On 6 February, an art exhibition entitled ‘Oh My Gaia’ was opened as part of the St Kilda Festival in Melbourne, Australia. The aim of the exhibition is to deliver “a non-linear approach to community education, sustainability and healing through the transformative power of art.â€
The art exhibition is produced by the an artist collective called The Planetary Healing Artists Association of Australia Inc. It is a forum for artists including visual artists, performers, writers, healers, and other creatives in the community who share ideas for a sustainable future in a creative way. The main purpose, they write on their home page, is to support an environmentally sustainable planet. The overall concept of the ‘Oh My Gaia’ art exhibition is to create “community cohesiveness for the benefit of connecting all people and life on the planet.â€
At 2:30pm every first Sunday of the month, the forum holds open meetings in St Kilda West, Melbourne.
Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.
The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.
Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
Su Grierson, who corresponded with us whilst on residency in Fukushima Province earlier this year, is giving a public lecture in conjunction with her exhibition Intersections.  It’s in the Norrie Miller Studio at Perth Concert Hall, 7pm Thursday 26th September.
Su Grierson will talk about her art practice and multi-media art works in the exhibition. Â She will also focus on her recent ten week residency in Fukushima Province in Japan where she visited the disaster areas and met the displaced refugees.
ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.
It has been established by Chris Fremantle, producer and research associate with On The Edge Research, Gray’s School of Art, The Robert Gordon University. Fremantle is a member of a number of international networks of artists, curators and others focused on art and ecology. Go to EcoArtScotland
A dramatic art exhibition inspired by climate science.
See through icy veils of mesh as art and data come together to create past, present and future forms of life. Wonder at physical and virtual models of life forms as they evolve. Discover your genetic ancestors in the algae that photosynthesise light to make the energy that sustains us.
Immerse yourself in an exhibition that challenges your senses with artworks that combine scientific and sensory knowledge of climate change.
Curated by Dr Lisa Roberts, Living Data program leader and Visiting Fellow at the University of Technology,Sydney, you’ll have a chance to take part in ground-breaking art and science talks, see dramatic climate-inspired dance and hear primal music.
Dr Roberts is a multimedia visual artist whose work combines scientific and sensory knowledge of climate change. Her formal studies include dance, visual arts, animation, Indigenous perspectives and Antarctic perceptions. Lisa Roberts is the great grand daughter of the prominent Australian painter Tom Roberts.
What do we know about climate change and how are we responding to it?
There’s a lot of talk about the need for collaboration between cultures, disciplines and institutions, to develop a sustainable future, but not a lot of time to build trust to share the data, stories, hypotheses and images to inspire and enable action for change. For the 2013 Ultimo Science Festival, scientists, artists and designers come to Sydney from as far away as Antarctica to contribute what they know about climate change and how they are responding to it.
Contributors:Â Kirralee Baker, Jennifer Clark, Martina Doblin, Christina Evans, Paul Flecther, William Gladstone, Peter Jones, Rose McGreevy, Madison Haywood, So Kawaguchi, Eveline Kolijn, Anthony Larkum, Carina Lee, Andrea Leigh, Brad Miller, Caterina Mocciola, Steve Nicol, Simon Pockley, Antonia Posada, Vikki Quill, Daniel Ramp, Lisa Roberts, Juanita Sherwood, Melissa Smith, Paul Sutton, Takuya Suzuki, Leanne Thompson, Dean Walsh, Shona Wilson, Josh Wodak, Malou Zuidema
EXHIBITIONS
Living Data: Art from climate science The Muse, Ultimo TAFE, Harris Street Ultimo (opposite ABC Studios) Sex in the sea Living Data Atrium level 3, Building 4 (Science), University of Technology, Sydney (UTS)
9-5pm Monday-Sunday, 12-21 September 2013
Curator:Â Lisa Roberts,Artist, Living Data program leader, Visiting Fellow, Science, Design, Arts & Social Sciences (UTS)
Shadow curator: Paul Sutton, Photographer, Associate lecturer in Design (UTS)
Exhibition designer: John Cabello, Designer, Lecturer in Design (UTS)
EVENTS
Food: Relationships with things we eat
At The Muse 12-21 September 2013 - Opening, Thursday 12 Sept. 4-6 pm
Dr Steve NicolAdjunct Professor at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies and an Honorary Fellow at the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, University of Tasmania
Dr So KawaguchiPrincipal Research Scientist at the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) and Manager of the AAD Krill Research Program.
