Kim Abeles, Joshua Kochis, Linda MacDonald, Carolyn Monastra
The beauty and mystery of trees has long been a subject for artists, and more recently, concern for the survival of forests (the lungs of our planet) has been paramount. Each month, artists working in a diversity of media share their artworks and ideas about these most essential and extraordinary living beings. Tree Talk is moderated by Sant Khalsa, ecofeminist artist and activist, whose work has focused on critical environmental and societal issues including forests and watersheds for four decades.  Co-sponsored by Joshua Tree Center for Photographic Arts
Did you miss TREE TALK on October 29? Watch it now on VIMEOÂ
Members and one guest are free. General Public can attend for a $10. Capacity is 100 participants. All participants MUST REGISTER.
The environmental crisis is also a crisis of the artworld, requiring concrete action instead of mere words. The contemporary art organizations Frame Contemporary Art Finland, IHME Helsinki, Mustarinda and HIAP – Helsinki International Artist Programme are holding an open, free, one-day webinar Environmental Crisis – From Words to Deeds in the Field of Art on 19 November 2020.
The seminar will ask: How can we reduce climate emissions in the field of art? What can an individual art organization, curator or artist do? What can we do together? During the day, we will focus on concrete action: How can ecology be integrated into strategy and funding? How do we travel by land or calculate an organization’s carbon footprint?
The seminar day begins with a welcome from Minister of the Environment Krista Mikkonen. Then, Mari Pantsar, Director of The Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra’s Carbon neutral circular economy theme, talks about the seriousness of the environmental crisis and why everyone is needed to solve it. The keynote speech will be given by Alison Tickell, CEO of London-based Julie’s Bicycle, a pioneer in promoting environmental issues in the cultural sector. She will describe the steps needed to achieve carbon neutrality in an art organization, with concrete examples.
The organizers of the seminar will share what they have done over the years to reduce their own emissions in international modern art and residencies. Also speaking will be Head of Helsinki Biennial Jonna Hurskainen and visual artist Alma Heikkilä. Mustarinda’s speech will be presented by artist Sanna Ritvanen.
The online seminar is aimed at art institutions, artists and other artworld actors. It will benefit anyone interested in the state of the environment and in taking concrete climate action in their own work or organization.
Starting on 8 November 2020 anywhere in the world at any time. Check our website https://artport-project.org for updates
WE ARE OCEANÂ Water Walk: A global collaborative initiative to re-focus on the importance of water, rivers and ocean, an invitation for public participation.
We are water, rivers, ocean. And these bodies of water are depending on our behavior whether they are healthy or not. And we as humanity are depending on them. Clean rivers, lakes and other bodies of water mean a health ocean. A healthy ocean means healthy humans.
The WE ARE OCEAN – Water Walk wants to gather people from all over the globe to jointly walk towards rivers, lakes, seas, the ocean or even at home (confined due to a global pandemic) around a creatively staged body of water. We want to look at the beauty of water worldwide, what it means for us and what is at stake. We aim at creating a positive, global and collective moment of reflection towards healthy waters, rivers, ocean.
We invite everybody, every generation, every profession, every country, every gender to take a walk for some minutes, several hours, or even days to reflect about the meaning and value of healthy water. It can be a walk of meditation, of poetry, of music, of silence, of workout.
The WE ARE OCEAN – Water Walk is created by several Green Art Lab Alliance Partners (ArteSumaPaz, ARTPORT_making waves, Ayer Ayer, Imago Bubo, Invisible Flock and Knockvologan Studies) to raise awareness about the importance of healthy waters, rivers and ocean and to make clear that even though the COP26 (UN Climate Conference), which was supposed to start on the 9th of November 2020 in Glasgow, has been postponed to November 2021, we cannot really afford to postpone taking action.
On the day before the Climate Conference would have commenced, we shall start this walk as a reminder, as a community activity gathering people from all over the world without knowing each other. From all over the world we will walk in the direction of Glasgow where the Conference will take place. You are invited to join us in taking action.
We chose Sunday, 08th of November to invite you from all around the planet, to join us on this walk. You can choose the hour and the duration of your walk, it can be minutes, hours or days.
