It’s time to talk about the environmental impact of the work we make!
Together!

This workshop will bring together designers, directors and production managers for an interactive talk on ecological design for performance and its merging within theatre making, followed by a workshop exploring ecological processes.

We will address the importance and advantages of integrating ecological principles into all stages of the performing arts. There will be opportunities to work in creative teams to explore how we can co-create sustainable new narratives in the entertainment industry for the future of our society and the planet.

Venue: Rockvilla
Date: Thursday 6th February
Time: 2-5pm (with tea break!)

Who is it for?
Designers
Directors
Production Managers

This workshop is currently not open to students (sorry).

How do I apply?
Please send us an e-mail to hello@enveloperoom.org.uk requesting a place and letting us know what your usual job role is.

We want to ensure as many perspectives are in the room as possible, so have a limited number of places for each discipline (designers, directors, porduction managers), places will be filled on a first come, first come basis with a reserve list being used to fill any empty spaces that may be left.

Facilitator
The workshop is organised by The Envelope Room and will be facilitated by Mona Kastell Eco Designer.

Mona Kastell is an ecoscenographer, ecological designer, community engagement practitioner, and leader in the emerging paradigm of Ecoscenography. Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, she freelances between Set & Costume design and Ecological Design talks, workshops & Consultancy. As a designer/maker, Mona holistically combines stage design, Permaculture & Ecological Design to actively instigate positive change for the future of our society and the planet. She places Nature, interconnectivity, and authentic community engagement at the heart of her creative practice.
Website: www.monakastell.com

The School of Making Thinking hosts Spring & Summer Intensives for qualified artists and thinkers to work alongside each other for one to three week sessions. We continually experiment with structure, approaches to programming, and alternative pedagogies. Our residents have included sound and performance artists, poets, philosophers, sculptors, painters, botanists, dancers, playwrights, filmmakers, video artists, documentarians, and historians, among other diverse practices.

The application deadline for our 2020 Residencies is February 7th @ 11:59pm.

ITERATION LAB 2.0 

April 22 – April 27, 2020
Krumville, NY
Tuition $300 | tuition and travel subsidies available

The iteration lab is an interdisciplinary session aimed at exploring what happens when a performative structure repeats and evolves with repetition.  Much like a scientist in a laboratory repeating an experiment but with slightly modified conditions, so too will our session function as residents will get the opportunity to repeat a structure of their choosing, supplementing, subtracting and modifying the structure as the session advances.  The iteration lab is a short, intensive session lasting only 4 days, each of which will be spent performing our given structure and being participants in the structures of the other residents.

What is a structure?  For this session a structure is anything that exists in space and time and can be repeatable.  It can be a performance, a conversation, a dance piece, a film scene, a movement practice, an immersive experience, an installation, a sculpture, or anything else.  It should be somewhat designed or planned, but the amount of design can be minimal at first. It must potentially involve all 8-9 participants of the session, but our roles can vary wildly.  It must last for only 30 minutes, and be able to repeat 4 times.

How will it work?  Each attendee will be responsible for coming to the session with a 30 minute structure already designed (or at least the first iteration).  We will arrive on Wednesday evening and briefly share our ideas and introduce one another. On our first day (Thursday), each resident will enact their structure and also participate in each other resident’s structure.  At the end of the day, residents will then deliberate about what elements within their structure they want to revise and adapt. For example: should the location change? Or perhaps the roles each participant has? Or perhaps the sequence?  The challenge is to adapt some aspects so the structure can bend and sway, but not too much such that the structure changes entirely. The events of day one will then repeat on Friday and Saturday. And then Sunday will be a final day of iteration.

Who should apply?  ​Ideally anyone whose practice involves other persons in its devising, design and creation.  This is a great opportunity to test out an idea for a performance or scene. Alternatively it could function as an opportunity to hold a conversation, debate or structured dialogue.  Or perhaps there is a relational, social or somatic practice that you want to tinker with. People from all backgrounds are welcome to apply including musicians, curators, academics, directors, dancers, film makers, playwrights, performers, social practice artists, writers, activists, cultural mediators, and educators.
​
The facilities: The Iteration Lab will take place in a small family farm near Kingston, NY.  Indoor spaces mostly include living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens – one of which is large enough to host somatic exercises or small performances.  Each resident will share a bedroom with 1-2 other residents. There are also ample woods, a large field, a creek, and an old church all of which can be used for this session. 