Dr Daniel Ramp,Senior Lecturer, School of the Environment, Science (UTS) and Co-founder of THINKK – the think tank for kangaroos, an academic forum that fosters greater understanding among Australians of kangaroos
How we know things: Understanding through art and science
Darwin’s Legacy to Art:Â Adjunct Professor Anthony LarkumSenior Researcher with the Climate Change Cluster (C3) (UTS) with special interests in photosynthesis, coral bleaching, Biofuel production, and the role of the arts in science
“Wow, I wish I knew someone dealing with climate change. How is it that no artists are working with the most compelling issue that affects all of us?â€
Jane Tsong said this to Robby Herbst when he asked her if she would direct him to an Los Angeles-based artist addressing the topic in May 2013.
“Climate change poses some tough problems for artists: as a concept, it has long seemed too big, too grim, too abstract, too political and too far away. Efforts to portray it quickly become too preachy, too scientific, too shaming. Few can make a living from making people feel bad about themselves and doomed about the world.â€
An anonymous reporter wrote this in the Economist on 20 July 2013. The Economist writer sees a new trend where cultural meditations on climate change are becoming more popular, and mentions three recent examples of this:
• New York’s Museum of Modern Art has had a summer-long arts festival, ‘Expo 1: New York’, that attempts to address climate change and the ecological challenges of the 21st century. The exhibitions of the festival will be on view until 2 September 2013.
• In January 2013, Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt began what it calls ‘The Anthropocene Project’ — a two-year culture programme that considers the human impact on the natural world.
• In October 2013, Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum, one of the largest in North America, will host ‘Carbon 14’ — an art exhibition and four-month programme of plays, talks and seminars about climate change.
Touch and disturb
The exhibitions, shows and festival ‘Expo 1: New York’ at Museum of Modern Art features the short film ‘The Drowning Room’, an installation by Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson called ‘Your Waste of Time’, a ‘Rain Room’ by the London-based group Random International which is a room of falling water for visitors to walk through, and an exhibition of a group of large photographs of the American frontier by Ansel Adams.
Anchoring the exhibition/show/festival at Museum of Modern Art is ‘Dark Optimism’. “The name, coined by online publication Triple Canopy, encapsulates the sentiment of being on the edge of apocalypse, tempered with the hope of technological innovation. Featuring work from 35 artists, including Joseph Beuys, Adrián Villar Rojas, Meg Webster, Agnes Denes, and Anna Betbeze, a selection of landscapes by Ansel Adams, and a group exhibition curated by Josh Kline preoccupied with the human body and technology, Dark Optimism seeks to reconcile the failure of Modernism’s ideals with humanity’s capacity for an improved future,†wrote Colleen Kelsey in Interview Magazine.
The Economist interviewed Klaus Biesenbach, director of MoMA PS1, the contemporary wing of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, who explained:
“After Hurricane Sandy in late 2012 — which destroyed New York’s coastline, ruined many art galleries and left locals feeling vulnerable — the show’s environmental concerns became more urgent.†At a time when climate is vanishing from the political agenda, Klaus Biesenbach believes art can “touch and disturb†in ways that charts and articles cannot.
Can artists do better?
“Climate change is one area where the communication of uncertainty has landed scientists in dangerous territory. Can artists do better?,†asks art and science blogger Johanna Kieniewicz, who herself is a ‘bridge-crosser’ between the two worlds holding a PhD in Earth and Planetary Science as well as a foundation degree in fine art.