This is the first walk of many which we will undertake until COP26 in 2021 and further. We want to create a civil movement accompanying the UN Decade for Ocean Science and Sustainable Development (2021-2030).
Come on board as individuals, groups of friends, colleagues, families, organisations, neighbors, couples. You can just walk or create a sociable event out of it. The most important idea is that you reflect upon how beautiful water is, how important for life on planet it is, and how much more we should respect, cherish and protect it.
Here are some ideas to help you take action:
1. Turn your phone or camera to the landscape positionÂ
2. Press to record as you walk toward a body of water.
3. IMPORTANT: We would like everything to be captured in a single video so do a continuous recording.
Some suggestions of point-of-views (POV):
a. You can point your camera down on your feet as you start walking and slowly pan up to show the body of water and its surroundings.
b. Bring your camera close to the water show us the state of the water, its colour, living organisms
c. record the area surrounding the body of water; the banks, shore, pathways, flora and fauna, ocean trash, pollution.
d. you are welcome to talk, sing, dance or simply keep silent through the recording
5. After the recording is done send the video to us with these details:
Your name: Location of recording: Country, state/ province/ city, name of local area (eg. Singapore, Punggol, Punggol beach): Date:
WE ARE OCEAN Water Walk is part of the global program WE ARE OCEAN
WE ARE OCEAN is an interdisciplinary art project curated by Anne-Marie Melster and created by ARTPORT_making waves which gathers artists, students, scientists, policymakers, philanthropists, teachers, and curators in order to raise awareness and engage in dialogue about the environmental condition of the ocean and the role humans play in its current and future state. The project events in Berlin and Brandenburg investigated how we interact with the ocean and how interdependent humans and the ocean are. The overall goal was to raise scientific and political awareness through the arts, particularly among young people, to stimulate behavioural change and social action and help them to act responsibly and become conscientious citizens. Ultimately, WE ARE OCEAN seeks to shift the narrative surrounding the ocean – from that of an ocean for human use and exploitation with infinite resources – to an ocean that offers numerous yet precarious benefits to humankind which is its steward and caretaker.
In 2019 we started in Berlin and Brandenburg, in August 2020 we traveled virtually to Kiel (Germany) as part of the Ocean Summit, in September we were in Marseille (France) as part of Manifesta 13 with artist Marc Johnson, from October on we will be in Vancouver (Canada) (our Vancouver artists T’uy’tanat Cease Wyss and Olivier Salvas will work virtually with Vancouver school students), ifrom November on we will virtually travel WE ARE OCEAN to the Ocean Space in Venice (Italy) (as part of the exhibition of Territorial Agency and our invited artists are Pietro Consolandi and Fabio Cavallari from Barena Bianca) with more stops to follow from 2021 to 2030, since we will support the whole UN Ocean Decade.
WE ARE OCEAN Berlin/Brandenburg, Marseille, Venice and Vancouver are artistic projects officially contributing to the Preparatory Phase of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development:
The CSPA QUARTERLY is currently seeking a (Co) Lead Editor to work with our current Lead Editor in sustaining the publication and transitioning to eventually become a Lead Editor themselves.
The CSPA Quarterly is a publication arm of the Centre for Sustainable Arts. It is meant to give a longer format and deeper space for exploration than some online platforms provide, and to 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. It is part of a rigorous dialogue.
Our reach is wide: we want it to be wider.
We have more than 6,000 followers on social media, more than 1,500 subscribers to our email newsletter, our website receives 3,500-6,000 hits per month. Our CSPA Quarterly is accessed by institutions and artists worldwide via JSTOR and other platforms. We are a crucial resource for artists and art organizations who are researching, embodying, promoting and re-inventing sustainability.
This Co-Lead Editor would work with us to:
Assist in developing an archival, digital publication of the CSPA Quarterly
Assist in developing and sustaining new income streams for the CSPA Quarterly
Plan issues for 2024 and beyond, assuming sole Lead Editorship in that year
Sustain the Quarterly and its continued relevance.
This is a volunteer position. We know how that sounds. Currently, the CSPA works within a hybrid academic/commercial context, where the labor of editing and contributing is seen as an extension of academic research, and is therefore unpaid. It currently exists and functions on systems of privilege, based on the income, time, and access of its organizers. That’s a problem we want to change.
