Art Practice

Su Grierson Public Lecture

ecoartscotland, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

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.

SG Talk Invitation 1.

Su Grierson will talk about her art practice and multi-media art works in the exhibition.  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

Powered by WPeMatico

Sustainable Transformation of Global Society – Navigating Ecological Times, Whitechapel Gallery, London

Cultura21, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Friday 30 August, 2013, Navigating Ecological Times, Whitechapel Gallery, London

A study afternoon of presentations and discussion on art practice and sustainability with artists Lise Autogena, Fernando Garcia-Dory and Tamás Kaszás and led by curators by Maja and Reuben Fowkes. This symposium looks at the challenges of living in ecological times and the sense in which the current political, economic and environmental predicament might also offer opportunities for a sustainable transformation of global society. How have artists sought to navigate the dilemmas of living and working in a world system that seems chronically out of touch with ecological realities and can they, through their practice and approach to the world, act as guides during times of crisis?

‘Navigating Ecological Times’ is realised through the River School and supported by the EU Culture Programme. Maja and Reuben Fowkes are art historians and curators whose interests in the field of art and ecology are manifest in their curated exhibitions, symposia and writings, which have explored key ideas and practices around green curating, environmental art history and the sustainability of contemporary art. Their work also focuses on the theory and aesthetics of East European art from the art production of the socialist era to contemporary artistic responses to the transformations brought by globalisation.

 For more information : click here

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

Go to Cultura21

Powered by WPeMatico

Open call – Museum of Arte Útil

Cultura21, Open Calls, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This post comes to you from Cultura21

dec6_queens_logoThe Museum of Arte Útil is a collaboration between the artist Tania Bruguera, theQueens Museum of Art, New York and the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The Museum of Arte Útil is the result of Tania Bruguera’s decade of research into a concept that emphasizes effectiveness and implementation over representation, looking at historical and contemporary examples of alternative strands in socially informed art practice.

Útil as a term refers to something being useful. But it goes further than the English translation, encompassing the idea of a tool or device. Bruguera states that “Arte Útil moves beyond a propositional format, into one that actively creates, develops and implements new functionalities to benefit society at large.”

The project will comprise research, an online platform, an association of Arte Útil practitioners, a series of public projects, a lab presentation at the Queens Museum of Art beginning in February 2013, culminating in the transformation of the old building of the Van Abbemuseum into the Museum of Arte Útil in the Fall of 2013 and a publication. The aim is to present a survey of past and present projects that are rooted in the notion of art’s use to its users and to society at large. Central to the project’s various forms is this open call.

The notion of what constitutes Arte Útil has been arrived at via a set of criteria that Bruguera and the participating museums’ curators have formulated. These criteria will set the parameters of the project and its working methodology. Arte Útil projects should:

  1. Propose new uses for art within society
  2. Challenge the field within which it operates (civic, legislative, pedagogical, scientific, economic, etc)
  3. Be ‘timing specific’, responding to current urgencies
  4. Be implemented and function in real situations
  5. Replace authors with initiators and spectators with users
  6. Have practical, beneficial outcomes for its users
  7. Pursue sustainability whilst adapting to changing conditions
  8. Re-establish aesthetics as a system of transformation

The public is invited to submit information on past or ongoing projects that align with these criteria. Submitted projects should meet as many of these criteria as possible. The selected projects will be listed on the website, to be launched in February and will be considered for inclusion in the artist association, the exhibition at the Queens Museum, the Van Abbemuseum, and/or the publication. Projects can be submitted by anyone, from any field, and need not be submitted by the initiators of the project.

The deadline for project submissions is 15th February 2013.

Click here for the submission form.

For questions, contact: opencall [at] arteutil [dot] net

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

Go to Cultura21

Powered by WPeMatico

Expressive Arts in Conflict Transformation & Peacebuilding, M.A. at the European Graduate School, Switzerland

Announcements, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Applications are currently being accepted for the M.A. program in Expressive Arts in Conflict Transformation & Peacebuilding (EXA-CT) at the European Graduate School in Saas Fee, Switzerland.  EXA-CT is a low residency master’s program completed over three summer sessions of three weeks each in Switzerland.   During non-residency periods, students complete an internship and write their master’s thesis.