Apply

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IMMERSION 4.0: VR Creation Lab

May 5 – May 28, 2020
Cucalorus, Wilmington, NC
Tuition $1250 *includes food, lodging and technical support for VR production | tuition and travel subsidies available 

Over the last three years, The School of Making Thinking has led the IMMERSION Lab in partnership with Cucalorus Film Festival and ARVR Consultants. The 360° video pieces that have emerged from the residency have been tremendous: work born of intensive collective experience, cutting edge technical support, focused idea incubation, and challenging conversations in community. 

This summer, The School of Making Thinking will run IMMERSION 4.0, our fourth iteration of our 360° video creation lab. The IMMERSION Lab is an opportunity to become acquainted with the emerging media of virtual reality (VR), build deep relationships in community, and develop methods of organizing creative projects in connection with social justice and peaceful futures.

Building on the belief that meaningful work is born out of a deep sensitivity for the context from which it emerges, we will immerse ourselves on every level. We will build group rapport through collective experiences, embodied workshops, intimate collaboration and co-mentorship of creative processes. We will engage the history of our surroundings through curated film screenings and readings, and encouraged micro research projects into Wilmington’s present and past. The tools of virtual reality have created a new space of exploration for the vanguard of immersive media and performance. Through our immersion, we engage the questions: What layers of historical, cultural, colonial, oppressive, personal and social fabrics map onto our movements in a space? How might we engage these realities actually, and virtually? As technologies evolve, how do artists adapt? 

The first week of the session will be focused on group and site introductions, as well as developing technical familiarity with the cameras and gear. In the second week, we will create 360° videos in chosen locations throughout the city. The third week will be devoted to post production of the video pieces created, culminating in a work-in-progress sharing of videos and any live projects. 

We are seeking participants who have capacity to engage in an intensive production schedule, interest in developing skills and familiarity with the emerging media of 360 video andVR, and a desire to work within local communities and contexts. Prior experience with 360° cameras and technology will not be required. Session participants will have access to 360° video capture cameras as well as technical support during the shooting and editing process. Please note that IMMERSION 4.0 has access to limited computer workstations, and participants should be prepared to work from their own machine if they have access to one. 

Pieces created at the residency will have the opportunity to exhibit at the VR Salon at the Cucalorus Film Festival in November 2020. Residents will be encouraged to return to Wilmington for the festival to participate as exhibiting artists.

Apply

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BODIES, FIELDS, AND WAVES OF ATTUNEMENT: an experiment in collective tuning

May 18 – May 31, 2020
Rochester Folk Arts Guild, Middlesex, NY
Tuition $600 *includes food and lodging | tuition and travel subsidies available 

Beyond its musical connotations, tuning implicates an awareness, resonance and receptivity. Tones, waves, sounds, affects, bodies, perceptions, and being itself can be in tune or fall out of tune, can attune, retune, or detune. The concept of attunement features within a diversity of fields: sound and performance theory, somatics, environmental movements, existentialist philosophy, neuroscience, and contemporary healing practices. Throughout the session, attunement workshops and embodied practices will be offered to support residents to detune/retune/attune their work to personal, collective, and terrestrial ecologies. These themes will be explored alongside the unique glacial topographies of the Finger Lakes region, which will serve as the vibrant backdrop for both individual and collective artistic practice.  

Some of the questions this session will explore include: What is attunement? How do we choose what to attune to? What kind of focus is attunement? If tuning is more than musical, then what are its somatic, aesthetic, and relational modes? What are the limits of listening? Can we extend attunement strategies to non-human subjects and environments? How do art works re-attune to their changing contexts? How can micro-attunements be scaled to the macro? If our lives are patterned in accordance with prevailing ideologies, then what liberatory structures can we employ to loosen our habitual tunings?

Our session will begin with collaborative, interdisciplinary workshops which will serve as a mechanism of collective de/re/at-tunement. These workshops will intermix writing, moving, sounding and conversing, receiving inspiration from clowning, psychodrama, movement improvisation, and performance art. As the session continues, both residents and staff will continue this work of playing with collaborative means of de/re/at-tunement, integrating these processes into our own individual artistic production. While it is difficult to gauge precisely how this will look prior to our being together, we have created a brief poetic-imaginary document (HERE) that visions some of these processes.  