Our current income streams include:
Fees from publication access on JSTOR
University Grants
Issue purchases on MagCloud
Subscriptions on Patreon
Right now, these incomes only cover Quarterly design costs. But we’d like to change that. We’re looking for someone to help us amplify our current efforts at generating revenue and supporting our contributors. We want to pay people. The Lead Editor position at the Quarterly has always been volunteer/unpaid, with contributors and Guest Editors receiving a free subscription for their work.
We’d like to build on our crucial work thus far, and stand even more firmly at the nexus between academic and popular research in Sustainable Practice in the Arts. We’re seeking someone with resources that would enable them to engage in this work, and who could use those resources to expand our platform to those who do not have such access. We need someone who is passionate about our efforts, extending opportunities to others, and amplifying the fantastic work of the many artists engaging with sustainability on a cultural, ecological, social and economic level. We hope that person is you.
As part of its response to the escalating climate crisis – and in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic – NAC English Theatre in partnership with Festival of Live Digital Art (FOLDA), the Canada Council for the Arts, The City of Kingston, HowlRound Theatre Commons, National Theatre School of Canada and York University brought together participants for an extraordinary three-day/three-country digital experiment that reflected on the future of theatre.
The Green Rooms were fueled with spirited conversations with leaders in fields such as climate activism, ecological economy and environmental humanities, as well as with theatre artists and leaders who have found innovative ways to engage with the climate crisis.
A limited number of active participants joined the event on Zoom from eight cities across three countries: Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Kingston, Montreal, and Halifax, as well as London (U.K.) and New York. In addition, a livestream of the event was accessible to spectators everywhere.
Please note: If participants were not in one of those cities, they were still able to participate by joining the city closest or most meaningful to them.
We invite you to view the proceedings recorded and available on this site and read the reports too!
Co-curated by Sarah Garton Stanley and Chantal Bilodeau.
This is the sixth in an ongoing series of informal meetups that Creative Carbon Scotland organised following COVID-19 physical distancing measures as a way for ecological and artistic minded people of all kinds to keep in touch. Each session has a rough theme for discussion but the conversation is usually wide ranging and open. Alongside these informal meetups, we are also organising more elaborate creative online events that you can keep track of on our website.
Following the vote at our last meetup, the theme for this session is ‘COP26: what is it? what’s going on? and what can we do?’
Book your space through Eventbrite and you will receive a link to join an online call on the day of the meetup. You do not need to download an app or programme to join the call; you just need a computer or other device with internet connection, speakers, and a microphone.
Feel free to get in touch at lewis.coenen-rowe@creativecarbonscotland.com if you have anything questions or anything you want to suggest.
INSTITUTIONAL APPROACHES TO SUSTAINABILITY — A virtual conference series by Art/Switch

October 31, 2020 from 4-7 pm CET on zoom.Â
This conference is part of our virtual trilogy [re]Framing the Arts: A Sustainable Shift, organized in collaboration with the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture at the University of Amsterdam and Nyenrode Business University.
This first edition, Institutional Approaches to Sustainability, is dedicated to the structural and institutional shifts towards a carbon zero arts sector. We will discuss the options for an environmentally sustainable building, investigate the organizational choices behind sustainable storage facilities, and learn about sustainable climate control systems.
The speakers will also discuss how we might engage both individual operations and those on an international scale in adopting practices in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. If sustainability is an organizational priority, how can we adopt a holistic approach within our institutions and take responsibility for our actions?

We are very excited to start the fall with this first edition of [re]Framing the Arts and are looking forward to rethinking, renewing, and connecting towards a climate-conscious future.

Sarah Sutton & Stephanie Shapiro — Sustainable Museums A Post-â€Plus/Minus Dilemma†Reboot: Where are we Now, Where are we going?
Samantha Owens — Glenstone Museum Glenstone: A Case Study in Sustainable Measures for a Contemporary Museum
Foekje Boersma — National Library of the Netherlands High-tech and Low-key Storage Solution for the National Library Collections
Sofie Öberg Magnusson — National Museums of World Culture Sustainable Organization of Art Institutions – Experiences and Reflections Underway
Discussion lead and moderated by: Paula Toppila, Executive Director of Pro Arte Foundation Finland and IHME Helsinki and Saara Korpela, Eco-Coordinator for IHME Helsinki; Frame Contemporary Art Finland; HIAP, and Mustarinda.
