Earth

APInews: Indigenous Voices Intervene in Arizona

October 1, 2009newsArizona State University, Asus, Ceramics Research, Cherokee, Collaboration, Commodity, Concrete, Discourse, Earth, Exhibition, Global Sustainability, Indigenous Artists, Indigenous People, Indigenous Voices, Pedestal, Phoenix New Times, Physical Portal, Square Hole, Sustainability Conference, University Art Museums

A Piipaash song cycle and dance recently filled the Arizona State University Art Museums Ceramics Research Center during an intervention by Postcommodity, an interdisciplinary indigenous artists collective. Postcommoditys installation, “Do You Remember When,” is part of the museums exhibition “Defining Sustainability,” August 28-November 28. The artists cut a square hole in the gallery floor, exposing the earth beneath the institution, and displaying the block of removed concrete, standing upright, on a pedestal. Its “a spiritual, cultural and physical portal,” say the artists, contradicting the rigid Western scientific world view of our environment. Postcommoditys Kade Twist Cherokee makes it clear that the piece was a collaboration with the museum – not the university. The show parallels ASUs October global sustainability conference. “Sustainability has become an academic gold rush; its been turned into a commodity,” Twist told the Phoenix New Times 8/30/09. “The university is having this discourse without including any indigenous people in it.”

via APInews: Indigenous Voices Intervene in Arizona .

Bill McKibben on the â€œtorrent of artâ€ about climate change

September 7, 2009news, RSA Arts & EcologyAntibodies, Bill Mckibben, Bloodstream, Campaigner, Carelessness, Civilization, Climate Change, Earth, Ecology, Glaciers, Greed, Grist, Guggenheim, Immune System, James Balog, Lagging Indicator, Optimism, Performance Work, Privileged Role, Quantities, Romantic Idea, Time Lapse Photography, Torrent

Bill McKibben wrote recently on Grist.org about how, over the last few years, art has been shouting increasingly stridently about climate:

That torrent of art has been, often, deeply disturbingâ€”it should be deeply disturbing, given what weâ€™re doing to the earth. (And none of it has quite matched the performance work that nature itself is providing. Check out, for instance, James Balogâ€™sÂ time-lapse photography of glaciers crashing into the seaâ€”if we could somehow crowd that thrashing sheet of ice into the Guggenheim for a week, people would truly get it.) But for me, itâ€™s been more comforting than disturbing, because it means that the immune system of the planet is finally kicking in.

Artists, in a sense, are the antibodies of the cultural bloodstream. They sense trouble early, and rally to isolate and expose and defeat it, to bring to bear the human power for love and beauty and meaning against the worst results of carelessness and greed and stupidity. So when art both of great worth, and in great quantities, begins to cluster around an issue, it means that civilization has identified it finally as a threat. Artists and scientists perform this function most reliably; politicians are a lagging indicator.

I wonder, how true is this? Is identifying artists as the â€œantibodies of the cultural bloodstreamâ€ a hopelessly romantic idea, part of McKibbenâ€™s relentless optimism, an optimism that has sustained him for twenty years and more as a campaigner? Or will the next few years prove him right in his faith that, not only are artists making work of â€œgreat worth, and in great quantitiesâ€ about the issueÂ , but that art still has a privileged role in how society concieves of itself.

Itâ€™s certainly a role that many established artists would feel extremely uncomfortable with; but maybe this isnâ€™t the time for such niceities.

Read Bill McKibbenâ€™s article in Grist.org

Bill McKibbenâ€™s 350.org campaign

Bill McKibben talks to RSA Arts & Ecology about his call for artists to lead on 350.org

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

Six degrees: Mark Lynasâ€™s book visualised in new magazine

August 9, 2009news, RSA Arts & EcologyArtists, Climate Warming, Designers, Drought, Earth, Ecological Literacy, Ecology, Five Degrees, Flood, Global Warming, Habitability, Mark Lynas, New Planet, Rendition, Scenarios, Six Degrees, Twin Crises

EcoLabs, a network of designers and artists who are looking to create what they call â€œecological literacyâ€ has an excellent new magazine outÂ EcoMag, which puts their ideas into practice. Itâ€™s available via as a low res download or as an online purchase for Â£10.

It leads off with a feature in which six artists visualiseÂ Mark Lynasâ€™sÂ Six Degrees. For anyone who hasnâ€™t read itÂ Six Degrees is about six different climate warming scenarios, each marked by a single degree increase in the earthâ€™s temperature. This isÂ Jody Bartonâ€™s rendition of Five Degrees. The accompanying text reads:

With five degrees of global warming, an entirely new planet is coming into being- one largely unrecognisable from the Earth we know todayâ€¦ Humans are herded into shrinking zones of habitability by the twin crises of drought and flood.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

How literature is getting to grips with climate change

June 17, 2009news, RSA Arts & EcologyAir Water, Climate Change, Earth, Ecology, Helen Simpson, Literature, Masterclass, Ox Tales, Oxfam, Respect, Robert Butler, RSA Arts & Ecology, Short Story, Water Fire

Robert Butler of the Ashden Directory notes William Sidelsky’s review of the Oxfam-produced short-story collection Ox-tales: Air, Water, Fire and Earth in yesterday’s Observer. The review recognises that climate change is becoming a something recurring theme for modern writers:

A masterclass in this respect is offered by Helen Simpson’s “The …
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology

ECO ART: Plastic Bottle Installation in NYC

June 4, 2009newsArt Festival, Art Plastic, Bottled Water, Drinking Water, Earth, Environmental Repercussions, Everyday Objects, Excuse, Figment, Graphic Design Agency, Landfill, Mslk, New York City, Olivia, Packaging, People, Tap Plastic, Tap Water, Toxins, United States, Water Bottles, Water Tap, Watershed

