daughter Clara exiting our home and walking into our yard)
A party at the Jolifu Inn is breaking up and the revellers are spilling out to depart into the cold, snowy dawn. The drama of the scene is depicted in Brueghel style, but the contrast between hot interior and cold exterior is distinctly Canadian. The same theme recurs in our best novelists, for instance in Frederick Philip Grove’s, “Over Prairie Trails†(1922) or in Sinclair Ross’s, “As for Me and My House†(1941). The contrast between interior and exterior creates the drama between society and selfhood. Marshall McLuhan summed it up epigrammatically when he said that Canadians go out to be alone and come in to be with company while elsewhere people go out to be with company and come home to be alone.
Woman skater (family friend): If you’re really lucky to be at a cottage in the winter in the morning and they’re almost no sounds and you’ll hear a branch cracking or something…
(Quiet forest with cracking of frozen trees)
The hinge is the door. One sound characteristic of the Canadian countryside is the slap of a screen door.
(Various door slappings from Murray’s farm and our cottage)
I’ve known it since my childhood. Of course, it is intended to keep the insects out of the house in summer but out of laziness the screen door is often left on during winter too – as mine is. The door has a coil spring attached to it so that it will slap shut quickly. Usually there is another contraption on the side with a hairpin spring to snap it firm. If it isn’t oiled, it squeaks. So, the entire sound event is actually quite complex, consisting first of a swish as the door opens, then a swoosh as it closes followed by a residual snap as the second spring is released to hold it shut.
(More door sounds)
The subject of doors could occupy a doctoral thesis or two. Every continent and climate has its own vocabulary and rhetoric of doors as different as the languages of the people who open and close them.
(processed L14 train whistle with GRM Evolution Tool and Dear VR Pro spatializer)
Every Canadian knows the three-toned Canadian train whistle – without knowing it. Tuned to an E-flat minor triad with a fundamental at 311 Hertz, it’s the most authoritative sound mark of the country, curiously analogous to the Yellow Bell or Huang Chung, which established the tuning for all music in the golden days of ancient China.
(Meditation bell)
The legend goes that when the tuning of the Yellow Bell was abandoned the empire would fall into ruin.
(Overpass from simplesoundscapes e167 above + train passing with gate processing)
Something like that is happening here, for today more and more train whistles are out of tune, and with the building of overpasses and tunnels urban dwellers rarely ever hear them.
(more processed L14 train whistle)
Canadian railroads all run east-west. As the authority of the railroad vanishes the east-west axis gives way to a south-north bias, i.e., American invasion. … Eventually in the far distance we hear the L14 whistle (the signal for a level crossing, long, long, short, long,) which incidentally is also the rhythm of the opening phrase of the Canadian national anthem.
(noon siren excerpt from my 1996 composition Vancouver Soundscape Revisited)
4. hooves
‘Cricket’, Mono, Ontario during recording of ‘hooves’ scene. (photo by me)
(wind from Murray’s farm)
It is warmer today then yesterday and a heavy fog lies over the snow so that the acoustic horizon surpasses the visual. Frederick Philip Grove talks about getting lost in the fog in Over Prairie Trails. Then he had to rely on the instinct of his horses.
(sound of horse hooves from Cricket in Mono, Ontario)
Note: below is a quote from Frederick Philip Grove’sOver Prairie Trails, Toronto, 1991, p.47.
‘I had become all ear. Even though my buggy was silent and though the road was coated with a thin film of soft clay-mud. I could distinctly hear by the muffled thud of the horses’ hooves on the ground that they were running over a grade.’
(Grade and farm sounds and return of hoove sounds)
‘That confirmed my bearings… So now I was close to the three-farm cluster. I listened intently again for the horses’ thump. Yes, there was that muffled hoof-beat again – I was on the last grade that led to the angling road across the corner of the marsh.‘
5. microphones
Zoom H4N Pro recording wind sounds at R. Murray Schafer farm, January 19, 2022
(wind from Murray’s field)
What would the Prairies be without wind?
(Wind from Murray’s barn mixed with forest sounds in South River, Ontario)
It’s the keynote sound here, the one against which everything else is registered. But to record it? Impossible. The microphone hasn’t yet been invented to effectively record nature’s most elementary sounds: wind, rain, fire.
