Ashden Directory

PLATFORM: ‘C Words’

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PLATFORM: ‘C Words’ – 3 Oct-30 Nov
at Arnolfini’s ‘100 Days’ to Copenhagen – 29 Aug – 6 Dec

Marking the countdown to the 15th United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP 15), opening in Copenhagen on 7 December, the artist-activist group PLATFORM and their collaborators are presenting ‘C Words: carbon, climate, capital, culture. How did you get here and where are we going?’ from 3 October – 29 November at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol.

  • The PLATFORM events are the centrepiece to the Arnolfini Gallery’s 100 Days, from 29 August to 6 December, a season of exhibitions, performances, screenings and debate around issues of climate change, social justice and the relationship between art and activism.
C Words is a two-month investigation into carbon, climate, capital and culture. PLATFORM and their collaborators will hold over 25 events, installations, performances, actions, walks, courses, discussions and skills-sharing.

C Words cross-examines the present and looks to the next two decades. It investigates how everything from carbon offsets and transport, to racism and bank accounts play their part in the carbon web. How will culture be produced in a low ene rgy future? Can we imagine our way from here to there?

PLATFORM members will be in residence at Arnolfini throughout the project. The season will build towards a public departure to COP 15.

Seven new commissions are part of C Words:

  • Ackroyd & Harvey: The Walking Forest - In the spirit of slow travel, people are invited to bring a small tree or sapling to add to The Walking Forest, Ackroyd & Harvey’s Bristol time-based artwork.
  • African Writers Abroad: All Change! - African Writers Abroad (PEN) presents new commissioned work and workshops from poets Dorothea Smartt and Simon Murray on climate change and justice.
  • Hollington & Kyprianou with Spinwatch: Adams and Smith – Adams and Smith are auctioneers of late capitalist period artefacts, with provenance and history provided by Tamasin Cave and Spinwatch. Live auction included.
  • Institute for the Art & Practice of Dissent at Home’s Half-Term Holiday – Two adults and three children will set up a homemade activist cell to take action against Carbon, Climate Chaos and Capitalism. Join them for their half-term holiday.
  • Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination: Experiment Number 10 – This will involve building an irresistible weapon of creative resistance, which will be unleashed during the COP 15 summit.
  • Trapese Collective: Experiments against Enclosure – Tools to reclaim the Commons – The Trapese Collective present dayschools, film nights and an installation for your participation.
  • Virtual migrants: The Centre Cannot Hold – Multimedia installation, live dialogues and music performances explore the racial underpinnings of climate change, and the potential for a super-holocaust in the global south.
Also collaborating are Amelia’s Magazine, Art Not Oil, Carbon Trade Watch, The Corner House, Feral Trade, FERN, Greenpeace, Live Art Development Agency, new economics foundation & Clare Patey, Sustrans – Art & the Travelling Landscpae, Ultimate Holding Company and other artist and activist ‘co-realisers’.

Arnolfini’s ‘100 Days’

The title ‘100 Days’ refers back to the project for Documenta V (1972) by Joseph Beuys, the influential artist/activist, as well as aiming to give a sense of urgency in the lead-up to the Copenhagen conference. In addition to the PLATFORM events, the season includes exhibitions by Ursula Biemann, Ocean Earth and Barbara Steveni of the Artists Placement Group, and an ongoing Speakers Corner.

www.100days.org.uk has details of events and how to get involved, either by attending or posting news of other events and comments.

‘C Words: carbon, climate, capital, culture. How did you get here and where are we going?’

www.platformlondon.org

www.100days.org.uk

www.arnolfini.org.uk

RSA sets up Arts for COP15 network

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The RSA Arts & Ecology Centre has set up the web-based network, Arts For COP15, for artists and arts professionals who are producing work in the run up to and during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December 09.

It is designed as a site to

  • publicise arts events that relate to COP15
  • Share knowledge and resources with other artists and arts professionals
  • discuss how arts strategy around climate and social change can evolve
  • research into the range and success of these projects
  • use arts to increase the noise around COP15
  • encourage artists and arts professionals who are producing work that is about the environment over the next few months to consider using the event as a way of discussing COP15 with their audiences.
For more information, contact Wiliam Shaw, webeditor at the RSA Art & Ecology Centre.

www.arts4cop15.orgwww.rsaartsandecology.org.uk

Call for papers: ‘Essays in Performance and Ecology’

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Theresa J. May, founder and artistic director of Earth Matters on Stage, and Wendy Arons, director of the Performance and Ecology Public Art Initiative have issued a call for papers for a jointly edited publication, Essays in Performance and Ecology to be published in 2011.