In her blog ‘Plos – where art and science meet’, she concluded in a blogpost on 25 July 2013, titled ‘Art of Uncertainty’:
“Artists are not going to solve scientists’ problem of communicating uncertainty pertaining to climate change. This is something that scientists themselves need to do, perhaps with help from sociologists and innovative designers. But in so doing, scientists must recognise that in the communication of uncertainty, they must not just win minds, but also hearts. This does not necessarily come naturally. I suspect that there is a great opportunity for artists who are interested in collaborating with scientists to engage in this area.â€
Art contest: CoolClimate Luis Hestres wrote on 1sky.org:
The folks at the Creative Visions, Crosscurrents and Quixote Foundations realize that art has the potential to move and inspire people the way facts and figures, necessary as they are, simply can’t. After all, there’s a reason why a copy of Picasso’s Guernica is hanging at the U.N. building instead of a fact sheet about casualties during the Spanish Civil War.
That’s why they’ve launched the CoolClimate Art Contest, which has been running since 12 July and closes on 6 September 2013:
The contest seeks to generate iconic images that address the impact of climate change and spurs participation in the climate change debate. Create a work that encompasses the questions above and explores our relationship with the climate — from clean energy jobs to pollution-free oceans — the subject choice is yours.
ArtNews – 13 November 2012: A Climate Change in the Art World? The art community is digging out, drying off, counting its losses, helping its neighbors–and starting to prepare for the hurricanes of the future. By Robin Cembalest
Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.
The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.
Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society. Go toThis post comes to you from Culture|Futures
The Transition Network is a growing network of over a thousand communities around the world. The network “supports community-led responses to climate change and shrinking supplies of cheap energy, building resilience and happiness.†The summer issue of the magazine Transition Free Press, which was published on 1 May 2013, contains four articles about arts projects that relate to the topics of sustainability and ecology in various ways. In summary:
Art and Science meet at new Bee Festival
The Louth Festival of the Bees, organised by Transition Louth in the United Kingdom in May 2013, combines biological sciences with an art exhibition, exploring “the relationships between the aesthetic and the rationalâ€.
“We may not, single-handed, be able to stop war, cure disease, end hunger, or save the planet, but we can, each of us, plant some flowers that give insects a better chance and make our world a little more beautiful,†writes Biff Vernon, a teacher who grows vegetables and flowers in Lincolnshire, and is, according to the magazine editor, “attempting to save the planet one Facebook post at a time.â€
“If we are to make the transition to a truly sustainable post-industrial society, protection of biodiversity must be an urgent priority. The festival aims to raise awareness of biodiversity, focussing particularly on wildflowers and all their pollinators,†Biff Vernon writes.
Louth Festival of Bees includes a Family Fun Day, Conference Day and Art Exhibition with stalls, exhibitions, children’s activities, workshops, talks about wild bees, wild flowers, beekeeping and art.
Anne-Marie Culhane, a performer, activist and catalyser of projects who lives in Cornwall in the United Kingdom, tells about the projects ‘Abundance’ and ‘The Diary Keepers’, about the festival ‘Grow Sheffield’, and about exploring the dynamic relationship between the artist and the community:
When Anne-Marie Culhane talks about Art, it is not as it is commonly understood, a commodity to be bought and owned, but a narrative co-created by people seeking to bring the earth and belonging into an urbanised culture.
“I’ve always been uncomfortable with the perception of an artist as a solitary creator who’s outside society,†she tells Transition Free Press.
To be resilient in the face of ecological and economic challenges, communities need to be adaptive and collaborative. As climate scientists admit, “we’re not managing to communicate properlyâ€. Because what inspires us to change are not dry facts, but celebration, creativity, and most of all, belonging:
“We can’t go into any meaningful thinking about the future unless we are examining how we live now, and the diversity of the way different people in the community live now: really looking, taking time, slowing down, observing our place within natural cycles, seeing what we share. So we can say: OK, this is where we’re at. From this point we can look forward.â€
Anne-Marie Culhane developed a project, ‘Diary Keepers’, to engage people into thinking about these things by keeping a diary for a month, where they would be trying to answer questions about what it is like to live now.
For Anne-Marie Culhane everything began when she came across climate change as a student of geography: “I was overawed by what it meant,†she said. Characteristically her first piece of work did not appear in a gallery, but in a city park in Leeds – twelve installations, actions and performances during one year.