(thunder and rain sound from simplesoundscapes e105 thunder, fire from fireplace at our cottage)
The mistake in recording the environment is in trying to pull a huge spread of events, far and near in all directions, into a single focus. The soundscape isn’t stereophonic, its spherical. The stereophonic preoccupation in recording results from stereoscopy rather than any real understanding of the listening experience, in which one is always at the centre.
(microphone panning ventilation system)
One would like the microphone to observe the same respect for figure-ground that our ears do, elevating those sounds we wish to receive and suppressing those we don’t. But of course, the microphone is not an ear, and everything is registered according to its amplitude only. Could we imagine a future microphone with a discrimination circuit to allow us to reproduce the wished-for soundscape rather than the real one?Or is that merely another form of pathetic fallacy that only the romantic recordist could hope for?
Claude (from snow pellets on dried leaves in Misikew provincial park): and here’s an example of a sound that is so delicate that the microphone picks it up better than the human ear.
The value of the microphone is that it presents simply what is there. The tape recorder puts a frame around it, often astonishing us with the sound events our real ears have missed.
6. footsteps
Footstep tracks at Warbler’s Roost, South River, ON, February, 2022
Claude confesses his excitement for recording. He is almost like a fighter pilot seeking out the enemy, the elusive sound object, slating his various dives at the material we’ve targeted for a take, hoping the desired event will occur on cue, wondering whether to stalk it silently or prompt it – or forget it and seek another campaign. “So many things can go wrong,†he says excitedly. Ruefully I agree.
Note: I recorded my voice saying “So many things can go wrong,â€
Claude (xcountry ski sequence, December 2021): When Murray and I recorded Winter Diary in 1997, we record a lot of different winter sounds but not cross-country skiing. It is a typical sound of winter in Canada and a very rich one. You can hear me skiing now, as well as people skiing beside me. Skiing sounds have number of different elements: there’s the push and pull of the ski, the poles that hit into the snow and of course the breath of the skier. Sometimes you can hear the wind in the trees, snowmobiles a distance, dogs…
People who live by the sea know how the colour of the water changes constantly, but one has to live with a long winter to know the perpetual changes in the sound (as well as the colour) of snow.
(various foot and snow sounds)
Even the lapse of an hour can alter it profoundly, and the experienced listener can pinpoint the temperature by the sound of his footsteps in it. On the cold nights it screeches. Sometimes a crust will build up to produce a crunchy quality.Or even several crusts, separated by layers of powdery snow, giving variations of dissonance with each step.
(Steps on crusty snow)
7. cars
Lumber truck passing on Eagle Road, South River, ON
We always take the most ordinary sounds for granted. Assuming cars to be universal, we forget that they sound different in different environments.
(bus stuck on a hill and cars passing in Ottawa)
On a country highway we recorded the approach and departure of individual cars and trucks, sometimes lasting three minutes without any other sound.
(Hey sequence in forest in Gatineau QC, January 2022)
Excursion into Park. Total isolation. We realized that the only way we could give an impression of soundscape here was by making sounds ourselves, so we set up the microphone in the snow and walked away from it, calling in different directions. How far is it across the valley? What is the difference between a bare deciduous forest and a leafy evergreen one? Your voice will tell you.
(rumble of car on winter road, stop and get out of vehicle, then silence)
I came out alone in the car after Claude had gone to sleep. Never had I heard the world so silent. Is it near or far, this black landscape?
(forest cracks at Murray farm)
My own slightest movement makes it seem near. The frosted crack of a distant tree makes it vast. My breathing brings it close again. Justin Winkler pointed out that the soundscape is essentially a static term, but here it seems dynamic, increasing to an infinite volume, then shrinking right inside me as my stomach growls.
I turn the ignition key and am startled and relieved at the same time. My escape.
10. heater
Gas fireplace at our home in Ottawa, January 2022
(gas fireplace starting + song based on texture of fireplace ‘pings’)
Strange phenomenon this morning on waking. In my dream I had been singing a solo song at some kind of gathering. I finished and everyone applauded enthusiastically.
(Sound of small crowd clapping and saying nice song Murray)
I awoke to hear the propane heater come on. So, the conclusion of my song and heater were synchronized but I stress that I had sung a rather lengthy song to its conclusion before the applause of the heater. I even remembered the song and sang it over again to myself while lying in bed.
(Gas heater and song)
Had I anticipated the end of it and paced the singing to a sound that I could somehow fore-hear? Or had the whole event occurred in the fraction of a second as the heater came on?