Our session is open to artists and thinkers of all mediums, but especially to individuals who find resonance with the aforementioned themes and methodologies. Residents should come into the session with a tentative, non-binding idea of a creative project they will work on, or a creative process they are interested in exploring. Our session will take place at The Rochester Folk Arts Guild in Middlesex, NY near the Finger Lakes region, named for a series of 11 long glacial lakes that resemble human hands. On the property itself, participants will have ample space to explore outside, as well as work in two indoor workshop spaces (movement friendly) and various smaller indoor spaces. There is access to wifi throughout the property, a pond to swim in, and an outdoor sauna.

Apply

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PERFORMING KNOWLEDGE: Summer Intensive

August 1 – August 9, 2020
Community Forge and Christian Church-Wilkinsburg, Pittsburgh, PA
Tuition $400* 
*includes food and lodging | tuition and travel subsidies available | scholarships available for Pittsburgh-based applicants 

The demand for “more knowledge” is by now commonplace. It is not just our information-obsessed times. It is also a political and ethical conviction—articulated, and critiqued, by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick—that injustice comes from ignorance. And if that’s the case, what could be a more urgent task than to produce knowledge? 

And yet, do we really know what knowledge is? Can we actually “produce” knowledge? What does that even mean? Can this produced knowledge be stored? Shared? Transmitted? Replicated? Sold? Also, what exactly does this knowledge do? What, and who, is it good for?  

By this point, it’s clear to most of us that knowledge cannot be equated with information, and that learning and studying cannot be seen as merely a mental mapping of info-bits. When we deny the possibility of embodied, affective, artistic and spiritual knowledges, we deny these modes of being, these relations to the world. But what does it mean to pursue such activities as knowledge-acts? What techniques, stances, dramaturgies, styles, materials, bodies, and rhythms can we activate to produce knowledge-acts? And what kinds of knowledges would we want to produce exactly? 

The workshop will take the malleable, hybrid format of the lecture performance as its point of departure. Sharing materials, techniques, fears and aspirations, we will work together to develop a variety of tools for epistemic-aesthetic expression. No specific experience with either performance or lecturing is expected, and in fact we hope to see applications from a broad range of backgrounds: knowledge-acts are everywhere The work is interdisciplinary, expressing our urge to understand how performance techniques, a performative frame, and an active audience can shift and reinvigorate the way that knowledge is transmitted—how we can access the social, joyful, full-self side of knowing. 

This session extends the techniques and ideas developed over two years by the facilitators through a festival by the same name, produced in 2018 and 2019 at the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center in New York City as an initiative by the students of the PhD Program in Theatre and Performance at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Participants in the SMT summer session will have the opportunity to continue to develop their work at the Segal in the fall and perform their knowledge as part of the 2020 iteration of the festival. Festival participants receive dramaturgical support, rehearsal space, and a small project budget. More details and documentation here: Performing Knowledge 2018 and Performing Knowledge 2019.

Apply

Hosted by Emory University, Theater Emory, and The Playwriting Center of Theater Emory, Atlanta, Georgia

First Place Award: Cash prize and professional production

Second Place Award: Cash prize and possible workshop production or concert reading

Honorable Mentions: Public reading

Deadline for submission: August 31^st, 2020. (See below for EMOS Guidelines, and instructions.)

The Earth Matters on Stage (EMOS) Ecodrama Playwrights Festival was founded in 2004 by Theresa May and Larry Fried in order to call forth and foster new dramatic works that respond to the ecological crisis, and, as part of that response, to explore new possibilities of being in relationship with the more-than-human world. EMOS calls for new plays that not only focus on current and historic environmental issues, but also looks for plays that enliven and transform our experience of the world around us, that inspire us to listen better, and instill a deeper or more complex sense of our ecological communities. If your play does any of these things, send it to us!

The EMOS Festival includes workshop performance(s) of the winning script(s), play readings, talkbacks and discussions of the scripts that are finalists in the Ecodrama Playwrights’ Contest. The concurrent symposium will include speakers, panels, practice-based workshops, and discussions that advance scholarship in the area of arts, ecology and climate change, and help foster development of new works. EMOS has been hosted by producing institutions across the U.S. including Humboldt State/Del Arte Theatre (2004); Univ. of Oregon (2009); Carnegie Mellon University (2012); Univ. of Nevada-Reno (2015); Univ. of Alaska-Anchorage (2018).