EXA-CT’s unique emphasis on art practice, human rights, and peacebuilding in international settings provides students with the skills and experience to use art in the public sphere for social change.  Artists, humanitarians, therapists, conflict transformation professionals, peacebuilders and policymakers are encouraged to apply.

2012 Summer Session Dates in Saas-Fee, Switzerland

June 12 to July 4: Expressive arts, digital arts, and media
July 10 to August 1: Expressive arts in conflict transformation and peacebuilding

US Federal Government student loans, and limited scholarships from the European Graduate School, are available for eligible EXA-CT students.

Applications are due by April 30, 2012

Late applications will be accepted on a case-by case-basis.  For more information, please contact the Interim Program Director, Prof. Ellen Levine (ellen.levine@egs.edu), follow us on Facebook, or visit the European Graduate School’s website:expressivearts.egs.edu

Program Description

The EXA-CT M.A. is a three-year low residency summer program concentrating on the use of creative methods through the arts to address conflicts within teams, in communities, and across cultures. The EXA-CT program provides students with frameworks for merging the arts with conflict analysis interventions, restorative justice, trauma awareness and healing, mediation, humanitarian response, and research. EXA-CT’s emphasis on art practice, human rights, and peacebuilding in international settings provides students with the skills and experience to use art in public settings for social change.

Distinguished faculty in the fields of the expressive arts and conflict transformation provide instruction during three summer school sessions, with continued support and supervision throughout the year as students complete their internship, thesis, and community of practice.

Summer residency in Switzerland

Students spend three summer sessions in residence in the beautiful Alpine resort town Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Students needing additional prerequisites may complete the coursework over five summer sessions.  Each residential session is 21 days long.  During the first two summer residency periods, students follow courses on the principles and practice of both expressive arts and conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Within each course, students are challenged to experiment with the application of the arts in conflict transformation and peacebuilding paradigms, along with group discussions and reflective exercises. During the third summer session, students complete oral and written exams, and defend their master’s theses.

Sample courses include:

  • Principles and Practice of Expressive Arts: Aesthetic Responsibility in Action
  • Conflict Transformation and Arts-based Approaches to Peacebuilding
  • Community Arts: A Collective Response to Conflict and Crisis
  • Project Design and Implementation in the Field: A Multi-System Approach
  • Conflict and Crisis Intervention: Human-Rights Perspectives
  • Building Resilience in Refugee and Displaced Communities
  • Trauma and Resilience: Expressive Arts Perspectives
  • Biography as a Resource in Humanitarian Interventions
  • Professional Ethics In Community Based Interventions

Non-residency requirements

In between the summer residencies, EXA-CT students are expected to complete a prescribed self-study plan, an internship, and a master’s thesis supervised by an EXA-CT faculty member. Students also participate in the design and creation of the EXA-CT in an ACTION group project and meet in a virtual classroom to discuss assigned readings and videos.

To receive a full description of the EXA-CT program, please visit: expressivearts.egs.edu/academic-programs/masters-programs/master-of-arts-in-expressive-arts-conflict-transformation-and-peacebuilding

For additional information, please contact Prof. Ellen Levine, EXA-CT Interim Program Director: ellen.levine@egs.edu

European Graduate School
Arts, Health & Society Division
Alter Kehr 20
CH-3953 Leuk-Stadt
Switzerland
T + 41 27 474 99 17
F + 41 27 474 99 18
expressivearts.egs.edu

via Expressive Arts in Conflict Transformation & Peacebuilding, M.A. at the European Graduate School, Switzerland | Art & Education.

Research and Development

ecoartscotland, Open Calls, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Creative Scotland have announced a call for proposals for public art research and development projects.

“The fund’s purpose is to support the initial research and scoping of a range of public art projects and approaches to provide opportunities for communities across Scotland to engage with the development of creative places through imaginative, artist-led projects.   The aim of the investment is to open opportunities for the public of Scotland to engage with artists in a wide range of public art activity.  We want to encourage high quality and imaginative projects that contribute to successful places, build new audiences and extend the diversity of public art practice.   In 2011/12 there is a budget of £150,000 available.”