11. ice
Chunk of ice at my home in Ottawa, January 23, 2022
Spotting some children knocking down some icicles in Sainte Rose du Lac, we rushed over to record them but frightened them away.
(gated kicking ice blocks and skating sounds)
So, we knocked the icicles down ourselves and then kicked them along the street.
(more gated kicking ice blocks and skating sounds)
Each chunk had a different pitch and pieces when they broke into pieces the pitch rose. I was glad to have this other form of frozen water to add to our repertoire.
12. jet
Location at Murray’s farm where I recorded a passing jet, January 19, 2022
The sun was setting. It was totally quiet.
(begin sound of jet passing)
Eventually the whisper of a jet aircraft became audible. It crossed the sky distantly, its passage lasting eight minutes without any other sound interrupting it. A perfect sound event in an anesthetized environment.
(end sound of jet passing and fade to gentle forest sound)
Claude: I would like to conclude Winter Diary Revisited with an excerpt from Murray’s 1977 book Music in the cold. Here are the last 11 lines:
Saplings are beginning to sprout again in the moist earth.
Beneath it animals can be heard digging their burrows.
Soon the thrush will return.
The old technology of waste is gone.
What then remains?
The old virtues: harmony; the universal soul; hard work.
I will live supersensitized, the antennae of a new race.
I will create a new mythology.
It will take time.
It will take time.
There will be time.
*
Credits
(except from the end of my composition Eclogue for an Alpine Meadow in background)
I have many people to thank. Murray’s essay is narrated by my father-in-law, the poet, political activist and educator Robin Mathews. In passing I invite you to listen to an episode about his work e88 robin mathews – on radical listening & political poetry.
Poet Robin Mathews and me recording narration of Winter Diary Essay, November 2021, Vancouver (photo by Sabrina Mathews)
Logo of NAISADeep Wireless festival logoMy bedroom and editing studioEagle Road, where I recorded a passing truck, South River, ONDarren Copeland setting up the Ambisonic microphone for meMe recording forest sounds, February 2, 2022, Mikisew Provincial Park, ONMe, Victoria Fenner and James Bailey during Q&A on February 6, 2022 at NAISA North
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.
Happy new year! I don’t know about you, but I’m optimistic about what this year will bring. According to the Media and Climate Change Observatory, 2021 witnessed the most climate change coverage ever! (h/t Mary Heglar in the outstanding “Hot Take†newsletter.)
And 2022 is already on its way to becoming another significant year for climate coverage and storytelling. Artists, journalists, advocates, writers, and other passionate folks are working hard to bring the public’s attention to the crisis. Here’s one example: The journal Triangulation is currently seeking writing inspired by the promise of sustainable energy. And here’s another: This month, I have an interview for you with two folks who are using art to inspire climate action.
Michele Roberts is an advocate with the Equitable and Just National Climate Forum, a group comprising some of the country’s largest and most influential climate organizations. The Forum just launched an art campaign to inspire people to think more deeply about racial, climate, and environmental justice. The artist behind the campaign is Quynh-Mai Nguyen, whose work seeks to inspire empathy and cultural awareness. The campaign brings Nguyen’s art to airports, kiosks, newspapers, and online news outlets.
For readers who have yet to discover the Equitable and Just National Climate Platform, please tell us what it is and how it came about!
Michele: In 2017, a group of environmental justice and national environmental group advocates knew they had to take collective action to ensure environmental justice was included in federal policy debates. To address the environmental and social injustices many communities across the country face, this group of advocates got together and outlined a vision and agenda for an equitable and just climate future: the Equitable and Just National Climate Platform (EJNCP). This group of co-authors became the Equitable and Just National Climate Forum (EJNCF), whose mission is to implement the Platform to advance economic, racial, climate, and environmental justice to improve the public health and wellbeing of all communities while tackling the climate crisis. Forum participants include the Center for Earth, Energy and Democracy, Center for American Progress, Environmental Justice Health Alliance for Chemical Policy Reform, Natural Resources Defense Council, Midwest Environmental Justice Network, and the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance, along with dozens of other environmental justice and national environmental organizations (see full list here).
Michele Roberts
How does art play a role in EJNCP’s work?
