news

Submissions to the CSPA Quarterly Q46

  • Expressions of interest by 3rd January 2025
  • Contributions to be delivered by 31 March 2025
  • View to publishing in the second quarter of 2025

About the CSPA Quarterly publication:

The CSPA Quarterly is a publication meant to give a longer format and deeper space to explore and reflect the myriad ways in which sustainability in the arts is discussed, approached and practiced.

The publication features reviews, interviews, features, artist pages, essays, reflections and photos. It is a snapshot of a moment in time, a look at the many discussions in sustainability and the arts through the lens of a particular theme.

You can check our previous issues here.

About the CSPA Quarterly Q46 thematic guideline:

Responding to our present biospheric challenges requires urgent revisions to conceptions of what constitutes the good life. Efforts are often hampered by the catastrophist, doomist, and anxiety-invoking affects triggered by the topic. Imperatives for ‘joyful’ climate activism endeavour to counter these challenges, although the label of the joyless environmentalist persists (Losada 2020).

Positive psychologists and historians of emotion identify joy as ‘the least studied positive emotion’ (Emmons 2020: 1). Philosophers and theologians of Western culture comment on joy in the divine, tragic, and erotic in literature and scripture, identifying a fleeting and unpredictable response-feeling that has been deployed to ideological and political ends, and an emotion that can be consciously nurtured in the face of adversity and injustice (Potkay 2007). Projects on feminist, Black, and queer joy sit alongside trauma rather than offering counternarratives, while some make ‘killing’ joy a political mission (Ahmed 2023).

Mindfulness and wellbeing industries urge us to ‘find joy in small things’ to persist under capitalism. In environmentalisms, joy can sometimes infer awestruck, reverent, pious or sanctimonious nature responses. Likewise, joy emerges from the frivolous, ironic, or camp ‘bad environmentalism’ invoked by Nicole Seymour (2018). How does joy’s ambivalence, along with its potential to strengthen social connectivity and attachment to life, feature in cultural responses to environmental crisis?

Expressions of interest by 3rd January 2025

Email submissions to evelyn@sustainablepractice.org with the following in the body of the email:

  • Name of the author(s).
  • Author(s) contact information: email
  • Short bio (approx. 50 words)
  • Short outline of your proposed contribution (short form 5/600 words, longer form 1000-2000 words, series of images etc.)

If you have any questions, please email evelyn@sustainablepractice.org

We are back! 

Dear Friends and Supporters,

We’ve been able to resolve our situation and we are in the process of restoring our services. 

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused and deeply appreciate your understanding.

You can always help us by advocating for the support of the Creative Green Tools with your funders. 

If you have any questions, please send us an email to contact@sustainablepractice.org

Thank you for your continued support of our work.

Sincerely, 

The CSPA Team

Slow Touring Project – Transforming the Touring Sector: A Learning Series (ONLINE)

Register for the Slow Touring Project!

Slow Touring Project presents Transforming the Touring Sector: A Learning Series

The workshops will take place on zoom, once a month from October – March.

First free workshop: Radical Hospitality – Monday, Oct 28 – 1-3pm

How can presenters and their communities be the best possible hosts to artists and audiences – especially those with marginalized identities? How can visiting artists be good guests and connect meaningfully with the places they visit?

Featuring special guests: Franco Boni, Kevin Wong, and Lori Marchand.

Consider inviting anyone on your staff who does direct liaising with artists.

If you need accessibility, interpretation or any other support services, please let their team know.

We would love to see you there!

Green Citizen Symposium – “Thrive and Transform: A Resilient Journey” (ONLINE)

Join the Green Citizen Symposium, registration is now open!

Be part of the Green Citizen Symposium, a dynamic three-day online event!

This year’s theme “Thrive and Transform: A Resilient Journey” focuses on how individuals and communities adapt and flourish amidst ecological changes.

There will be six sessions, each featuring a keynote and a workshop. One of the keynotes of the event will be Ian Garret, the director of the CSPA!

Ian will delve into the theme of “Climate is our Culture,” emphasizing that while there are numerous climate solutions for a sustainable future on the table, action is ultimately a cultural issue.

Temporary disruption to CSPA programs and services

Dear Creative Green Tools Canada Users,

We want to inform you of an upcoming, temporary disruption in service that may affect your access to support for the platform. Due to delays in the disbursement of funds that have been allocated for the ongoing maintenance and development of Creative Green Tools Canada, there may be interruptions in platform availability and support services starting from Monday, September 30, 2024, until we receive the delayed funds.

While the necessary funding has been approved by our partners, the transfer process has unfortunately been delayed. We have worked diligently to manage these delays internally, but we’ve now reached a point where it is unavoidable. We are in close communication with our funders, who are aware of the urgency of the situation, and we are hopeful that the issue will be resolved. We will keep you updated as we receive more information.

In the meantime, we encourage you to reach out to your municipal, provincial and federal arts funders to advocate for the importance of having tools for the arts and culture sector to take climate action.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this causes and deeply appreciate your understanding.

Thank you for your continued support of Creative Green Tools Canada.

Sincerely, 

The CSPA Team

untune residency

untune is accepting applications for its Fall Residency (November 1-27, 2024).

Applicants from all disciplines and modes of expression are welcomed to apply!

This season untune welcomes creatives exploring issues concerning FOOD-insecurity, sovereignty, and its impacts on our modern food systems. Residents are offered guidance, a dedicated working space, and time to work on individual or collaborative projects, and engage in untune’s daily land stewarding practices to learn new skills and strengthen our cohabitation instincts in an environment that fosters the spirit of reciprocity.

Residency fees cover accommodation for 26 days, 3 meals/day, inner-city travel, workspace and access to materials on-site.

fall residency deadline: October 1, 2024, 11:59pm PST

More information can be found on the website.
Reach out if you have other questions: untune.info@gmail.com


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untune is an organism reliant on the contribution of interchanging parts—a social experiment in building support and natural resources with parameters continually reset to remain grounded in current issues relating to the correlation between culture, land, and food sovereignty—a creative entity for learning and supporting the teachings of Indigenous ecocultural knowledge against a backdrop of modern colonial systems that continue to impact the level of care for the earth and their inhabitants.

The residency takes place at Canvas 5025, on Chumash and Tongva land, located in the San Rafael hills in North East Los Angeles. We are dedicated to understanding the land we occupy and learning how to better support Indigenous culture and sociocultural history through our stewardship.


Curious about more open calls? Or have one you’d like us to share? Visit our open calls page!


Support Creative Green Tools Canada!

Sign our petition! Every signature counts!

We’re gathering support for the Creative Green Tools Canada – Outils Creative Green Canada. If you find value in the Tools and recognize their potential to drive bold climate action within the arts and culture sector, we’d be grateful if you could sign our petition and share it with your friends and network. 

Thank you for your support!


Nous cherchons à mobiliser un soutien continu pour le projet Creative Green Tools Canada – Outils Creative Green Canada. Si vous appréciez les outils et leur potentiel pour encourager une action climatique audacieuse dans le secteur des arts et de la culture, nous vous serions reconnaissants de signer notre pétition et de la partager avec vos amis et votre réseau.

Merci de votre soutien!

Residencies in Mustarinda, Spring 2025

Open Call for residencies in Mustarinda, Spring 2025

Artists, writers, curators, thinkers, and researchers—whether working alone or in groups—are invited to apply!

Available residency periods:

SPRING:

2 weeks from 16th January – 31st January 2025

1 month periods February – April

Application deadline: 30th September 2024

The Open Call welcomes all manner of practices, mediums, practitioners, and projects. The Call is not thematic but built around the aspirations of Mustarinda. The Mustarinda Association (est. 2009) is a community at the center of which lies contemporary art, boundary-crossing research, experimentations of practice and theory, communication, education, and events. In addition to our residency program, the Mustarinda Association is both leading and involved in a number of projects, collaborations, and long-term goals that continue to shape the Mustarinda organism.

For more information and how to apply: www.mustarinda.fi/residency


Mustarinda in 2025

The multitude of ongoing ecological crises influence the lives of all communities, whether they are human or more-than-human. Strengthening communities and their social cohesion is essential when adjusting to the rapidly changing climate and the environments in which we live. Mustarinda seeks ways to ensure that we are all kept afloat together through the ecological transition whilst also building paths towards a post-fossil future. 

In 2025 Mustarinda continues its determined efforts towards cultural shifts and the ecological transition through community-based work as well as politically engaged projects. With the Art National Park initiative Mustarinda commits its time, knowledge, and efforts towards the wellbeing and protection of the forest in Vaara-Kainuu area.

The activities of Mustarinda range from the ongoing work with local communities in our Sinipyrstö-project, to the development of the cultural vitality of the Northern region. Sinipyrstö is funded partially by EU grant initiatives whilst the regional work receives resources from the Oulu2026 European Capital of Culture program.

This open call is for residents who find inspiration, interest, commonality, or solidarity in Mustarinda’s objectives of building stronger, more resilient communities and ecosocial wellbeing, highlighting environmental values, and protecting nature as well as the region’s unique ecosystem.

We welcome you to think along with us during your residency and beyond. Should you wish to do so, the residency also offers an opportunity to join in exploring all the different dimensions of the multi-disciplinary Art National Park (ANP) initiative. However, this is not a brief for a thematic residency, and joining the shaping of the ANP concept does not need to be part of your work plan and/or the resonances with ANP can emerge in organic ways. Your individual or collective practice is valued in its own right, and we do not wish to limit your application through highlighting the ANP initiative.

Hyperutopia Design Fundamentals

Introducing Hyperutopia Design Fundamentals by Meagan Byrne

Utopia user experience design (UUXD) is the theory and practice of designing an emergent utopia by carefully selecting and synchronizing the intersecting points between living experiencers and systems.

This course is designed to give anyone who wishes to engage in utopia or futurism development, a introduction to the fundamentals of creating robust and livable utopias.

It is the intention of this course to direct you away from myutopias, designs that are focused on the self and the individual, and try to get you towards more of a hyper utopia design, the design of a utopia for everyone.

In this course you will develop the foundations for your own utopia development practice and practice the full development pipeline of utopia building from storyboarding to testing your vertical slice.

In this course you will:

  • Develop the foundations for your own utopia development practice
  • Practice the full development pipeline of utopia building from storyboarding to testing your vertical slice
  • Learn how humans are just one of the many people considered in ‘peoplecentric’ design
  • Learn how to playtest utopia concepts and theories in a safe, constructive environment