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

Interview about EcoArt South Florida

EcoArt South Florida, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

EcoArt on the West Palm Beach waterfront. Michael Springer served as the primary designer of this project, completed in 2010. This work is a significant example of the cross disciplinary work of a sculptor who has been doing large scale infrastructure related environmentally sensitive art for decades.

DCA: Tell us about EcoArt South Florida.

EcoArt South Florida: EcoArt South Florida encourages broad support for environmental stewardship within communities by involving citizens of all ages and demonstrating innovative and aesthetically striking ways to create and save energy, reduce heat island effect, capture and reuse stormwater and many other positive approaches to enhancing the health of our interrelated ecosystems. EcoArt (short for ecological art) is not a new art practice. It is only new here in Florida!

Volunteers collect seeds as a part of EcoArtist Xavier Cortada’s installation on Lincoln Road in Miami. Cortada is a multitalented artist whose projects to restore Florida’s urban canopies and mangrove stands are large scale performance pieces involving hundreds of non artist volunteers, government agencies and philanthropic organizations. (photo submitted by EcoArt South Florida)

Cortada’s EcoArt installation on Lincoln Road in Miami. (photo submitted by EcoArt South Florida)

DCA: How does EcoArt encourage the public, and in particular, elected officials, to incorporate arts and culture into everyday life?

EcoArt South Florida: EcoArt South Florida intends to assist targeted communities to establish “EcoArt Nodes” in each of South Florida’s five watersheds by 2015. We define an EcoArt Node as a committed group of stakeholders, with a strong organization at its center (either as its own nonprofit, or as a subunit of an existing organization) dedicated to growing EcoArt and supporting emerging EcoArtists in their locale. An important stakeholder group that must always be included as each EcoArt Node is established, are elected and career officials of municipal and county governments.

The locations for our EcoArt Nodes have been scientifically identified by our GIS study of all five watersheds in South Florida, completed for us by Dartmouth College’s department of geography undergraduate students, Spring, 2011.

EcoArt South Florida’s comprehensive community education program and artist apprenticeship is specifically designed to engage key communities in best ways to establish and support strong EcoArt practices in their areas. We will work with the communities identified as EcoArt Nodes to field this program which will be the basis for ongoing development and support of EcoArt practice.

In addition to establishment of targeted EcoArt Nodes, starting in early 2012, EcoArt South Florida Board and Advisory Committee members will begin to meet where they live, with county and city officials.

To date, the only municipality in Florida we are aware of that has done this is Boynton Beach. Credit goes to Boynton’s Mayor and Commissioners for establishing a Green Alliance of local citizens involved in Green urban and community development that recommended key elements of a Green Ordinance for the city. EcoArt South Florida was a member of this alliance. The resulting new ordinance Includes mention of EcoArt at various places. We are delighted to encourage our city and county officials to follow the lead of Boynton Beach in assuring that EcoArt is included as their communities develop creative ways to “go green.”

Follow the link to learn more about how EcoArt has been integrated into Boynton’s many new green initiatives, please contact the administrator of Art in Public Places Debby Coles-Dobay.

Jackie Brookner (NY) and Angelo Ciotti (PA) are EcoArtists embedded in design team for restoration of West Palm Beach’s largest urban green space, Dreher Park, revamped from 2002-2005 to expand water retention. Features “BioSculpture” ™ in new retention pond which cleans waters with plants on the sculpture’s surface, sculptural earthen mounds reminiscent of indigenous people’s shell mounds, created from dirt excavated to create a large new retention pond, and a learning garden featuring plants used by inhabitants over a thousand year period to the present. (photo submitted by EcoArt South Florida)

DCA: What does EcoArt do for South Florida?

EcoArt South Florida: EcoArt practice has many identities. All contribute to the community. Most involve the community at every level of the planning, design and creation of EcoArt projects.