Michele: While the EJNCP was founded as a bold national climate policy agenda, we are excited to embark on our journey to utilize different forms of expression like storytelling and visual art to distribute that agenda widely. These different forms of expression will allow us to share our priorities and the lives of communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis in a creative way that captures stories often missing in policy discourses. I have always been passionate about storytelling. I am the environmental justice producer of Pacifica 89.3 FM radio’s weekly “The On the Ground Show: Voices of Resistanceâ€. The show elevates social justice activism in DC and across the country. Environmental justice issues and intersecting social justice issues are often a topic of discussion. Art is vital in allowing us to communicate with our constituents and share the on-the-ground stories of people doing the work.
Quynh-Mai Nguyen
What message are you hoping people take away from this work?
Michele: For far too long, low-income households and communities of color have borne the brunt of economic and environmental injustices. Lawmakers have the opportunity to help change that by passing a budget reconciliation bill with “Build Back Better†measures – investments to support working families and mitigate the impacts of climate change – intact, and by ensuring the benefits of those investments are directed where they are needed most by implementing the Justice40 Initiative. The artwork depicts a hopeful future with community members enjoying the benefits of a healthy, sustainable environment and economy powered by clean energy with the messages “Climate Justice for All†and “Build Back With Justice.†It’s time to ensure investments from legislation like the Build Back Better Act prioritize environmental justice communities. The Build Back Better Act includes $162.9 billion to advance environmental justice priorities supported by the EJNCP co-authors such as the cleanup of Superfund sites and building a Civilian Climate Corps to employ the next generation of workers to address climate change and protect public lands, prioritizing training in low-income and communities of color, and Tribal and environmental justice communities. Passing this bill with the important investments we identified will let our communities know they are supported, heard, and empowered to lead. All these issues matter, and we need to address them. Building back better means building back with justice.
Quynh-Mai: I want people to see that the arts have a role in communicating issues and bringing them to light, and for artists to feel and know that they have the power to effect change through their work. I also want people who see the art and engage with the campaign to know that these issues affect them and that they can live in a world that is a reflection of their thriving selves.
Photo by Clear Channel
What role do you think art plays more generally in public discourse about the climate crisis?
Michele: Art is indispensable in allowing communities to share their stories of the climate crisis. It’s important to bring humanity into the policy discussions that affect so many of us, and these different forms of expression allow us to do this. Art hits you in your heart: with no words, one is able to clearly understand the political and personal significance of a particular issue. Art is more powerful if it comes from the communities being represented. For this ad campaign, we specifically wanted an individual grounded in the social and environmental issues we are trying to tackle. Quynh-Mai Nguyen was able to beautifully capture the better world for all we envision if we make intentional investments towards environmental justice through legislation like the Build Back Better Act. Like in this campaign, art can be a storytelling vessel for what a better future can look like, and can engage folks who have never pondered the question of “what does a truly equitable and just climate future look like?â€
Quynh-Mai: Art and art experiences can take complex or overwhelming subjects and make them comprehensible in the simplest of ways. Visual storytelling combined with positive messaging helps change fear and evoke a sense of hope, helping people visualize and feel connected to the unimaginable, especially when they can see themselves reflected in it. We are constantly being bombarded with a stream of negative images and mixed messaging. The immediacy of how we are able to obtain news, if it’s credible, to the amount of false content that we are exposed to through social media, can leave people feeling overwhelmed, anxious, fearful, insecure, helpless, and even apathetic towards issues that directly affect them. So it’s not surprising to find people, especially communities of color and low-income communities, feeling removed when it comes to public discourse around the climate crisis or feel that access to a world where they can find themselves thriving in is unattainable. Imagine the type of messages that these communities are exposed to in the media as well as in their daily lived experiences in environments that are built on the foundation of systemic and racial inequity. Living in a world where systemic issues are part of daily lives depletes the thought of being civically engaged in one’s community. People might believe since they don’t see change that they can’t be a part of change. Art can be a catalyst for change.
If my readers would like to get more involved in the Equitable and Just National Climate Platform, how might they do that?
Michele: We encourage anyone interested in our movement for an equitable and just climate future for all to check our website and sign up for e-mail updates. On our site, you can read the Platform, learn about our history, and explore the stories of our Forum and the work of our Forum members. If you are an organization, you can also become a signatory organization of the Platform here. Through this e-mail list, we will share more updates, calls to action, and resources to the wider public. We hope this can empower you to bring our message and resources to your local communities and local spaces doing the on-the-ground work. We also invite readers to join this important conversation and share their thoughts on what an equitable and just future would look like in their community on our social media channels on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
What’s next for the both of you?