“I began to ask: How can I support people to grow their own food, to be more knowledgeable about what they’re eating, to start seed-saving and seed-sharing and using organic and permaculture methods which nourish the land and communities? This where the main energy for ‘Grow Sheffield’ came from.
The idea was to hold a big season of events around harvest, giving people from different backgrounds lots of points of access – some creative, some more practical. We had guerrilla gardening in the city centre, a film screening and open space session in a local cinema, poetry walks and Allotment Soup, a celebration of allotment culture, with artists taking up mini-residencies on different allotments.â€
Her creative project ‘Abundance’ started from an idea about harvesting unwanted fruit from street trees, but it also quickly took foraging and growing stuff to another level and became about doing and being with people.
Jeppe D. Graugaard writes about ‘The Telling’ which he describes as “a new kind of grassroots, power-down, artistic event which draws on various forms of storytelling, performance, music and craft to explore what living through a time of transition means.
“Born in the imagination of Warren Draper, The Telling is inspired by The Dark Mountain Project and created on a DIY ethos as a reaction against the debilitating effect of the entertainment industry on folk culture.
The enchanting performance of Mr. Fox is just one of many that evening set in the post-apocalyptic Church View courtyard, which is adorned by a large mural by street artist Phlegm, depicting an archer sitting in a giant horn shooting down human bones tied to floating balloons. And the evening programme is just the culmination of a series of events and workshops that ran throughout the day: a pop-up cinema, the Sheffield City Giants (15 ft large puppets), bread-making, make-do-and-mend, a singing workshop, a talk on peace, and my absolute favourite: making iron in a clay foundry.
This diverse mix of activities and performances makes The Telling a place to be inspired and to learn practical skills at the same time.â€
Jeppe D. Graugaard is a writer and researcher at UEA, with an interest in grassroots movements and projects. More of his writing is available on patternwhichconnects.com
Arts book in the making: mapping arts and ecological living
Fifteen artists and writers gathered at a Writing Residency at Lumb Bank in Yorkshire to lay the first tracks down for a groundbreaking workbook – mapping ways in which the arts inspire a different way of living within the ecological limits of the planet, reported Lucy Neal.
“At Lumb Bank we glimpsed an everyday ‘art of living’ which now remains to build on and articulate over the next few months, as the book and the project come together.â€
“Stories shape the way that we act,†says Shaun Chamberlin, author of ‘The Transition Timeline’, in this interview which is an excerpt from the film ‘In Transition 1.0: From oil dependence to to local resilience’ from March 2012.
A transition art piece
About the art piece Oil Memorial
Another excerpt from the same film, ‘In Transition 1.0’.
Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.
The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.
Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society. Go toThis post comes to you from Culture|Futures
Michigan’s [USA] Great Lakes Bay Region located approximately 90 minutes north of Detroit including five main cities: Bay City, Frankenmuth, Midland, Mt. Pleasant and Saginaw will be hosting a month-long celebration of art, culture and science in October 2013 called Fall In… Art and Sol.
SOLAR ART is any work of art that incorporates solar technology to harness the power of the sun to affect its design. Solar Art combines Design + Technology + Environmental Education.
The celebration will feature the world’s first major solar art exhibition. The exhibition will be unique in combining the display of works of international and national designers, a competition open to everyone, and an educational initiative involving approximately 1,000 students from throughout the region. We are very excited to show the results of these three initiatives together during October.
You can download the Competition’s Trifold below with details on honorarium, selection criteria, exhibition details and competition dates.
Please contact us if you have any further questions. We take this opportunity to encourage you and your friends to participate.
The 2012 Shanghai Eco Design Fair will be held on April 14 from 10:00 to 17:00 at the Cool Docks, 515 Zhongshan South Road, Shanghai. An exterior plaza at the Cool Docks will be devoted to giving the public an opportunity to interact with representatives from Shanghai environmental organizations and NGOs and view an art exhibit created through collaboration with members of each organization.
