Artistic Expression

Creative strategies of sustainability” for cultural workers, sept. 9th – 14th 2013, Berlin

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A week of debate and action around the theme “Culture and sustainability”, and more specifically about “Creative strategies of sustainability for European art centres”.

This week programme for cultural operators proposes a common reflection and a time of intense experiences sharing around the potential “strategies of sustainability”. The seminar will be composed by six full-days of activities including workshops, lectures, exploring sustainable places and projects in Berlin, initiation about straw bale building, artistic expression, and social interaction.

For 20 cultural workers the costs for travel and accommodation will be covered. Please send an email to csos@ufafabrik.de and you will get the application form. The deadline for applications will be the 14th of june 2013.

This seminar is a production of the ufaFabrik Berlin in the frame of Engine Room Europe:

“Engine Room Europe is a three-year programme (April 2011-May 2014) of activities dedicated to independent cultural workers and their creative processes. It is initiated by Trans Europe Halles (TEH) and co-ordinated by Melkweg (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) in association with 10 co-organizing TEH members. More information: www.teh.net

CSOS 13 Invitation

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Seminar on how to manage more sustainable cultural centres

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Think green: Invitation to Creative Strategies of Sustainability in ufaFabrik

Think green: Invitation to Creative Strategies of Sustainability in ufaFabrik

A week of workshops and common reflection on the theme ‘Creative Strategies of Sustainability for artistic and cultural centres in Europe’ is organised in Berlin, Germany, in September 2013, to give cultural workers new inspiration concerning how to build and manage more sustainable cultural centres.

9–14 September 2013

‘Creative Strategies of Sustainability’ is a week of debate and action around the theme Culture and sustainability, and more specifically on the Creative strategies of sustainability for artistic and cultural centres in Europe.

ufaFabrik in Berlin has always been engaged on the path of sustainability and green energies. In September 2013, they organise for the second time this week-long programme for cultural operators, which proposes a common reflection and a time of intense experiences sharing around the potential “creative strategies of sustainability” that the participants might initiate for their own centres.

Composed by six full days of activities including workshops, lectures, exploring sustainable places and projects in Berlin, initiation about straw bale building, artistic expression, social interaction and more, it will be a unique opportunity for exchange, discussion and discovery of some practical examples of existing practices.

The seminar 2013 will be a mixture out of the “Best of 2012” programme and new challenging inputs and actions. A limited number of people who joined the seminar 2012 are welcome.

The number of participants is limited to 20 people. For the participants all travel and accommodation costs will be covered. There might be a small fee for food (related to the financial standards in your home country) and extra costs (upgraded hotel standard).

If you are interested, you can send an email to csos@ufafabrik.de or fill in the application formand send it by the latest of 28 May 2013.

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.
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Call for papers on The Politics of African Contemporary Art – Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics

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seismopoliteRecent approaches to African contemporary art often celebrate the advent of a global contemporary art scene in which they see an abolition of the provincialist and historicist concepts that were imposed by the West during the colonial period. One assumes that by taking part in new and post-historical/ post-national networks of exchange, facilitated by large-scale international exhibitions, biennials and fairs, artists can express themselves more truly as they are no longer doomed to wrestle with the notions of the pre-colonial/ colonial; to be measured against Western art-historical paradigms, or to be defined via enduring fictions about their own parochialism.

This issue of Seismopolite aims to assess the validity of this perspective and to further inquire into the possibilities and limitations pertaining to the global contemporary art scene in terms of addressing political issues in, and rewriting the history and future of African societies (as well as African art history) in a consequential way through art.

In particular we wish to shed a critical light on how the contemporary art economy influences the political agency and interaction of artistic expression in African societies, and reversely, how African art, although it may be free to address political issues, can retain or represent such a political agency once it has become part of the global contemporary.

Contributors from diverse disciplinary backgrounds are invited to submit essays, exhibition reviews or interviews that address the theme “The politics of African contemporary art” through a high variety of possible angles.

Topics may include, but are not restricted to:

  • The role of art and artists in the rewriting of (art) history and political geography.
  • The development of international contemporary art venues/ festivals/ biennials in African countries, and their impact on the societal function and meaning of art in these contexts.
  • The agency and potential of art to stimulate new future trajectories in precarious socio-political situations.
  • Political activism and post-colonial consciousness in art and art communities under colonial rule.
  • The relationship between cultural politics/ geopolitics and international contemporary art venues/ festivals/ biennials in African countries.
  • Changes to the role and the economy of the artist in African societies.
  • Processes of translation in the global mediation of African contemporary art.
  • Aesthetics and politics of art in ‘African diaspora’.

We accept submissions continuously, but to make sure you are considered for the upcoming issue, please send your proposal, CV and samples of earlier work to submissions@seismopolite.com within February 20, 2013. Completed work will be due March 8, 2013. Commissioned works will be translated into Norwegian and published in a bilingual version.

Seismopolite Journal of Art and Politics is a bilingual English and Norwegian quarterly, which investigates the possibilities of artists and art scenes worldwide to reflect and influence their local political situation.

Current issue: www.seismopolite.com

Previous issues: www.seismopolite.com/artandpolitics

Contact: submissions@seismopolite.com

State of the Arts gets the environment

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Wallace Heim writes: 

At the most recent State of the Arts (SOTA) conference hosted by Arts Council England in Salford had, for the first time, two sessions on ‘Artists and our future environment’, with speakers James Marriott from PLATFORM; the writer Jay Griffiths; Mojisola Adebayo, writer, performer, director; and Andy Field, co-director of Forest Fringe.

All of SOTA’s sessions – on the creative economy, changing society, imagination, fundraising – touch on environmental themes. But these two drew out specific questions of the relations between artists and environments, of the material effects of artistic practices on the Earth, and of the importance of artistic expression of environmental themes.

This interest by SOTA in the environment comes about, in part, from talks between ACE London and arts organisations with an environmental focus in the London region – organisations who had lost their Regularly Funded Organisation status, and questioned ACE’s policies on the environment and climate.

James Marriott’s session, transcribed on the PLATFORM blog, sets out how this collaboration between disparate organisations has worked, and how substantial shifts in ACE’s environmental directions are taking shape.

“ashdenizen blog and twitter are consistently among the best sources for information and reflection on developments in the field of arts and climate change in the UK” (2020 Network)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

Expression and environment

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By Andrew Taylor on the Artful Manager

When we talk about cultural disciplines — dance, theater, fiction, and so on — we tend to speak of them as if they are self-contained. Theater may respond to evolving stage technology and alternative spacers, but it’s still roughly theater in the way we know it. And because significant changes to the environment have tended to happen rather slowly, it’s been easy to maintain that illusion for quite some time.

This overview of the past and future of the novel, in Time magazine, reminds us that forms of artistic expression are entirely intertwined with their environment. They form and evolve in response to that environment. And they change when that environment changes. The birth of the novel in the 18th century was one such response to environmental change.

via Expression and environment – The Artful Manager .