Michele: The EJNCP is excited to keep moving forward with the work to secure national climate and environmental policies that center justice and equity to advance economic, racial, climate, and environmental justice while tackling the climate crisis, recognizing the critical intersections of these issues. We have policy and outreach goals outlined to ensure we maintain our commitment to the Platform. One example of how we’ll do this in 2022 is by working to ensure President Biden’s Justice40 initiative is implemented and resources get to the communities most in need. The Justice40 Initiative was part of an Executive Order issued in the first few weeks of Biden’s presidency that directs Federal agencies to work with states and local communities to ensure that at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from Federal investments in climate and clean energy go to disadvantaged communities. We will also work to share information, engage policymakers and partners, and mobilize Platform co-signers to advance the work of not leaving any communities behind.
Quynh-Mai: I will be producing and showcasing art for the 5th installment of Lunar X, a lunar new year group art show. A collective group of emerging Asian American artists, local artists, and students will be showcasing our work celebrating the Year of the Tiger at both locations of Tea Lyfe, a small women-owned tea shop. There will also be a virtual gallery featuring our work that will be accessible online for those not from their area and for those who especially cannot leave their house due to the pandemic. The virtual link will be launched on February 1st and can be accessed here or through Instagram. Through the work that I do with Art Builds Community, we are working on a project called Womanhood with the County of Santa Clara in California to explore how we can recognize the contributions of women across all intersectional identities within the region through public art. Starting in March for women’s history month, we will be pushing out some temporary pilot public art projects through outdoor banners and storefront window projections/installations to commemorate the women who helped build downtown and the arts sector in San Jose, CA. These pilot projects will be used as a framework to explore other methods of commemoration in other cities across the county.
(Top image: Poster art by Quynh-Mai Nguyen)
This article is part of the Climate Art Interviews series. It was originally published in Amy Brady’s “Burning Worlds†newsletter. Subscribe to get Amy’s newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.
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Amy Brady is the Executive Director of Orion Magazine, and the former Editor-in-Chief of the Chicago Review of Books. She is also the co-editor of The World As We Knew It: Dispatches from a Changing Climate (Catapult) and author of Ice: An American Obsession (GP Putnam’s Sons). Every month she edits the newsletter “Burning Worlds,†which explores how artists and writers are thinking about climate change. Amy holds a PhD in English and is the recipient of a CLIR/Mellon Library of Congress Fellowship. Read more of her work at AmyBradyWrites.com at and follow her on Twitter at @ingredient_x.
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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.
SummerWorks Performance Festival expands the possibilities of performance. In its 32nd year, based in Toronto, Canada, SummerWorks is widely recognized as one of the most vital platforms for launching new performance in the country.Â
SummerWorks is currently seeking proposals for their Festival’s next edition, taking place August 4th-14th, 2022.
Proposals are encouraged from established and emerging creators, as well as curators, working across all disciplines and artistic traditions. In-person, digital, and hybrid performance projects will be considered.
NO APPLICATION FEE. GUARANTEED ARTIST FEES.Â
Calls for: – SummerWorks Presentations – SummerWorks Labs – Public Works – Special Call for Artists & Curators
DEADLINE TO SUBMIT: Tuesday, March 15, 2022 11:59pm EST
There are four programming streams accepting applications, including our free Public Works programming and a Special Call for Artists & Curators working in all mediums.
The Special Call welcomes proposals for short solo performances, art interventions, and/or curated series to be experienced along sidewalks, streets, alleys, and laneways of Toronto.
Our Public Works programming brings artists and audiences together to reimagine possibilities for the public realm, in digital, in-person, and hybrid formats. In 2022, we invite creators to consider how the landscape and infrastructure of the city impacts how we move, connect, and communicate with one another.
In 2011, photographer and environmental artist Meridel Rubenstein envisioned creating a garden in southern Iraq where the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers cross, near the supposed site of the biblical Garden of Eden. However, unlike its idyllic predecessor – a mythical paradise in a newly formed world – this new garden would help to heal what had become a fragile, desert wasteland by cleaning existing wastewater and establishing a culturally significant green space.
To Rubenstein, her leap 11 years ago from artist/professor to socially engaged humanitarian and director of Eden in Iraq, an innovative wastewater garden project in a war-torn country, was both a natural extension of her artistic practice and the result of a serendipitous chain of events.