Guidelines^[1] for Playwrights

Scripts must be original works which have not been published and have not had an Equity or full professional premiere production. (Readings or informal workshop productions are okay.)

 In general, we are looking for plays that do one or more of the following:

• Engage the personal, local, regional and/or global implications of man-made climate change.
• Put an ecological issue or environmental event/crisis at the center of the dramatic action or theme of the play.
• Critique or satirize patterns of exploitation, consumption, or other ingrained values that are ecologically unsustainable.
• Expose and illuminate issues of environmental justice.
• Explore the relationship between sustainability, community, and cultural diversity.
• Interpret community to include our ecological community; give voice or character to the land, or elements of the land; theatrically examine the reciprocal relationship between human, animal and plant communities; and/or the connection between people and place, human and non-human, culture and nature.
• Grow out of the playwright’s personal relationship to the land and the ecology of a specific place.
• Celebrate the joy of the ecological world in which humans participate.
• Offer an imagined world view that illuminates our ecological condition or reflects on the ecological crisis from a unique cultural or philosophical perspective.
• Are written specifically to be performed in an unorthodox venue such as a natural or environmental setting, and for which that setting is a not merely a backdrop, but an integral part of the intention of the play.

EMOS 2021 hosted by Emory University specifically encourages submissions which also:

• Engage with cultural and social impacts of man-made climate change.
• Offer or complicate ideas of urban resilience.
• Expose and/or grapple with environmental in/justice.
• Expose and/or grapple with ecological violence and/or “slow violence.”
• Examine ecological/climate/environmental justice issues specific to the Southeast United States.

Submission Process

We are looking for full-length plays that are written primarily (though not necessarily exclusively) in English. Submitted plays should address the thematic guidelines as listed above. Deadline: August 31^st, 2020.

Please note: we will NOT consider:

• ten-minute plays
• one-act plays (unless they are longer than 30 minutes in length)
• musicals (though we love them, we cannot financially accommodate their production for this festival!)

We are only accepting electronic submissions in PDF format. Please do not submit paper manuscripts, as they will not be considered.

Submission Instructions: 

1. Submissions are online. Go to https://www.judgify.me/emosplays
2. If you are a first-time user of Judgify, create a profile by clicking the link underneath the “submit an entry” button.
3. Upload a PDF copy of your script with NO IDENTIFYING MARKS (beyond the play’s title).

Submissions due by August 31, 2020.

Evaluation Process

A Reading Committee composed of theatre professionals and Emory University students will read and evaluate each script in relation to the guidelines above, as well as theatricality, and overall quality. Each play will receive evaluation from a minimum of 2 readers. Highly-scored plays from the first round will be read again by the Reading Committee until a short list of 5 finalists are determined.

Those five plays will be read in a blind process by a panel of distinguished theatre artists from the USA and Canada and the artistic director of Theatre Emory, who will choose the winning plays from five final scripts. Our 2021 judges will be announced soon. 

Past EMOS judges have included: Robert Schenkkan, playwright; Martha Lavey, Artistic Director, Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago, IL; José Cruz González, playwright; Ellen McLaughlin, playwright; Timothy Bond, Director, Head of PATP, University of Washington; Olga Sanchez, former Artistic Director, Teatro Milagro, Portland, OR; Diane Glancy, playwright; Marie Clements, playwright, British Columbia; Rob Koon, Chicago Dramatist Guild; Wendy Arons, dramaturg Carnegie Mellon Univ; Alison Carey, Director, American Revolutions, Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Chantal Bilodeau, Arctic Cycle; Randy Reinholz, Artistic Director, Native Voices at the Autry; Jonathon Taylor, EMOS 2015 Chair; Larry Fried, EMOS co-founder; Theresa May, EMOS Artistic Director; Brian Cook, EMOS Managing Director.

Past EMOS Winners

2017 – Rain and Zoe Save the World by Crystal Skillman

In Rain and Zoe Save the World, two Seattle teenagers embark on an impulsive motorcycle journey to join a group of oil protesters on the east coast. But as they follow a major pipeline across the country, what began as two young activists’ longing to belong to something greater than themselves gives way to Rain and Zoe discovering that the true danger in this world might just be growing up.