“Learn, Grow, Explore†is an interactive exhibit that employs +/-100 symbols for “eco-valuesâ€, painted on on rice paper using Chinese ink by participants of separate workshops organized by ARTSpring and each NGO during February and March, 2012. During the workshops participants create a new ideograph, using ancient Chinese characters as a model, that expresses contemporary values respecting the environment.
The final installation is designed and constructed by Zhao Yunbo, a multi-media artist based in Shanghai. Visitors to the fair may experience the exhibit, interact with the various artists and print the designs of their choice on t-shirts and cloth bags purchased from the participating organizations.
Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.
Cultura21′s international network, launched in April 2007, offers the online and offline platform for exchanges and mutual learning among its members.
The activities of Cultura21 at the international level are coordinated by a team representing the different Cultura21 organizations worldwide, and currently constituted of:
– Sacha Kagan (based in Lüneburg, Germany) and Rana Öztürk (based in Berlin, Germany)
– Oleg Koefoed and Kajsa Paludan (both based in Copenhagen, Denmark)
– Hans Dieleman (based in Mexico-City, Mexico)
– Francesca Cozzolino and David Knaute (both based in Paris, France)
Cultura21 is not only an informal network. Its strength and vitality relies upon the activities of several organizations around the world which are sharing the vision and mission of Cultura21
The University Museum at SIUC is seeking applications for Sustain, a juried collegiate recycled art exhibition. Sustain has been organized to feature college artists working with recycled and waste materials in their work.
Three winners will be selected whose work and artist profile will be printed in a pamphlet about the exhibition and in the online catalog on the SIUC University Museum website. The online catalog will also feature all of the exhibitions selected works.
Artwork will be selected for the exhibition on the basis that it consists of at least 70% waste material, and innovatively transforms this material into an intriguing work of art. Jurors for the exhibition will be recycled glass artists, John Drury and Robbie Miller of C.U.D who have pioneered methods for creating art from recyclable materials.
The prospectus is available on our website,  http://www.museum.siu.edu/documents/Sustain%20PDF.pdf
Questions contact Nate Steinbrink Curator of Exhibits, nstein@siu.edu
“The BEE BOX reminds us of the invisible disappearance of our pollinators. Bees, like us, form communities of workers capable of generating intelligent social interactions. Brodie offers a poetic reflection on the fragility of these communities.â€
ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.
Carbon Sink: What goes around, comes around, Chris Drury
Chris Drury, who will be speaking in Ayr in the Autumn, has successfully stirred up a storm in Wyoming, as reported in the Guardian. He was commissioned by the University to create a work for the campus as part of its evolving public art exhibition organised by the University of Wyoming Art Museum.
The work entitled Carbon Sink: What Goes Around, Comes Around is made from lodgepole pine and coal, and brings with it the pine beetles. They are all connected in a cycle that is becoming more vicious.
But what’s particularly interesting is that this work has drawn the anger of the coal mining companies and put the University in an awkward position. Higher Education funding comes into sharp relief when the corporates and the politicians start saying how sad and shocked they are that the University would commission a work that questions the environmental credentials of the coal industry.
The classic line is from a politician, quoted in the Guardian,
“â€While I would never tinker with the University of Wyoming budget – I’m a great supporter of the University of Wyoming – every now and then, you have to use these opportunities to educate some of the folks at the University of Wyoming about where their paychecks come from,†Tom Lubnau, one of the state legislators, told the Gillette News-Record.â€
Chris Drury isn’t the only artist drawing attention to these issues, but he seems to have hit a nerve.
ecoartscotland is a resource focused on art and ecology for artists, curators, critics, commissioners as well as scientists and policy makers. It includes ecoartscotland papers, a mix of discussions of works by artists and critical theoretical texts, and serves as a curatorial platform.
The 2012 Shanghai Eco Design Fair will be held on April 14 from 10:00 to 17:00 at the Cool Docks, 515 Zhongshan South Road, Shanghai. An exterior plaza at the Cool Docks will be devoted to giving the public an opportunity to interact with representatives from Shanghai environmental organizations and NGOs and view an art exhibit created through collaboration with members of each organization.