The proposed anthology of essays, interviews, and artist statements will include papers dealing with ecocritical concerns as they relate to theatre and performance. The editors are especially interested in explorations that employ the science of ecology as a critical framework, or employ environmental history to contextualize performance.

The topics welcomed include, but are not limited to:

  • the ecological situatedness of language
  • the dialogic relationship between onstage/offstage ecological discourses
  • intersections and complications of landscape/body
  • performances that participate in/reflect ecological debates
  • ecology, technology and representation
  • the cultural (de)construction of ‘nature’
  • performative intersections of social justice and ecological issues
  • partnership projects in the arts and sciences
  • ecological dramaturgy
  • community/place and ecology
  • the body as a site of ecological intersections
  • the ecologies of theatrical space
  • semiotics of ‘nature’
  • subjectivity/inter-subjectivity and the ecological self
  • animal representation on/off stage
  • eco-activism/community-based performance.
The editors encourage submissions by artists working in the area of eco-performance and who reflect critically on their work and/or process, and encourage proposals that engage a question about how performance (broadly constructed) has or might function as part of ecological communities.
A working or final draft or an abstract of 500 words should be sent as an attachment to both editors by 15 October:
Theresa J. May, Assitant Professor Theatre Arts, University of Oregon
tmay33@uoregon.edu
Wendy Arons, Associate Professor of Dramatic Literature and Dramaturgy, Carnegie Mellon University
warons@andrew.emu.edu

Theatres Trust announces ECOVENUE project

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Theatres Trust announced a new three-year programme, called ECOVENUE, to provide environmental advice and assessments to 48 small scale theatres in London. The announcement was made on 14 September, the first anniversary of the Mayor of London’s Green Theatre Initiative.

The programme will be funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and will receive £450,000 over three years.

After the Mayor’s Theatre Plan was announced last year, many large-scale theatres signed up to reduce their carbon emissions by 65% by 2025, but the smaller theatres did not have the budget to participate. With this grant, smaller venues will be able to apply for help to address environmental issues associated with climate change, and to reduce their energy use and to achieve Display Energy Certificates (DECs).

The Trust will be inviting theatres to apply, and details will be advertised in the coming months.

For more information, contact Suzanne McDougall
suzanne.mcdougall@theatrestrust.org.uk

ashdenizen: earth singer

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earth song

Michael Jacksons Earth Song was his biggest-selling UK single. Leo Hickman writes:

The song is a very rare thing: a hit record with a powerful message about our impact on the environment. How many others can you think of? Joni Mitchells Big Yellow Taxi? Marvin Gayes Mercy Mercy Me? The Pixies Monkey Gone to Heaven? All great records, but none of them come close in terms of sales when compared to Earth Song.

via ashdenizen: earth singer.

Earth Matters on Stage: Ashden Directory Session

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Friday morning at Earth Matters on Stage a small group of us piled into the video conferencing room in the Knight Library at University of Oregon to have a conversation with our interested counterparts in the UK. Our second, but certainly more ambitious, video conference of the day, it harkens back to the discussion surrounding travel, the arts and conferences that has been come up at the RSA here (also to be seen in our archives as part of our feed syndication).

From the Ashden Directory Blog:

Our DVD contribution to Earth Matters On Stage is now online. The interviewees address the question: ‘What Can Be Asked? What Can Be Shown? British Theatre in the Time of Climate Instability.’ (The interviews can also be watched individually.)

Quoting Rilke, Dan Gretton considers the value of quickening the pace of artistic response and cautions against the narcissism of frenzy.

On her allotment, Clare Patey explains how a year-long project changed the quality of the conversation amongst its participants.

In Brazil, João André da Rocha draws attention to the movement and shapes of rural life, especially popular dance, as a way of getting closer to Brazilian culture. (Transcript here.) 

From his office in the East End, Paul Heritage raises the question ofthose who are talked about rather than those who are talking.

With the Lake District as her backdrop, Wallace Heim asks how climate change differs from other political situations and how this might alter the ways in which theatre can be made.

Finally, Mojisola Adebayo performs the first moments of her play Moj of the Antarctic and wonders if some people in theatre think they’re above climate change.