Produced by Brian Cook, University of Alaska, EMOS 2017

2015 – Thirst by MEH Lewis & Anita Chandwaney 

In an “untouchable” Indian village crippled by drought, an intrepid young reporter investigates the corrupt water delivery system. But when her sister suddenly disappears, the investigation becomes personal.

Produced by Jonathon Taylor at University of Nevada Reno, EMOS 2015.

2012 – Sila, the first play of The Arctic Cycle, by Chantal Bilodeau

A climate scientist, an Inuit activist and her daughter, two Canadian Coast Guard Officers, an Inuit Elder, and a polar bear—see their values challenged as their lives become intricately intertwined. Sila received its premiere in a joint production of the Underground Railway Theatre and Center Square Theatre, Boston, in 2015, and was recently published by Talon Books.

Produced by Wendy Arons at Carnegie Mellon University, EMOS 2012.

2009 – Song of Extinction, by EM Lewis

A musically talented teen and his father whose mother/wife is dying come to understand the deeper meanings of extinction from a Cambodian science teacher. Song of Extinction premiered at the Moving Arts Theatre in Los Angeles and was recently published by Samuel French.

Produced by Theresa May at University of Oregon, EMOS 2009.

2004 – Odin’s Horse, by Chicago playwright Rob Koon

A writer learns something about integrity from a tree sitter and a lumber company executive, went on to premier in Chicago in 2006.

Produced by Theresa May and Larry Fried at Humboldt State University, EMOS 2004.

Questions?

For inquiries about script submissions contact Chantal Bilodeau at chantal1402@me.com

For inquiries about EMOS 2021 contact Lydia Fort, EMOS 2021 Chair, at lydia.fort@emory.edu

General questions, or interested in future hosting, contact EMOS Artistic Director, Theresa May tmay33@uoregon.edu, and/or EMOS Managing Director, Brian Cook brianecook@gmail.com

Theresa May, MFA/PhD
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies for Theatre Arts
University of Oregon

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^[1] Guidelines copyright Theresa May 2004, 2019, EMOS position paper, 2004.  Reprint or excerption only with permission and citation.

The Climate Museum seeks applications from humanities scholars who wish to engage the public on climate change and inequality to fill a two-year part-time Pre-Doctoral Fellowship funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Fellowship will be two days a week, running from August 1, 2020 to July 31, 2022 concurrent with a Post-Doctoral Fellowship on climate and inequality also funded by the Mellon Foundation.

The Climate Museum is the first climate-dedicated museum in the United States, working to mobilize the strengths of museum programming for public engagement. Since early 2017, the Museum has been building a practice of engaging the public and making climate solutions accessible through programming across the arts, sciences, humanities, and design. We had a breakout year in 2018, presenting In Human Time, an art exhibition about polar ice loss, deep time, and humanity, and Climate Signals, a citywide public art installation. In 2019, the Museum developed Climate Speaks, an ongoing, citywide, youth climate spoken word program, and Taking Action, a five-month solutions-focused exhibition, closed in late October. 

The Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Climate and Inequality will integrate an environmental humanities and justice framework throughout our programming, particularly our 2021 and 2022 Spring and Fall arts interventions, as well as ongoing panels and lectures. The Fellow will also support the development of exhibitions at Governors Island. 

The Mellon Fellowship is open to candidates pursuing doctoral degrees in the humanities (ABD) who have experience in climate and inequality. The Fellow will be in residence at the Museum part-time from August 2020 through July 2022, during which period they will become a key member of the Museum’s public engagement team. 

This Fellowship offers the opportunity to receive hands-on immersive experience developing and expanding public engagement strategy for the first museum in the United States dedicated to climate change. The position offers an unprecedented opportunity for Fellows to work at the intersection of climate and inequality in a museum setting, supporting our early-stage initiative to meet the rising public demand for pathways into climate engagement and action. 

The fellowship includes a stipend of $32,000 a year, as well as health and dental insurance. Applications are due by March 15, 2020, video interviews will be arranged, and offers will be made by mid-April. Fellows will begin work on August 1, 2020. The Museum offers relocation assistance and a modest research budget to Fellows. 