ECO ART: Plastic Bottle Installation in NYC

by Olivia Chen

Sometimes it is hard to truly grasp how much waste we create as a society. Thatâ€™s why NYC-based graphic design agency, MSLK is creating an installation that is an in-your-face visual of the amount of water bottles consumed in the United States. The installation uses 1,500 water bottles, the number of bottles consumed every 1 second â€” thatâ€™s 90,000 bottles per minute Entitled â€œWatershed,â€ the piece is meant to inspire its viewers to consider the collective environmental repercussions of drinking bottled water over tap. The installation is showing at the Figment Art Festival, open from June 12-14 on Governorâ€™s Island in New York City. Click through to see a video of the installationâ€™s assembly

Watershed Assembly at MSLK 5/24/09Â fromÂ MSLKÂ onÂ Vimeo.

Environmental conscious-ness has certainly strengthened in the past few years, but plastic, whether in the form of a bottle, bag or other types of packaging, are still everyday objects in most peopleâ€™s lives. Furthermore, most people arenâ€™t disposing of plastic responsibly: according to MSLK, 80% of water bottles still end up in the landfill. Not to mention the toxins that exist in plastic. Bad for the earth and bad for your body, there is no excuse Especially in New York City, where the quality of tap water is superior, DRINK TAP

via Inhabitat Â» ECO ART: Plastic Bottle Installation in NYC.

Message vs. Action

November 25, 2008Uncategorizedamerican theater, blog, C Word, cancer, Confessions, contemporary arts center, Dell Arte, dell'arte players company, Earth, EcoTheater, EcoTheater Classics, Fifteen Years, Foray, green theatre, Love, Lowell Ma, Lynn Jacobson, Merrimack, merrimack repertory, Mike Lawler, New Orleans, Northern California, Repertory, Sustainable Approach, the c word, Theater Artists, Theaters

This Post was originally posted to Mike Lawlerâ€™s ecoTheaer blog on April 25, 2007. We are reposting it here to share this ecoTheater classic with new readers while MIke continues to regain his health. You can read his blog about his ongoing battle with cancer, The â€œCâ€ Word, by clicking here.

In 1992, American Theatre ran an article called Green Theatre: Confessions of an Eco-reporter, in which Lynn Jacobson traveled to three performing arts companies–Merrimack Repertory in Lowell, MA, the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans, and Dell’Arte Players Company in northern California–and wrote about the work they were doing on the allegedly emerging front of “Green Theatre.”

In the fall of this year my first published foray into “greening” our theaters is slated to appear in the pages of American Theatre too–over fifteen years after Jacobson wrote, at the close of her piece, “Can theatre save the earth? I don’t know. But from sea to polluted sea, I’ve seen it trying.” Well, Jacobson was certainly right about one thing: Theater can’t save the earth–at least not alone. But, it does seem that it can make more of an effort than it has. Because, though Jacobson failed to really take it into account in 1992, the greening of our theater isn’t just about putting on ecologically themed work. It’s also about putting on ecologically friendly work, whether it be new, old, experimental, or otherwise.

In my research, I am struggling to find theater artists out there who are striving for a more sustainable approach to theater production. If you are one, or know of one, get in touch with me–I’d love to hear from you.

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

October 16, 2008Announcements, Research2009, call, conference, CSPA Convergence, data, Earth, EcoDrama, matters, on, presentation, Research, Stage

The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts (CPSA) in partnership with EARTH MATTERS ON STAGE: Ecodrama Playwrights Festival and Symposium on Ecology & Theatre at the University of Oregon, Eugene is asking for presentations from the national arts community focused on building ecologically and economically sustainable models in the arts. Â Â The EMOS Festival and Symposium takes place May 21-31, 2009.

The CSPA is a start-up arts-service organization focused on researching, developing and implementing change to increase the ecological and economic sustainability of the arts in the United States. The CSPA will be hosting a series of focused sessions within the larger symposium to deal with practical change and repeatable models.

While the content and format of the presentations is open to the creativity of presenters, preference will be given to presentations that focus on critical analysis, scientific data and documentation as the basis for support of a project’s relationship to issues of sustainability. We seek shareable and repeatable models for active change in arts practice.

Based on the proposals received, presenters may be grouped into topical sessions and may also be asked to participate in roundtable and/or panel discussions to be able to best compare and contrast existing and proposed models of sustainable change, especially as it may highlight the balance of the ecology and economy in contemporary arts practice.

Possible topics include presentations on the impact or future impact of LEED certified arts facilities, company greening initiatives, the creation of efficiency standards for the arts, government initiatives, production methodology, education of theater artists, individual projects created with ecology in mind, re-use programs and any practical documentation of positive ecological sustainable change.

While the CSPA’s session at the symposium will focus on practice and the practical application of change, we encourage all presenters to also submit to the general call from The Ecodrama Playwrights Festival and Symposium on Ecology and Performance. They seek “creative and innovative proposals for workshops, round-tables, panels, working sessions, installations, or participatory community gatherings that explore, examine, challenge, articulate, or nourish the possibilities of theatrical and performative responses to the environmental crisis in particular, and our ecological situatedness in general.” Â Â See the EMOS Call for Proposals at: www.uoregon.edu/~ecodrama or email ecodrama@uoregon.edu.

Please send a one-page proposal and/or abstract by January 1, 2009 to:

Earth Matters Symposium 2009
The Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts

(attention Ian Garrett)

c/o LA Stage Alliance

644 S. Figueroa St.

Los Angeles, CA 90017

Or you may email your materials to conferences@sustainablepractice.org

Please feel free to direct any questions to the CSPA via email at conferences@sustainablepractice.org