You also can watch each person’s contribution as a separate sequence:
 

dan gretton
Dan Gretton

Dan Gretton, co-founder of PLATFORM 
responds to Mojisola Adebayo’s question, 
‘How far is art worth the damage?’ 
watch here
 

clare patey
Clare Patey

Clare Patey, artist and curator 
responds to Dan Gretton’s question, 
‘Can you talk about the role that slowing down and reflectivity plays, both in your creative process and your interaction with your audiences?’ 
watch here 

João André da Rocha
João André da Rocha

João André da Rocha, performer, producer, People’s Palace Projects and Nós do Morro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
responds to Clare Patey’s question, 
‘How can we reunite culture and agriculture through performance?’ 
A transcript is here 
watch here 

paul heritage
Paul Heritage

Paul Heritage, producer, director People’s Palace Projects and Queen Mary’s University 
responds to João André da Rocha’s question, 
‘What steps are you taking to descrease the impact of your life in the world?’
watch here 

wallace heim
Wallace Heim

Wallace Heim, co-editor Ashden Directory, academic 
responds to Paul Heritage’s question, 
‘How can we listen to, see, feel and learn from those who are talked about rather than those who are talking in the great climate change debate?’
watch here 
 

mojisola
Mojisola Adebayo

Mojisola Adebayo, artist, theatre-maker 
responds to Wallace Heim’s question, 
‘What would you keep from theatre and performance practice and what needs to change in response to climate instability?’ 
watch here 

The film is edited by Adam Clarke and directed by Wallace Heim.

‘What can be asked? What can be shown? British theatre and performance in the age of climate instabilit

Rising Tide Conference, San Francisco: April 17th – 19th, 2009

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The Rising Tide conference is a series of topically organized panels, seminars, and roundtable discussions, bringing together creative professionals, scholars and students to engage in conversations and debates about the intersections of ethics, aesthetics, and environmentalism.

The event includes panels, exhibitions, film screenings and satellite events. Rising Tide is jointly hosted by California College of the Arts, San Francisco, and Stanford University.David Buckland from Cape Farewell is one of the keynote speakers. Panel themes include politics and capitalism, mobility, cities, rivers and oceans and material culture.

This groundbreaking conference will be jointly hosted by California College of the Arts, San Francisco, and Stanford University this spring. Our audience and collaborators come from various disciplinary backgrounds. They are artists, activists, community organizers, venture capitalists, philanthropists, students, and faculty of Fine Arts, Design, Architecture, Writing, Criticism, Curatorial Practice and Environmental Sciences who are helping to push the green revolution to a tipping point.

The conference will convene on the San Francisco Campus of California College of the Arts on Friday, April 17th, on the Stanford Campus Saturday, April 18th, and at CCA on Sunday, April 19th. We are planning a series of satellite events (screenings, exhibitions, performances, lectures…) throughout the month of April.

www.risingtideconference.org

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C.R.A.S.H. : Artsadmin and The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination – commission, events and course – April – June

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From April to June 2009 Artsadmin will be working with The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination (LABOFII)on C.R.A.S.H., experimenting with sustainable alternatives to the current financial and ecological conditions.

C.R.A.S.H is part of “2 degrees” Artadmin’s festival of art and climate change.

C.R.A.S.H contains two parts: 
1) C.R.A.S.H Course is free, intensive training by LABOFII, combining permaculture design, art activist tactics and skills for building ecological and democratic communities, from 1 – 14 June.

2) C.R.A.S.H Culture is a week of commissioned actions, street art, skill-share, performance lectures and interventions across the City of London and a nightly promenade performance in an abandoned office block, from 17 – 21 June.

There are also commissions for internventions of £500 being offered, deadline 3 April.

More information and applications for the course and commissions are on labofii.net/experiments/crash.

www.labofii.net 
www.artsadmin.co.uk

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Tipping Point to commission climate change performances – 4 May deadline

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Editors’ note: This commission is unique among those dealing with art and climate change in its focus on performance and theatre.

The Tipping Point Commissions are inviting artists to submit proposals for new performance work in the context of climate change. The proposals will be considered by a selection panel, leading to around four commission awards of at most £30,000.

The theme of climate change is intended to provide a springboard for the commissions. Artists are invited to submit projects that stimulate audiences towards the radical and imaginative thinking necessary to comprehend a world dominated by climate change. The Tipping Point Commissions are seeking proposals that offer creative reflections on a world that is rapidly changing and on humanity’s role and responsibilities within it.

Proposals can be made by practitioners of any performance discipline, as individuals or groups, by artists on their own or together with curators or producers.

Proposals must be submitted by 4 May at 5pm. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to develop ideas and attend an interview. The selection panel which will include:

  • Graham Devlin: Chairman, Tipping Point (Chairman of Selection Panel)
  • John Ashton: UK Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative for Climate Change 
  • Nick Starr: Executive Director, National Theatre 
  • Maresa von Stockert: Director, Tilted Productions 
  • Cecilia Wee: Writer, Broadcaster and Curator

The criteria for the TippingPoint Commissions and the application form is available here.For further information, contact Angela McSherry.

www.tippingpoint.org.uk/commissions

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