Responsibilities 

The Fellow will support the expansion of the Museum’s engagement of the public on climate change, with a particular focus on the role of the humanities in justice-centered climate programming, through research and exhibition development. Both Mellon Fellows will have the opportunity to develop their public engagement skills and advance the work of an initiative at a formative moment of growth potential. Pre-Doctoral Fellows will be encouraged to pursue lines of inquiry at the Museum that coalesce with their dissertation and other research interests, ensuring this Fellowship allows them to continue to advance their ongoing research in the environmental humanities and climate justice. 

After a training program on current best practices in climate communications and the Climate Museum’s approach to pedagogy, engagement, and outreach, with additional topics to be added based on Fellows’ backgrounds, Fellows will begin developing public engagement content and outreach. Their responsibilities will include: 

• Supporting the development of adjacent public programming, such as panel discussions and outreach events, for the Climate Museum’s 2020 exhibition

• Supporting the planning and execution of the Climate Museum’s 2021 exhibition at Governor’s Island

• Integrating an understanding of the intersections of climate and inequality throughout the Museum’s work, with a particular focus on developing adjacent public programming around our spring and fall arts interventions and our interdisciplinary programming 

• Conducting ongoing research on best practices for public engagement and outreach concerning the climate crisis and in particular its intersections with issues of inequality and justice 

The Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellow will collaborate closely with the Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow and other members of the Museum’s public engagement team, including our Director, Arts Marketing Coordinator, and Special Assistant for Operations. 

Qualifications 

All applicants must: 

• Be enrolled in a humanities doctoral program, having completed their coursework and with an accepted dissertation proposal in the humanities 

• Be able to work two days a week from the Climate Museum’s New York City office with periodic visits to Governors Island and other programming locations from August 2020 – July 2022. 

• Have a keen eye toward the role of the environmental humanities in expanding public engagement with climate change 

• Have an academic background informed by historical inquiry and subject-matter expertise in climate, inequality, or both 

• Have a strong orientation towards collaboration 

• Have an ambitious mindset and excellent time management skills 

• Be inclined to kindness and humor under pressure 

Application Process 

Applications are due on March 15, 2020. Application materials should include the following: 

• A cover letter detailing why you are a strong candidate and why this would be a good fit for you as well as the Climate Museum 
• A Curriculum Vitae 
• A 2-page single-spaced proposal outlining the public engagement work and research you would propose to conduct at the Climate Museum 
• Names and emails of 2 references who are able to submit confidential reference letters.  References will receive a request from the Museum to email letters of referral to careers@climatemuseum.org with the subject line “Mellon Pre-Doctoral Reference Letter for [Your Name]. If you have experience doing public engagement work, or work around climate and/or inequality, one letter of reference should come from a person familiar with that work. 

The Climate Museum highly values diversity and views the climate crisis as a social justice crisis. People of color, indigenous people, people with disabilities, and people who identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community are particularly encouraged to apply. 

Submit Application

The Climate Museum Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Climate and Inequality

The Climate Museum seeks applications from humanities scholars who wish to engage the public on climate change and inequality to fill a two-year full-time Post-Doctoral Fellowship funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The Fellowship will run from August 1, 2020 to July 31, 2022, concurrent with a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship on climate and inequality also funded by the Mellon Foundation.

The Climate Museum is the first climate-dedicated museum in the United States, working to mobilize the strengths of museum programming for public engagement. Since early 2017, the Museum has been building a practice of engaging the public and making climate solutions accessible through programming across the arts, sciences, humanities, and design. We had a breakout year in 2018, presenting In Human Time, an art exhibition about polar ice loss, deep time, and humanity, and Climate Signals, a citywide public art installation. In 2019, the Museum developed Climate Speaks, an ongoing, citywide, youth climate spoken word program, and Taking Action, a five-month solutions-focused exhibition, which closed in late October. 

The Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Climate and Inequality will serve on the leadership team responsible for the development and implementation of an exhibition at Governors Island in 2021 and will integrate an environmental humanities and justice framework throughout our programming, including the Museum’s Spring and Fall arts interventions and ongoing lectures and panels. Fellows will be encouraged to propose and help implement new approaches to engaging the public on issues of climate and inequality. 

The Mellon Fellowship is open to all candidates who have received their PhD in the humanities within the last five years and who have experience in climate and inequality. The Fellow will be in residence at the Museum full-time from August 2020 through July 2022, during which period they will become a key member of the Museum’s public engagement team. 