Fatman with Edith and Tilano, 18†x 23â€, Palladium print, 1993, from Critical Mass, 1989-1993
For over four decades, Rubenstein’s photographs and installations have presented nature (and art) as a healing force, explored the intersection of nature and culture, and referenced areas of the world where “my country has been at war,†including Vietnam, Cambodia, and Iraq. Her works are dense with meaning and derive from her genuine love of the Earth and all of its living beings. In 2017, William L. Fox, the director of the Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art, referred to Rubenstein as “a photographer whose domain includes sculpture, landscape, design, architecture, and earth science systems. She does not merely document the world, but seeks to save it.â€
The brief descriptions below highlighting three of Rubenstein’s earlier bodies of work, which ultimately led to her Eden in Iraq project, are only a glimpse into her powerful and distinctive oeuvre. Extensive documentation on her numerous exhibitions, awards, and publications can be found on her website and in her two monographs, Eden Turned On Its Side and Belonging: From Los Alamos to Vietnam.
In Rubenstein’s photo/text/video installation Critical Mass (1989-1993), created in collaboration with performance and video artist Ellen Zweig, with technical assistance by the Vasulkas, she visualized interactions between scientists developing the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, New Mexico and Pueblo Indians whose land bordered the site of the Manhattan Project. In many of the images, the stunning high desert landscape is starkly juxtaposed on and with imposing man-made missiles and portraits. (See photo above.) In others, portraits and related objects of the Pueblo Indians are paired with those of the Los Alamos scientists.
Millennial Forest installation with Trees at Sea at the Lewellen Contemporary Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2001. Tree prints on tree bark paper with hand-coated gum arabic and mica powder, printed with vegetable inks. Trees at Sea: glass portraits from dye transfer film laminated in glass, on wood stands with steel base and placed in wooden boats; 12-minute video projection: above, below, drown, swim
In her installation, Millennial Forest (2000), Rubenstein used photographs of magnificent old growth trees from Vietnam and the United States with objects and video to emphasize the significant difference between the two cultures that had faced each other in war. Her work addressed the question: “Can the oldest trees from two countries once at war tell us anything about war and survival?†For Rubenstein it became clear that “in Vietnam the oldest trees endure because they are taken care of and protected,†while in America, “the oldest trees survive because they are too difficult to find.â€
Part I: Photosynthesis: Respiration, 33 ¾†x 44â€, pigment print on 100% rag watercolor paper, 2009-2011, from Eden Turned on Its Side
Rubenstein’s 10-year project Eden Turned on Its Side (2009-2019) consists of three distinct bodies of work: Photosynthesis, Volcano Cycle, and Eden in Iraq. All three explore human relationships with the environment, which have profoundly transformed the natural world. The three bodies of work also address time on three separate scales – human time, geological time, and mythical time.
In Photosynthesis, human beings interact with nature over the course of a full year as they experience the spring and fall equinoxes, the summer and winter solstices, and as they pose with the products of the seasons. In one image (see photo above), a woman wearing a respirator receives oxygen directly from a tree, the source of oxygen on a polluted planet. Photosynthesis also includes photomontages placed within a circular framework, alluding to the cyclical nature of human life on Earth.
Part 2: Volcano Cycle. Mt. Bromo, East Java: Lelani at Dawn, 18†x 27â€, archival pigment on aluminum, 2010, from Eden Turned on Its Side
Volcano Cycle explores deep time – the evolution of Earth over tens of millions of years. Through dramatic large-scale photographic images printed on metal of volcanoes from Indonesia’s Ring of Fire, Rubenstein emphasizes the primal power and majesty of the Earth’s geological forces.
In 2011, Rubenstein was a Visiting Associate Professor in the School of Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technical University in Singapore. She was working on Photosynthesisand Volcano Cycle when she learned about a remarkable undertaking in Iraq. Against all odds, Iraq’s first and only environmental NGO, Nature Iraq, was attempting to restore the Ahwar, the immense Mesopotamian marshes in southern Iraq, which had been drained by Saddam Hussein’s forces in the 1990s in order to punish the Shi’a rebels who were hiding there. As a result of their actions, what had once been the third largest wetlands in the world was transformed into a desert wasteland. For thousands of years, these rich marshlands had been the home of Marsh Arabs who depended upon the resources of the marshes for their livelihoods and ultimate survival. During its rampage, Saddam’s army murdered thousands of Marsh Arabs and forced others to flee their ancestral homeland.