The conference will take place on October 31, 2020 from 4-7pm CET on zoom.Â
We believe that collaborative, creative approaches can support knowledge-gathering and problem-solving processes, particularly, but not necessarily, where participants have different backgrounds, interests, expectations or hopes. They can work particularly well in community consultations to bring together community members and local government or organisational teams wanting to create a shared vision. Â
In 2019, Creative Carbon Scotland partnered with the Marine Protected Area Management and Monitoring (MarPAMM) project to bring inclusive, creative approaches to the Seas of the Outer Hebrides (SEASOH) project. Our involvement arose from the project team’s desire for an inspiring, different and accessible way to work with the Outer Hebrides communities. We are proud to be supporting their key aim – to build a shared vision for Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the region – by involving artists and creative practices to help explore the cultural dimension of residents’ relationship to their seas.
MarPAMM is a cross-border environment project, funded by the EU’s INTERREG VA programme, to develop tools for monitoring and managing a number of protected coastal marine environments in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Western Scotland.
The SEASOH project will deliver a regional management plan for the Outer Hebrides Marine Region, putting communities and people at the heart of the process and building consensus on the future management of MPAs in the islands. Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Marine Scotland, NatureScot and the University of the Highlands and Islands are supporting the delivery of effective MPA management.
Project activities
July 2019 We attended a series of events held by the SEASOH team during July 2019 aimed at creating an inclusive environment for listening to any views or concerns, and providing information about the SEASOH project and its aims. During this time we also met with local artists and cultural organisations to build our understanding of existing arts activities and inform our ideas for hosting creative workshops across the Outer Hebrides.
September 2019 Our first series of events were co-organised with the Hebridean International Film Festival, where we held conversations alongside film screenings, connecting the film festival themes, ‘Islands, environments and remote communities’, to community members’ perceptions and experience of the marine environment. Participants also contributed drawings to a short animation produced following the festival themed around the local marine environment.
February 2020
In February 2020, we co-ordinated a series of family friendly, creative workshops on Lewis, Harris, North and South Uist with local artists Kirsty O’Connor (North Uist) and Sandra Kennedy (Lewis), alongside the Seas of the Outer Hebrides team. These workshops interwove creative activities, including mono-printing using found objects from the shoreline and origami paper boat making with conversations about marine protection, what benefits communities derived from the sea, and their hopes and fears for the future.
Next steps
Through these events and an online community survey the SEASOH project was able to gain a deeper understanding of communities’ priorities for the marine environment as well as the less tangible aspects of peoples’ lived experience and relationship to the sea, which will inform the development of marine management plans that reflect the interests and concerns of communities living and working in the Outer Hebrides.
We are continuing our discussions with the SEASOH team, despite a pause in progress due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We will update this page to coincide with the project’s progress as it occurs.
Triple Point is a solo exhibition by British artist Hannah Rowan whose practice refects on the contrast between constant, fast-paced human activity and the much slower rhythms of geological processes. Her work, ofen inspired by living nature, not only observes these natural systems; it re-embodies them.
Evaporation, condensation and precipitation, Rowan recreates ephemeral natural systems in a continued state of becoming to refect on their fragility. She explores notions of fuidity, transformation and interconnectivity to speak of the existential threat and anxiety surrounding the climate crisis in connection to other cosmological forces such as technology and data overload.
Informed by the Hydrofeminism of Astrida Neimanis, she invites us to refect on our presence as and withbodies of water. To slow down, engage and connect to wider ecological systems.
For her frst solo exhibition in Lisbon, Rowan presents a new body of work that captures the moving quality of water, frequently between states of matter. By building on the existing attributes of Belo Campo, an old underground wine cellar, the exhibition aims to simulate a slippery groundwater dependent ecosystem, comparable to subterranean wetlands and caves dripping sounds of water permeating through lithic surfaces.
While navigating below ground, the viewer encounters water merging through physical states. Each work amplifes the humid and moist atmospheric conditions of the three adjoining chambers, and blurs the boundaries of the three main phases of the water transformation cycle — solid, liquid and gas.