This Fellowship offers the opportunity to receive hands-on immersive experience developing and expanding public engagement strategy for the first museum in the United States dedicated to climate change. The position offers an unprecedented opportunity for Fellows to work at the intersection of climate and justice in a museum setting, supporting our early-stage initiative to meet the rising public demand for pathways into climate engagement and action. 

The fellowship includes a stipend of $63,000 a year, as well as health and dental insurance. Applications are due by March 15, 2020, video interviews will be arranged, and offers will be made by mid-April. Fellows will begin work on August 1, 2020. The Museum offers relocation assistance and a modest research budget to Fellows. 

Responsibilities 

The Post-Doctoral Fellow will support the expansion of the Museum’s engagement of the public on climate change, with a particular focus on the role of the humanities in justice-centered climate programming, through research and exhibition development. Both Mellon Fellows will have the opportunity to develop their public engagement skills and advance the work of an initiative at a formative moment of growth potential. 

After a training program on current best practices in climate communications and the Climate Museum’s approach to pedagogy, engagement, and outreach, with additional topics to be added based on Fellows’ backgrounds, Fellows will begin developing public engagement content and outreach. Their responsibilities will include: 

• Supporting the development of adjacent public programming for the Climate Museum’s 2020 exhibition

• Playing a central role in the planning and executing of the Climate Museum’s 2021 exhibition at Governor’s Island 

• Integrating an understanding of the intersections of climate and inequality throughout the Museum’s work, with a particular focus on developing adjacent public programming around our spring and fall arts interventions and our interdisciplinary programming 

• Conducting ongoing research on best practices for public engagement and outreach concerning the climate crisis and in particular its intersections with issues of inequality and justice 

• Envisioning and proposing new justice-oriented programs for the Museum 

The Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow will collaborate closely with the Mellon Pre-Doctoral Fellow and other members of the Museum’s public engagement team, including our Director, Arts Marketing Coordinator, and Special Assistant for Operations. 

Qualifications 

All applicants must: 

• Be recipients of a PhD degree in the humanities after June 2015 and before June 2020 

• Be able to work from the Climate Museum’s New York City office with periodic visits to Governors Island and other programming locations from August 2020 – July 2022. 

• Have a keen eye toward the role of the environmental humanities in expanding public engagement with climate change 

• Have an academic background informed by historical inquiry and subject-matter expertise in climate, inequality, or both 

• Have a strong orientation towards collaboration 

• Have an ambitious mindset and excellent time management skills 

• Be inclined to kindness and humor under pressure 

Application Process 

Applications are due on March 15, 2020. 

Application materials should include the following: 

• A cover letter detailing why you are a strong candidate and why this would be a good fit for you as well as the Climate Museum 
• A Curriculum Vitae 
• A 2-page single-spaced proposal outlining the public engagement work and research you would propose to conduct at the Climate Museum 
• Names and emails of 2 references who are able to submit confidential reference letters.  References will receive a request from the Museum to email letters of referral to careers@climatemuseum.org with the subject line “Mellon Post-Doctoral Reference Letter for [Your Name]. If you have experience doing public engagement work, or work around climate and/or inequality, one letter of reference should come from a person familiar with that work. 

The Climate Museum highly values diversity and views the climate crisis as a social justice crisis. People of color, indigenous people, people with disabilities, and people who identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community are particularly encouraged to apply. 

Submit Application

Creative Climate Leadership training courses take place worldwide. They are facilitated by Julie’s Bicycle, a UK charity with almost ten years experience working on environmental issues in the cultural sector, in partnership with cultural and environmental agencies with on-the-ground experience in each location. 

Creative Climate Leadership USA

The next training course will take place at the University of Arizona’s Biosphere 2 research facility from 8th – 14th March 2020. 

It will be delivered in partnership with EcoArts Connections, the University of Arizona-Tucson, and the Colorado European Union Center of Excellence (CEUCE) based at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

The application deadline is midnight, Thursday, January 9, 2020 Eastern Standard Time.

About the Creative Climate Leadership training course

CCL provides a week-long intensive residential program of leadership development, learning and peer-to-peer knowledge exchange delivered through talks, workshops, guest speakers, group and peer-led activity, and new tools, followed by six months of mentorship, and inclusion in an international network of colleagues that supports ongoing action.