In addition to our consultations with communities we have identified as EcoArt Nodes, and continuing to develop our pilot community education and artist apprenticeship program, EcoArt South Florida is also currently working on three program aspects that we believe have great potential for inspiration, education and engagement of the public:

  1. First, the integration of Public EcoArt at the design stage of urban buildings and neighborhoods that will be seeking LEED or other green certification. EcoArt South Florida is working with the South Florida chapter of the US Green Building Council on this.
  2. Secondly, engaging EcoArt with greening the public schoolyard. EcoArt South Florida has been reaching out to public school districts, teachers and administrators through the annual LEARN GREEN conferences; and we are in the process of working with a math and science middle school to develop what will probably be the first comprehensive outdoor classroom in South Florida.
  3. And finally, modeling a new kind of urban streetscape featuring a variety of Florida native canopy trees (instead of the “monoculture” approach currently used) and understory vegetation that encourages the return of pollinators and birds. EcoArt South Florida is involved with a consortium of organizations developing a pilot of this kind of streetscape. Our partners include the grass roots West Palm Beach organization Northwood GREENlife that is taking the lead, the Palm Beach chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society, 1000 Friends of Florida and the Center for Creative Education. In addition to the creation of a multiple-species Florida native urban forest pilot streetscape that can be replicated widely, the project will also incorporate arts: sculpture, ceramics, video, storytelling, performance and a community celebratory procession/parade once the planting has been completed.

EcoArt South Florida believes EcoArt will not prosper in our region unless public officials, both elected and career, and our colleagues in the building, development and planning professions are given incentives to do so. It is for this reason that we will be focusing heavily over the next year to two years on insertion of EcoArt within city and county green ordinances as has been done in Boynton Beach.

DCA: What does the future of EcoArt hold for Florida?
EcoArt South Florida: We believe Florida can become one of the key centers for EcoArt practice. EcoArt South Florida is dedicated to making this happen. And this is as it should be. As we point out on our website, engagement of art and culture with environmental issues is still not widely done anywhere, not only in Florida. This is a shame, because, as those of us involved in the arts professions know well, art has the potential to inspire, educate and engage in so many ways. This inspiration and engagement will be necessary if we are to address successfully the many serious implications of climate change. And we have very little time to do this. Art is a form of knowledge, just as important as science. Unfortunately art and artists have not been adequately engaged with science in the struggle to bring our valuable ecologies back to health. Now is the time to bring EcoArt to the task.

DCA: Why do you believe arts and culture are important in the lives of Floridians and visitors to our state?
EcoArt South Florida: Art creates culture and has for as long as human being have inhabited the earth. The best time to have begun to bring art to the task of healing our fragile ecologies was many decades ago. The second best time is now. Florida needs us. The planet needs us. Let’s get to work applying artistic imagination and creativity in tandem with scientific advances to the challenges that face us.

Art and Sustainability: Breaking Through the Walls at the LA Green Festival

Green Public Art, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This post comes to you from Green Public Art

Green Public Art Consultancy will participate in a panel discussion, with Los Angeles aerosol artist ManOne and Justin Yoffe, Executive Director of Arts:Earth Partnership, about how artists can make green choices in their own art practice at Los Angeles’ Green Festival on Sunday, October 30 at 4:30pm.

Green Festival, the nation’s largest and most trusted green living event comes to Los Angeles October 29-30, 2011. This unique experience celebrates positive solutions working in our communities. Festivities include presentations by more than 125 renowned authors and visionaries, DIY workshops, cutting-edge films, enriching kid’s activities, organic beer and wine, delicious organic vegan and vegetarian cuisine, music and art and an amazing marketplace of hundreds of green local and national businesses and organizations.

 

Rebecca Ansert, founder of Green Public Art, is an art consultant who specializes in artist solicitation, artist selection, and public art project management for both private and public agencies. She is a graduate of the master’s degree program in Public Art Studies at the University of Southern California and has a unique interest in how art can demonstrate green processes or utilize green design theories and techniques in LEED certified buildings.

Green Public Art is a Los Angeles-based consultancy that was founded in 2009 in an effort to advance the conversation of public art’s role in green building. The consultancy specializes in public art project development and management, artist solicitation and selection, creative community involvement and knowledge of LEED building requirements. Green Public Art also works with emerging and mid-career studio artists to demystify the public art process. The consultancy acts as a resource for artists to receive one-on-one consultation before, during, and after applying for a public art project.
Go to Green Public Art

H20: The Art of Conservation – Artist Talks

Green Public Art, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This post comes to you from Green Public Art

H20: The Art of Conservation

Evenings in the Garden – Artist Talks begin on Wednesday, July 27, 2011 from 5:00-7:00pm

Register by email info@thegarden.org or call 619-660-0614

Participating artists include:

Christopher Puzio

Bociek & Bociek

Benjamin Lavender

Terri Hughes-Oelrich

Dia Bassett

Artists will discuss their inspiration, materials they chose to use and give the audience a deeper insight to their individual art practice.