Such phases can coexist at the same time if a certain degree of temperature and pressure is reached. A unique combination that scientists call: Triple Point.
– Alice Bonnot (curator)
Belo Campo is an epiphyte space organized by Adrien Missika, hosted by Galeria Francisco Fino and located in the gallery’s basement.
Address C/O Galeria Francisco Fino Rua Capitão Leitão, 76 1950-052 Lisboa Portugal
Opening Times Tuesday to Friday 12pm—7pm Saturday 2pm—7pm
Think about your neighbourhood. Think of it as an ecosystem. A developing whole made of different, interconnecting elements – living and non-living. Plants, animals, cars, people, buildings, communal waste bins, buses, trains, rivers, parks, the sea and mountains. You. The list can go on. How can you make your neighbourhood’s ecosystem more environmentally sustainable? We want to hear your ideas! See your vision! And we will help you make it possible. Using theatre, film and scientific advice.
Tired of feeling anxious about climate change and environmental doom? Take action!
Go for a walk around your neighbourhood. Bring with you, your cell phone, video camera, notebook or sketchbook. Spot anything that is not environmentally friendly and tell us: Take a photo or a video or make a drawing that illustrates the environmental problem that you have detected in your neighbourhood.
Submit this to our competition, along with a short text explaining the problem and describing your vision: What ecological solution could you propose to address the problem? We will work with you to make it possible.
The Young Ecovisions competition is the first event of a larger project called Sustainhoods. Winners of the competition will take part in the rest of the Sustainhoods project, which also comprises of a series of applied theatre workshops and a film.
Eligibility
The competition is open to people from all countries aged between 15 and 25 years old.
If under the age of 18, a legal guardian or parent must sign the project’s Parental Consent Formand submit the entry on behalf of the participant.
Participants must speak fluent English (at least at an intermediate level) and submit the written component of their entries in English.
Winners must be able to attend, online (via Zoom), a series of six workshops and a film premiere on specific dates (please see Dates). The exact time of these workshops and film screening will be agreed between the project’s team and the workshop participants selected from the competition entries.
How to Enter
Submit your entry as either a photograph, a drawing or a five-minute video.
All entries should also include a short text (maximum 100 words) providing an explanation of the image or the video. The text should address the following questions: Where and when was the image or video taken? What environmental problem does it illustrate? What would be your solution to address this problem?
Only one entry per person is allowed.
Entries must be submitted through the competition’s website (see Submit Your Entry).
People under the age of 18 must have a permission of a parent or guardian to enter. This permission must be stated filling in the competition’s Parental Consent Form, which should be submitted using the competition entry form. Entries from people under the age of 18 without a Parental Consent Form will not be accepted.
For more details of entry submission, please read the Rules & Terms of the competition.
Prizes & Judging Criteria
Winners will have a unique chance to develop their vision of a sustainable neighbourhood with specialised support. A team of experts in theatre, science, film and education will mentor competition winners to make a case for the feasibility of their ecovisions.
Mentoring will be delivered through six one-hour workshops that will take place online at weekends. English will be the participants’ common language during workshops. A film will be created documenting the winners of the competition’s ecovisions. The film will be streamed online in November 2020 as part at the 2020 Being Human Festival: New Worlds.
Both the workshops and the film screening will be delivered online through Zoom. Workshop participants and the film’s audience will attend these activities from their homes.
Three winners will be selected from all submitted entries. Should the judges agree that additional entries are of exceptional quality, two further entries will be allowed. Preference will be given to entries that include environmental problems or solutions that are achievable, innovative, inclusive of different social groups and collaborative in nature. For more details on judging criteria, please see the competition’s Rules & Terms.
Dates
Competition opens: 18th of August 2020 at 23:00 UTC
Competition closes for entries: 20th of September 2020 at 23:59 UTC
Announcement of competition winners: 9th of October 2020
Applied theatre workshops: 17th, 24th, 25th and 31st of October 2020; and 7th and 8th of November 2020 * Exact times of the workshops will be agreed in due course between the Project Team and the competition winners
Film screenings: 21st and 22nd of November 2020 * Exact times of the film screenings: To be confirmed