Topics will include: historical, scientific and political drivers of climate change; the role of cultural leadership within the global environmental and climate justice movements; leadership for climate action, including personal development and movement building; strategies for managing change; communicating climate change; empowering action; systems theory, and design thinking; interdisciplinary working, and more.

The five-day intensive course will enable artists and cultural professionals to explore the cultural dimensions of climate change, and take action with impact, creativity and resilience.

The week will:

• Explore the role of culture and creativity in responding to climate change and environmental challenges;
• Bring together a range of expert guest speakers to share case studies, research, approaches and practical solutions for environmental sustainability in the cultural sector;
• Enable each participant to develop their leadership and ideas;
• Prepare participants to apply their learning and new skills when they return home, and support ongoing learning and exchange through an alumni network.

Participants will access ongoing mentorship and a global network of practitioners following the training, to support with the development or expansion of a self-initiated “legacy project” which applies CCL learning to real-world contexts, including commissions, campaigns, organizational change, and strategy and policy development, among other activities and events.

Who the course is for

The course is aimed at artists and cultural professionals and we welcome applications from all creative disciplines and art forms. We will also consider applicants from organisations that work directly with the cultural sector, such as networks, associations, funding bodies and policymakers.

We are looking for people who:

• Recognise climate change as an urgent challenge, and are passionate and driven to enable change.
• Want to have an influence beyond their individual organisation/artistic practice.
• Have a vision for what they’d like to change and can demonstrate potential to lead.
• Have the desire to advocate for and ability to articulate the importance of culture in responding to this issue.
• Are interested in challenging conventional ideas about leadership.

Logistical details

Dates:

• Sunday 8th March 2020 – participants arrive at Biosphere 2
• Monday 9th to Friday 13th March 2020 – training course
• Saturday 14th March 2020 – departures and panel at the Tucson Book Festival

Language: The course will be conducted in English.

Location: The Creative Climate Leadership course will take place in Biosphere 2, one of the world’s most unqiue facilities dedicated to the research and understanding of global scientific issues.

Cost: The course costs $2,000, which includes tuition, lodging and food for six days and nights, and ongoing mentoring and membership of the CCL Alumni network. Participants are expected to pay for their own transportation.

Financial support: We have a limited number of scholarships available to support people who would otherwise be unable to attends. There is an opportunity to request this financial support at the application stage.

Apply

Click here to start your application.

To see a preview of the application questions, click here.

The application deadline is midnight, Thursday, January 9, 2020 Eastern Standard Time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Click here if you have a question, or contact ccl@juliesbicycle.com.

Previous CCL Training Programmes

CCL was piloted in 2017 through a Creative Europe funded programme, with training taking place in the UK and Slovenia, co-facilitated with PiNA, a sustainable development NGO working in Slovenia and across the EU.

Top Image: Journey of the Private Moon in the Arctic Magdalena fjord, by Leonid Tishkov (2010). 

[SHIFT:ibpcpa] is currently looking for proposals from fine art performance artists using participation and collaboration in their practice.

SHIFT: The International Biennale of Performance, Collaborative and Participatory Arts aka [SHIFT:ibpcpa] is a non-profit art initiative with a specific focus on performance, collaborative and participatory art practices.

[SHIFT:ibpcpa] provides an opportunity for fine art-based performance artists to enhance their practice, theoretical and critical approach, within the current and future context of performance art. For this reason, [SHIFT:ibpcpa] specifically focuses on the untapped potential of performance, collaborative and participatory art.

The biennale lasts from June 2020 until August 2020 and is networked. Meaning work can exist within the digital and/or physical domains where necessary… where networked and nomadic projects traverse the hypothetical space and physical place. Submitted projects must include performance art that contains either collaborative or participatory elements.

Open to students and professional artists. We are interested in the intersection between levels of professionality.

Apply via [SHIFT:ibpcpa] website.

For details about the 2020 theme, please visit the [SHIFT:ibpcpa] website and follow us on Instagram @shift_ibpcpa

#SHIFTibpcpa
#SHIFT2020
#IBPCPA2020

Location: International

For further information, please contact contact@ibpcpa.co.uk ([SHIFT:ibpcpa]), or visit http://ibpcpa.co.uk/

The deadline is Friday 13 March 2020 at 01:00.