 

 

Rebecca Ansert, founder of Green Public Art, is an art consultant who specializes in artist solicitation, artist selection, and public art project management for both private and public agencies. She is a graduate of the master’s degree program in Public Art Studies at the University of Southern California and has a unique interest in how art can demonstrate green processes or utilize green design theories and techniques in LEED certified buildings.

Green Public Art is a Los Angeles-based consultancy that was founded in 2009 in an effort to advance the conversation of public art’s role in green building. The consultancy specializes in public art project development and management, artist solicitation and selection, creative community involvement and knowledge of LEED building requirements. Green Public Art also works with emerging and mid-career studio artists to demystify the public art process. The consultancy acts as a resource for artists to receive one-on-one consultation before, during, and after applying for a public art project.
Go to Green Public Art

Independent Curators International – Experimental Geography

Announcements, news, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Experimental Geography

Curated by Nato Thompson

The manifestations of “experimental geography” (a term coined by geographer Trevor Paglen in 2002) run the gamut of contemporary art practice today: sewn cloth cities that spill out of suitcases, bus tours through water treatment centers, performers climbing up the sides of buildings, and sound works capturing the buzz of electric waves on the power grid. In the hands of contemporary artists, the study of humanity’s engagement with the earth’s surface becomes a riddle best solved in experimental fashion. The exhibition presents a panoptic view of this new practice, through a wide range of mediums including sound and video installations, photography, sculpture, and experimental cartography.

The approaches used by the artists featured in Experimental Geography range from the poetic to the empirical. The more pragmatic techniques include those used by the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) in projects made with students and other non-art groups that aim to strengthen peoples’ roles as agents of change in their own environments. See, for example, their map intended to help longshoremen and truckers identify chokepoints in the cargo trade network. In their similarly empirical projects, the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), a research organization, examines the nature and extent of human interaction with the earth’s surface. CLUI embraces a multidisciplinary approach that forces a reading of the American landscape (such as the disfiguring effects of culling natural resources from the picturesque banks of the Hudson River), thereby refamiliarizing viewers with the overlooked details of their everyday experience.

Experimental Geography is curated by Nato Thompson, curator at Creative Time in New York. It is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue, co-published by ICI and Melville House, that includes essays by Thompson, Jeffrey Kastner, and Trevor Paglen.

ARTISTS

Francis Alÿs, AREA Chicago, The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), The Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), e-Xplo, Ilana Halperin, kanarinka (Catherine D’lgnazio), Julia Meltzer and David Thorne, Lize Mogel, Multiplicity, Trevor Paglen, Raqs Media Collective, Ellen Rothenberg, Spurse, Deborah Stratman, Daniel Tucker, Alex Villar, Yin Xiuzhen

TOURING SCHEDULE

AVAILABLE

Contact us to book this exhibition
April 22, 2011 – December 31, 2011

Freeman Art Gallery, Bishop’s University

Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
January 21, 2011 – April 1, 2011

Museum London

London, Ontario, Canada
October 9, 2010 – January 2, 2011

The James Gallery, The Graduate Center at CUNY

New York, New York
June 24, 2010 – August 27, 2010

The Colby College Museum of Art

Waterville, Maine
February 21, 2010 – May 30, 2010

Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
October 10, 2009 – January 30, 2010

The Albuquerque Museum

Albuquerque, New Mexico
June 28, 2009 – September 20, 2009

Rochester Art Center

Rochester, Minnesota
February 7, 2009 – April 18, 2009

Richard E. Peeler Art Center, DePauw University

Greencastle, Indiana
September 19, 2008 – December 2, 2008

RELATED EVENTS

Experimental Geography panel discussion

The Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10016
6-7:15 pm
July 20, 2010

Contestational Cartographies Symposium

Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
January 28, 2010

TECHNICAL SPECS

via Independent Curators International – Experimental Geography.