Part 3: Eden in Iraq: Ehmad and his Boat, Central Marshes, 34†x 69.38,†ultra violet-cured pigments on linen, 2011-2012, from Eden Turned on Its Side
Since the regime’s overthrow in 2003, over 300,000 Marsh Arabs have returned to the region but face significant environmental hazards, including sewage in the highly polluted Euphrates River spilling into the marshland. By the time Rubenstein learned of the cleaning effort in 2011, Nature Iraq had succeeded in restoring only 20% of the marshes.
Rubenstein’s desire to develop a wastewater garden in the Ahwar that would help to restore the marshland and the health of marsh communities, seemed only natural to her. She was fascinated with the story and culture of the Marsh Arabs – one of many populations of climate refugees around the world – who were able to come back to their homeland. She had previously photographed environmental remediation projects, and she was interested in wastewater gardens, especially the renowned Biosphere 2 in Tucson, Arizona. She had also seen the disastrous results on her family farm in Vermont after a neighbor drained the wetlands there. Finally, she sensed how the project would not only transform the area but her own artistic practice as well.
A number of serendipitous pieces fell into place, helping to make the Eden in Iraq project a reality and setting Rubenstein on a journey that would consume her for the next 11 years. First, she convinced her neighbor, Dr. Mark Nelson, PhD, to accompany her on the first of her many trips to Iraq. He just happened to be an environmental engineer, chairman of the Institute of Ecotechnics, and pioneer of a new ecological approach to sewage treatment. Nelson’s engagement was instrumental in the design of the project and continues to this day. Second, as a member of the faculty of the Nanyang Technical University, which just happened to be focused on the kind of work she was proposing, she received a significant research grant that enabled her to put together a project team, which includes Jassim Al-Asadi, managing director of Nature Iraq; co-director David Tocchetto, PhD, lecturer in agronomy and sustainable agriculture; and Zahra Souhail, Iraqi native living in Amsterdam and project manager. And third, as an Associate Professor of Art and Ecology, Photography and Contemporary Landscape, she was able to initiate a design process with faculty colleague/industrial engineerPeer Sathikh, PhD, and student assistants.
Eden in Iraq: In the Marshes. 4-channel video installation that covered the four surfaces in a room at the National Design Center in Singapore so that the viewer feels as if s/he is literally in the marshes and in the boats with the Marsh Arabs.Â
Between 2011 and today, Rubenstein and the Eden in Iraq team have continued to promote the creation of the garden as Iraq experienced a severe drought, an oil crisis, an unstable government that has changed its Ministers of Water Resources four times, the collapse of its economy, the presence of ISIS, and the “disappearance†of government funding allotted to the project. Eden in Iraq has yet to be realized but the team remains optimistic that it will happen in the near future.
Boat as a Garden, 65†x 35â€, pigment inks on hanging canvas, 2021, from The Boat is a Circle,2021
During this same time period, Rubenstein completed Eden in Iraq, the third body of work in the Eden on its Side trilogy, which focuses on “the eternal time of religious cosmologies.†The University of New Mexico Art Museum exhibited the entire trilogy in 2018 and published a monograph on the show.
Her newest body of work, in collaboration with Joanne Grüne-Yanoff, The Boat is a Circle, is based on a pre-Noah flood story recorded in the Epic of Gilgamesh, a poem from ancient Mesopotamia, written during the second millennium B.C.
When Rubenstein conceived of a lush green space in the historic home of a marshland people, she also regarded it as a symbol of hope in a land devastated by conflict and environmental destruction. The garden design, drawn from the rich Marsh Arab culture, and Rubenstein’s photographs and videos created in conjunction with the garden project, serve as a powerful source of inspiration and compassion to us all in a world sorely in need of both.
(Top image: Eden in Iraq Wastewater Garden Project (2011-present), site drawing of El Chibaish, 26,250 square meters (6.4 acres, 2.6 hectares), rendering by Bernard Du, 2017)
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 the climate crisis. Her most recent work, called In the Beginning There Was Only Water is a visual reframing of the biblical creation myth. In 39 panels, it speaks to the importance and beauty of all living beings and what we stand to lose as a result of climate change. She recently participated in an artist’s residency at Planet, an international company providing global satellite images, where she focused on the proliferation of sinkholes caused by climate change.
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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.
