Jody Xiong of DDB China in conjunction with the China Environmental Protection Foundation created this wonderful outdoor campaign to create a subtle visual reminder of the environmental benefits of walking versus driving.
via Green Pedestrian Crossing in China Creates Leaves from Footprints | Colossal.
This post comes to you from Cultura21
“IDâ€ographs is a drawing activity in which you create your own personally meaningful symbol.
It is a publication of ARTSpring, a China-based curatorial hub that brings art practitioners together with organizations that are searching for new ways of carrying out their activities and connecting with people. IDographs was designed as part of an ongoing workshop series held with a group of university and high-school students in Shanghai.
For more information about ARTSpring programs and publications, please visit art-spring.org
[issuu width=420 height=162 embedBackground=%23000000 backgroundColor=%23222222 documentId=120722143257-c77f98cff962407990fb3391bf0b5659 name=idographs username=artspring tag=art unit=px v=2]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
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This post comes to you from Cultura21
Hitting screens: film portrait of an artist and critic
Right in time Ai Weiwei´s house arrest is being lifted: The documentation Ai Weiwei: Never sorry hits screens these days. For three years the producer Alison Klayman shadowed his life, resuming in an film portrait of one of the most compelling public figures in China. Now everybody gets the chance to gaze at the life of the known conceptual artist.
The film isn’t a media unknown to the artist: Ai Weiwei uses social media and finds a great platform for political activism in the Internet. Artist and regime critic, Ai Weiwei unites these positions. Trough art he communicates and expresses himself, creatively and radically he deals with his China. In his political-artistic driven activism the dissident tries to make grievance obvious and fight injustice. He aims at a world, free of human rights abuse.
Ai Weiwei works with pictures and let’s them talk. The outcome is volitional, but due to his behavor the artist and his family are affected by reprisals on a regular basis. Last year he was detained for a few months and has spendt his days since in house arrest in Peking.
Last year a panel discussion on Ai Weiwei’s role in art and activism was held at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany (co-organized by Cultura21 and the FIDH).
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
This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland
The Three Gorges, 3rd Edition « Artwork by Sonja Hinrichsen.
Sonja Hinrichsen makes ephemeral works of great beauty. These include walking in snow to create patterns.
Sonja Hinrichsen, Snow Drawings, Chatham, NY, 2011
These are reminiscent of neolithic marks on stones near Kilmartin, Scotland.
image from www.themodernantiquarian.com (click on image for many more)
Her most recent work is also ephemeral, but is the result of working in the Three Gorges in China. This is an area changing as a result of the widely reported hydro-electric scheme. Note how she positions the viewer such that they cannot avoid being present in the landscape.
Sonja Hinrichsen, Three Gorges, 3rd Edition, multi-screen video projection, 2011
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
This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland
The Electricity Fairy is a new film which approaches the issue of mountaintop removal from the everyday need for electricity:
“They reach out and flip the switch and the light comes on. Well, thereâ€s not a magic electricity fairy. That electricity comes from a power plant that feeds on coalâ€.
But the question of coal-fired power is not a just a question for China and Appalachia, it is also a question for Scotland. Should a major new coal-fired power station be built at Hunterston?
http://www.ayrshirepower.co.uk/
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.
Here is a good summary of points from Grist.com
The Copenhagen Accord contains these provisions that President Obama called a start to global action to solve climate change:
1) A commitment by developed nations to invest $30 billion over the next three years to help developing nations adapt to climate change and pursue clean energy development.
2) A provisional commitment by developed nations to develop a long-term $100 billion global fund by 2020 to assist developing nations in responding to climate change and become part of the clean energy economic transition.
3) A goal to pursue emissions reductions that are sufficient to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius.
4) Pledges by nations to commit to concrete emissions reductions, though the specific levels of reduction were not set.
5) A general goal to subject participating countries to international review of their progress under the accord.
6) Diplomatic space for the United States and China to work together to solve climate change. A commitment to complete an assessment of the effectiveness of the accord in reducing emissions by the end of 2015.
Chongqing XI, Series: Yangtze, The Long River, Chongqing, China 2007 by Nadav Kander
Just over a week ago Nadav Kander was named as winner of the excellent 2009 Prix Pictet, the prize given to photography on the theme of environmental sustainability. Last year’s shortlist, which included Benoit Aquin, Edward Burtynsky, David Maisel and others, produced a really astonishing collection of images on the theme of Water; it showed how powerful photography can still be when it inhabits the zone between art and documentary.
This year the theme, Earth, produced equally sock-knocking results; Britain’s Nadav Kander was up against Darren Almond, Edward Burtynsky (again) and Andreas Gursky and others. I’ve blogged about the brilliant shortlist previously.
Maybe because they’re part documentarists, there’s something very pithy about photographer’s artists’ statements that I really like. Here’s part of Kander’s artists’ statement about the whole Yangtze, The Long River project:
The Yangtze River, which forms the premise to this body of work, is the main artery that flows 4100miles (6500km) across China, travelling from its furthest westerly point in Qinghai Province to Shanghai in the east. The river is embedded in the consciousness of the Chinese, even for those who live thousands of miles from the river. It plays a significant role in both the spiritual and physical life of the people.
More people live along its banks than live in the USA, one in every eighteen people on the planet.
Using the river as a metaphor for constant change, I have photographed the landscape and people along its banks from mouth to source.
Importantly for me I worked intuitively, trying not to be influenced by what I already knew about the country. I wanted to respond to what I found and felt and to seek out the iconography that allowed me to frame views that make the images unique to me.
After several trips to different parts of the river, it became clear that what I was responding to and how I felt whilst being in China was permeating into my pictures; a formalness and unease, a country that feels both at the beginning of a new era and at odds with itself. China is a nation that appears to be severing its roots by destroying its past in the wake of the sheer force of its moving “forward†at such an astounding and unnatural pace. A people scarring their country and a country scarring its people…
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology