Green Teas

Greenteas(e) big event 8 April

ecoartscotland,

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

EcoArtScotland has been attending Creative Carbon Scotland‘s Greentea(se) events in Glasgow and they are a very provocative process of trying to think through how culture and sustainability might collectively be able to change Glasgow, and what it would look like in 20 years.  The Greenteas(e) events are always open with a changing group of participants.  This larger event at Govanhill Baths is an opportunity for you to join the discussion.  You can sign up through Eventbrite.  Contact Creative Carbon Scotland through their website or on Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter.

Join Creative Carbon Scotland for Green Teas(e) – a day-long gathering of folk interested in arts and sustainability imagining how they can grow a more sustainable Glasgow!

Green Teas(e) brings together the artistic and sustainability worlds of Glasgow to spark new connections and join up projects and activities which share a common desire to make the city a more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable place to live.

This free event is open to anyone who’s interested in making Glasgow a greener city and exploring the roles which the arts could play in achieving this. Whether you’ve attended previous discussions or you’re brand new to Green Teas(e) Creative Carbon Scotland will be delighted if you could to join them at Govanhill Baths on 8th April.

Over the course of the day the group will look at what characteristics could make a more sustainable Glasgow and what role artists and arts organisations can play in growing and promoting these. Most importantly, the group will explore how to actually make these things happen.

Schedule for the day:

9-9.30 Tea, Coffee and arrivals

9.30 Introduction – Creative Carbon Scotland

9.45 Green Teas(e) – Penny Anderson, Writer and Artist, Aims and progress to date

10.30 Coffee and opportunity to see/hear about related artworks/projects currently happening or in the pipeline

11.00 Sustaining Creativity – Sholeh Johnston (Julie’s Bicycle), will talk about the findings from their UK-wide survey ‘Sustaining Creativity’ which asked CEO’s and artistic directors about their vision for a more sustainable cultural sector around key themes such as circularity, value and digital tools.

12.00 Introduction to the afternoon – Creative Carbon Scotland, A few thoughts to bring together the ideas from the morning and pose some questions for further discussion.

12.30 Lunch and the opportunity to see/hear about related artworks/projects being carried out by others

1.30 – 4.15 Imagining 20 projects which move the group forward to a Greener Glasgow

In the afternoon Creative Carbon Scotland will come up with 20 projects that will help develop a more sustainable arts sector in Glasgow and/or a more sustainable Glasgow – socially, culturally, environmentally. Facilitators from a range of disciplines/artforms/fields are invited to lead sessions to disuss and expand upon a range of ideas and proposals for projects that would help us begin to build this more sustainable Glasgow. The aim of this is not to plan an actual project with funding, people, locations, organisations etc. but to come up with ideas that would be interesting, stimulating and challenging and which could motivate us onto action.

4.15 Tea/coffee

4.30 Plenary

5.30 Drinks – open to all!

7.00 Finish

Creative Carbon Scotland is looking for you to send us ideas and proposals for the afternoon session. They want exciting ideas that will lead them on to the next, pro-active, stage. Please send ideas to Katie Stuart: katieshearerstuart@gmail.com. 

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.
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Residency Opp and Green Teas(e) Reflections – Creative Carbon Scotland

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Our friends and colleagues at Creative Carbon Scotland have a call out for artists to participate in a residency,

Mull is a multi-disciplinary weekend-long residency which explores the question, ‘What would it mean to be an artist working in a sustainable Scotland in 50 years’ time?’ through artistic practice and conversation. We’re looking for up to ten artists to apply their curiosity and unique skills to imagining what being an artist in a sustainable Scotland might look like in the future – what that would mean, how it would affect artistic content, what infrastructure it would require in order to function and how artists and the arts will have shaped a sustainable Scotland.  More info here.

They have also been running a programme of Green Tea(se) in Glasgow to build up the discussion about what a sustainable city and cultural sector might look like.  They’ve been blogging the outcomes of the events.  Green Teas(e) is part of a wider EU project called the Green Arts Lab Alliance. To find out more, click here.

If you want to contribute to imagining a more sustainable cultural sector, then come along and join the conversation. 

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

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Fourth Green Teas(e) Reflections

Creative Carbon Scotland,

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Last week Creative Carbon Scotland met for the fourth Green Teas(e) at GoMA for tea and biscuits and to build on the discussions had at the last meet, the aim of which was to identify some of the characteristics that might make up a sustainable Glasgow and cultural sector.  Once more the group had an exciting gathering of folk from across the arts and sustainability organisations in Glasgow including artist Nic Green, Steve Taylor, Festival 2014 Sustainability Manager, Ailsa Nazir and Claire Ferguson from CCA, and Fiona Sinclair from NHS and the Art in the Gart Programme.

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Four key characteristics identified previously were taken as the starting point:

  • Making sustainability the cultural norm through strong leadership, influencing audiences and supply chains;
  • Increasing the transparency of the trade-offs and complexity of decision making;
  • Education playing a key role not only in increasing awareness but engaging people in a way that does not ‘impose’ or ‘withhold’ the ability to live more sustainably;
  • Supporting/creating more local, closed loop economies.

This time Creative Carbon Scotland wanted to find out from the group what these characteristics would look like in concrete terms.

To set the cogs in motion artist Ellie Harrison told the group about how she has come to embed environmental sustainability within her artistic practice, not just in terms of content but also her approach to making work. She spoke about the conflict she experienced as being a maker of ‘stuff’ and sometimes ‘pointless objects’ and her desire to live more sustainably, but also the useful skills that artists have including the ‘ability to innovate and change’ and ‘arrogance and self-belief’. Much of her work now focuses on political activism and campaigning including projects such as ‘Bring Back British Rail’ which lobbies for public ownership and availability of cheap public transport.

The group also heard from Katie Bruce, Producer Curator at GoMA, about a new ‘Associate Artist’ project starting at GoMA this year in which an artist will be selected to work with gallery staff to challenge existing structures and explore new ways of working with the ambition of building stronger internal capacity for collaborative, participatory working practice, which make a difference to GoMA’s carbon footprint.

This model of the artist as researcher and catalyst of change within an organisation can be seen as a micro-level equivalent to our ambition of Green Teas(e) through which we aim to create new ways of working within the cultural sector which in turn influence a more sustainable Glasgow (and vice versa).

Looking backwards from 2020, the group asked what the above characteristics might look like in a sustainable Glasgow. We split off into groups and came up with the following points. (Note that the language and concepts and quite technical, complicated and sometimes difficult but that was the nature of the discussion.)

Some crosscutting themes which linked all of the characteristics were identified, including:

  • Nurturing non-material values and moving towards non-financial ways of measuring things
  • Encouraging agency (people’s capacity to take action and achieve things) and a shift away from dominant models
  • Creating a Glasgow in which space exists in everyone’s lives to develop their own agency

1. Making sustainability the cultural norm through strong leadership, influencing audiences and supply chains

The concept of ‘strong leadership’ was challenged here as adhering to dominant models which typically favour more ‘masculine characteristics’. However, it was also agreed that leadership is important in creating space for and empowering others to develop their own agency. Fiona Sinclair from Art in the Gart and NHSGGC Mental Health North Western spoke about the disempowerment of individuals that can exist in large organisations such as the NHS and the need to create spaciousness, whether in terms of staff time or the ability to be critical and reflective,  which might begin to instil a great ‘consciousness’ of sustainability. There was also concern around the term ‘norm’ in relation to cultural diversity in which different forms of and approaches to achieving a sustainable city was favoured.

2. Increasing the transparency of the trade-offs and complexity of decision making

Here it was discussed that the scale at which decisions are made needs to be appropriate to the scale of the issue, i.e. creating local and city-wide subsidiarity (the devolution to the lowest appropriate level of decision making) which the public have trust in through a transparency in the decision making process and why decisions have been made. This also links to the agency and empowerment at grassroots level up.

3. Education playing a key role not only in increasing awareness but engaging people in a way that does not ‘impose’ or ‘withhold’ the ability to live more sustainably

The group talked about creating a ‘new department’ within government, local authorities and other organisations which specifically deals with education and sustainability. In a broader sense, this concept of the ‘new department’, whether that’s new ways of working or new space given to embedding environmental sustainability into everyone’s consciousness, could provide a model for creating a more sustainable society. This links to Elinor Ostrum’s polycentric approach to environmental protection “where key management decisions should be made as close to the scene of events and the actors involved as possible” (relating back to subsidiarity and agency again). The same could be applied to education and decision-making, where diverse nodes of activity are enabled to grow across different areas of society and eventually link up with one another.

4. Supporting and creating more local, closed loop economies

The need to create local currencies which feed into more local economies as well as developing a cradle to cradle system of resource use were agreed on as important components of a closed loop economy. In order to reuse and recycle our resources we would also need to develop a varied skill set which enables us to re-make, adapt and mend the stuff around us, thus combating the obsolescence currently built into many of the things we own.

These quite technical descriptions aren’t particularly art-focused and so the job for the next Green Teas(e) is to think about how the arts help achieve these various characteristics of a sustainable city.

List of Attendees

Penny Anderson – Writer/artist

Michelle Emery Barker – Wasps

Kathryn Beckett – GSofA

Katie Bruce, GoMA

Rachel Duckhouse – Artist

Claire Ferguson – CCA

Nicola Godsal – Community & Volunteer Development Officer at NVA

Nic Green – Artist

Ellie Harrison – Artist

Andy MacAvoy – Edo Architecture

Ailsa Nazir – CCA

Eilidh Sinclair – GsofA

Fiona Sinclair – NHSGGC northwest sector

Elaine Slaven – Carbon Management Awareness Officer, Glasgow Life

Ben Spencer – Velocity

Steve Taylor – Festival 2014 Sustainability Manager

Image: Ellie Harrison, Early Warning Signs, http://www.ellieharrison.com/

– Gemma Lawrence, 29.01.14

The post Blog: Green Teas(e) Reflections appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

———-

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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Third Green Teas(e) Reflections

news,

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

On 16th December Creative Carbon Scotland met for the third in a series of Green Teas(e) which bring together artists, arts organisations and people working in sustainability in Glasgow for tea, biscuits and discussion, with the view to sewing together previously disconnected projects and initiatives in the city. Green Teas(e) aim to give all sides of the group a new perspective on what others are doing and enable them to work together more effectively towards building a more sustainable cultural sector in Glasgow which might in turn influence a more sustainable city and vice versa.

2013-07-26_MakeWorks-NorthlandsCreativeGlass-StudioRoRo-0159-e1387538618782

This time round a group of twenty people gathered in the Mackintosh Building at Glasgow School of Art with an excitingly wide range of backgrounds and expertise to spur on discussion. Our invited speaker, Fi Scott, Founder and Design Director of Make Works set the tone with a quick introduction to what they have been up to over the past year. Make Works’ mission is to ‘make it easier for creative professionals to produce high quality work locally’ in Scotland. Earlier this year they embarked upon a 3000 mile tour, mapping the suppliers, trades and manufactures working in Scotland for the Make Works Directory which will make it simple for artists and designers to source factories, fabricators, workshops and facilities digitally.

With our first two events providing more general introductions to Green Teas(e), Creative Carbon Scotland wanted to use this third session to flesh out some of the components and characteristics that might make up a sustainable Glasgow and cultural sector. Make Works’ emphasis on building new links between Scottish artists and designers and manufacturers, making visible previously hidden possibilities for them to produce work more locally, thus potentially contributing to the sustainability of the product, was a good starting point for discussion.

So what might a sustainable Glasgow and cultural sector look like? Creative Carbon Scotland asked the group what sustainability meant to them, in their personal and working contexts. Ben, Director of CCS, started us off with the ‘triple bottom line’ of environmental, economic and social sustainability encompassed by a wider circle which can be understood within any number of frameworks including ‘culture’, ‘world view’, ‘values’ or ‘politics’.

Four key themes emerged from the groups’ definitions:

  • Making sustainability the cultural norm through strong leadership, influencing audiences and supply chains;
  • Increasing the transparency of the trade-offs and complexity of decision making (in the broadest sense);
  • Education playing a key role not only in increasing awareness but engaging people in a way that does not ‘impose’ or ‘withhold’ the ability to live more sustainably;
  • Supporting/creating more local, closed loop economies.

How do these feed into imagining a more sustainable city? More space for ‘thinking’ was one characteristic identified by the group. Chris Fremantle, independent producer and researcher, amongst others spoke about the pressure for cities such as Glasgow to constantly reinvent itself in order to maintain its position as an internationally competitive and appealing city to travel to or invest in. Chris gave the example of the plans for the new Clyde-wide Fastlink bus in Glasgow which would threaten the running of Govan Fair which requires a day-long closure of part of the bus route. Councils and organisations such as Glasgow Life face a huge challenge in keeping  up with the pressures to deliver ‘new’, ‘bigger’ and better’ events and programmes on increasingly tight budgets and staff time.

A ‘slower’ culture which values greater capacity for transparency in decision making as well as time to reflect, critique and make the most of what local resources and activities are already available was agreed upon as something which is currently lacking in Glasgow’s cultural landscape. This might in turn put greater emphasis on longer-term planning. Kenneth Osborne, financial director of the RSNO, spoke about their new building currently under construction which is estimated as functioning for only 60 years. How might we better approach such infrastructural changes so as to remove the financial driver as the over-riding position? A more locally driven engagement with city planning was one suggestion from architect Andy McAvoy, founder of Edo Architecture.

Bringing us full circle, Creative Carbon Scotland talked about grappling with the complexities of achieving triple bottom line sustainability. Fi Scott highlighted the many contradictions Make Works were faced with when learning about the processes of local production in Scotland. How does one value the financial sustainability of a rural community which itself is maintained through the importation and exportation of particular materials and products around the world? To Fi one of the most consistent forms of sustainability she has encountered is that of jobs available to more isolated settlements through the presence of local factories and manufacturers. Amongst the group there was the feeling that a first step towards a more sustainable city would be strong leadership which acknowledges these tricky trade-offs that we all face.

For the next meeting Creative Carbon Scotland will be back-casting from a sustainable Glasgow and cultural sector in 2020 to discuss how we might get there.

Green Teas(e) is part of a wider EU project called the Green Arts Lab Alliance. To find out more, click here.

Image: Make Works, Ross Fraser Maclean

The post Blog: Green Teas(e) Reflections appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

Powered by WPeMatico

Green Teas(e) Reflections

news,

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

2013-07-26_MakeWorks-NorthlandsCreativeGlass-StudioRoRo-0159-e1387538618782

On 16th December Creative Carbon Scotland met for the third in a series of Green Teas(e) which bring together artists, arts organisations and people working in sustainability in Glasgow for tea, biscuits and discussion, with the view to sewing together previously disconnected projects and initiatives in the city. Green Teas(e) aims to give all sides of the group a new perspective on what others are doing and enable them to work together more effectively towards building a more sustainable cultural sector in Glasgow which might in turn influence a more sustainable city and vice versa.

This time round a group of twenty people gathered in the Mackintosh Building at Glasgow School of Art with an excitingly wide range of backgrounds and expertise to spur on discussion. The invited speaker, Fi Scott, Founder and Design Director of Make Works set the tone with a quick introduction to what they have been up to over the past year. Make Works’ mission is to ‘make it easier for creative professionals to produce high quality work locally’ in Scotland. Earlier this year they embarked upon a 3000 mile tour, mapping the suppliers, trades and manufactures working in Scotland for the Make Works Directory which will make it simple for artists and designers to source factories, fabricators, workshops and facilities digitally.

With the first two events providing more general introductions to Green Teas(e), Creative Carbon Scotland wanted to use this third session to flesh out some of the components and characteristics that might make up a sustainable Glasgow and cultural sector. Make Works’ emphasis on building new links between Scottish artists and designers and manufacturers, making visible previously hidden possibilities for them to produce work more locally, thus potentially contributing to the sustainability of the product, was a good starting point for discussion.

So what might a sustainable Glasgow and cultural sector look like? We asked the group what sustainability meant to them, in their personal and working contexts. Ben, Director of CCS, started us off with the ‘triple bottom line’ of environmental, economic and social sustainability encompassed by a wider circle which can be understood within any number of frameworks including ‘culture’, ‘world view’, ‘values’ or ‘politics’.

Four key themes emerged from the groups’ definitions:

  • Making sustainability the cultural norm through strong leadership, influencing audiences and supply chains;
  • Increasing the transparency of the trade-offs and complexity of decision making (in the broadest sense);
  • Education playing a key role not only in increasing awareness but engaging people in a way that does not ‘impose’ or ‘withhold’ the ability to live more sustainably;
  • Supporting/creating more local, closed loop economies.

How do these feed into imagining a more sustainable city? More space for ‘thinking’ was one characteristic identified by the group. Chris Fremantle, independent producer and researcher, amongst others spoke about the pressure for cities such as Glasgow to constantly reinvent itself in order to maintain its position as an internationally competitive and appealing city to travel to or invest in. Chris gave the example of the plans for the new Clyde-wide Fastlink bus in Glasgow which would threaten the running of Govan Fair which requires a day-long closure of part of the bus route. Councils and organisations such as Glasgow Life face a huge challenge in keeping  up with the pressures to deliver ‘new’, ‘bigger’ and better’ events and programmes on increasingly tight budgets and staff time.

A ‘slower’ culture which values greater capacity for transparency in decision making as well as time to reflect, critique and make the most of what local resources and activities are already available was agreed upon as something which is currently lacking in Glasgow’s cultural landscape. This might in turn put greater emphasis on longer-term planning. Kenneth Osborne, financial director of the RSNO, spoke about their new building currently under construction which is estimated as functioning for only 60 years. How might we better approach such infrastructural changes so as to remove the financial driver as the over-riding position? A more locally driven engagement with city planning was one suggestion from architect Andy McAvoy, founder of Edo Architecture.

Bringing the group full circle, we talked about grappling with the complexities of achieving triple bottom line sustainability. Fi Scott highlighted the many contradictions Make Works were faced with when learning about the processes of local production in Scotland. How does one value the financial sustainability of a rural community which itself is maintained through the importation and exportation of particular materials and products around the world? To Fi one of the most consistent forms of sustainability she has encountered is that of jobs available to more isolated settlements through the presence of local factories and manufacturers. Amongst the group there was the feeling that a first step towards a more sustainable city would be strong leadership which acknowledges these tricky trade-offs that we all face.

For the next meeting Creative Carbon Scotland will be back-casting from a sustainable Glasgow and cultural sector in 2020 to discuss how we might get there.

Green Teas(e) is part of a wider EU project called the Green Arts Lab Alliance. To find out more, click here.

Image: Make Works, Ross Fraser Maclean

The post Blog: Green Teas(e) Reflections appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;

Communicating with their audiences;

Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

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