MICHAELA CRIMMIN: One of John Thakera???s inspiring newsletters containing accounts of his activities has just come through. It includes a generous reference to Arts & Ecology and eureka, I get it. The blogosphere is all about making connections, rather than as I???ve previously thought, the musings of frequently brilliant, witty, provocative individuals following linear lines of enquiry as they drink their morning coffee.
Connections are inherent in the word ???ecology???. When we first set up Arts & Ecology in 2005 it was Felix Guattari???s interpretation that seemed so right. It was important that we had a framework that was trans-disciplinary with a project promoting and debating artists??? responses to current environmental challenges. You can???t leave out philosophy or politics or economics or sociology, or the arts, when addressing the complexity of climate change and its effects. (If Descartes saw how we are exploiting the environment surely he would have thought differently?)
On the 5th anniversary of Facebook, here???s to relationships, here???s to blogs! And here???s to encouraging connections in virtual and real space. There???s plenty to explore in both, including Heath Bunting???s work for a new exhibition at Leeds City Art Gallery opening on 11 February. I really encourage you to open the link here. And of course there???s the new exhibition Altermodern that opened at Tate Britain yesterday.
Illustration: Woman, from An A-Z of The System by Heath Bunting 2007. All the maps are online here, and discussed here.Â
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology Blog
