Interdependence

Out Now CSPA Q8: International Issue – The Sea is Rising

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CSPA Quarterly #8 is now available for purchase through MagCloud. Members, your print and digital editions will find their ways to you shortly!.

Our third international issue focuses on projects that call attention to topics that extend well beyond national borders. With a focus on interdependence, and an abundance of contributions about water, ice, and sea rise, this issue addresses the space between national borders- our oceans. Featuring work from Moe Beitiks, Chantal Bilodeau, Eve Mosher, Michael Pinksy, Christopher Robbins, and Liz Ward.

CLICK HERE TO ORDER

UPCOMING ISSUES

Q9 Intersection: Science and Culture

We’ve been noticing a flurry of work that exists at the intersection between art and science. This includes installation and performance pieces that challenge scientific claims, and work that utilizes science to prove a point, or to reach a new audience. It’s about fact-imbedded art, or emotions and reasoning co-existing.

CSPA Quarterly 1.0

Our tenth issue anniversary! For this issue, we will breathe new life into our pilot issue, and will check in with those participating artists.

Nature’s Toolbox: Biodiversity, Art, and Invention

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This post comes to you from Cultura21

May 22 – December 02, 2012

The Field Museum, Chicago

Harnessing technology and inspired by nature’s amazing design concepts, Nature’s Toolbox features innovative, eye-capturing contemporary art which helps visitors understand and appreciate the life-or-death interdependence between the 10-20 million species on earth – including humans – and the quality of the environment we share.

For More Information visit www.artworksforchange.org

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

Go to Cultura21

Be a gathering! The Natural Circus trainings, Spring 2012

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This post comes to you from Cultura21

‘I am movement and stillness at the same time’

The Natural Circus trainings are a body and movement practice (and maybe a bit more), embedded in an understanding that ‘nothing lasts, nothing is finished, nothing is perfect’.

Situated in a powerful natural environment, they are playful gatherings beyond the human(-centered) perspective that may help realize the complete interdependence and interconnectedness of the human being with the natural world – until what remains is dance only. The trainings integrate elements of Contact Improvisation, Physical Theater, Tango, Bodywork, Meditation, Deep Ecology and Nature Awareness Work, Taoist/Advaita/Zen philosophy.

This 4-days gathering will take place in Barnave/Diois, France; from May 24th to the 28th, and will feature Diethild Meier (Dancer, improviser, visual artist), Lars Schmidt (Wandering Monk, Natural Thinker, Improviser) and Romain Petit (Freeclimber and climbing teacher).

The cost of the gathering is 240€, housing on site (Le Serre) included, in two rustic apartments, food will be extra, shared and prepared together. The number of participants is limited to 12 persons

For more information, go to Natural Circus´ website.

Registration: contact [at] passiveactivism [dot] net

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

Go to Cultura21

ECOPSYCHOLOGY & NATURAL CHANGE COURSES in 2012

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This post comes to you from Cultura21

The purpose of the ecoSelf project is for people to find a sense of ecological identity and based on that to live in ecological balance. In order to find this ecological identity, people have to face the fact that humankind is part of the Earth’s wider ecology, thus stands in constant interdependence with nature. This knowledge can contribute to personal healing because the individual can be healed as part of the larger body of the Earth. Since wild nature seems to provide a powerful context for processes of ecological Self realisation, David Key uses it as a basis for his courses and projects. He provides professional development courses to help people learn how to facilitate ecological Self realisation programmes.

In the following some of his courses and programmes are introduced:

Natural Change for Facilitators

Knoydart (Scotland) 24th – 31st March, 2012

It is a professional development course for those interested in facilitating groups using approaches pioneered on WWF’s Natural Change Project. Natural Change is an outdoor-based experiential programme designed to engage and support leaders for sustainability.

Ecopsychology Distance Learning Programme

16th April – 15th June, 2012
This programme offers a 12 week learning opportunity for those interested in exploring ecopsychology theory. A major part of the learning process will be to help exploring how one might apply ecopsychology to the personal and professional life.

Ecopsychology: experiencing the ecological self

Schumacher College, Devon from May 27- June 1, 2012

Through a series of carefully facilitated outdoor experiences and small group work, this course will help participants experience the ecological Self and ask what it really means to “reconnect with nature”.

Wild Mindfulness

Scotland (Holy Isle) from the 26th June – 2nd July, 2012

This course takes the practice of mindfulness out of the meditation hall and into the wild. Through mindfulness practice and other contemplative work outdoors on the island, the course offers a chance to attend to the deep interconnectedness with the wider ecology.

For more information about the courses and bookings visit http://www.ecoself.net/courses/

Furthermore programme design, mentoring / supervision, and ecopsychology teaching, research and consultancy services are offered, visit www.ecoself.net in order to get more details.

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

Go to Cultura21

A PEOPLE’S PRELIMINARY HEARING ON MONSANTO

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

‘listening to zea maize’ from mid west radical culture corridor website

ANDANDAND made the following announcement through the dOCUMENTA (13) newsletter (who, it should be noted, added “dOCUMENTA (13) is not responsible for the views or factual claims expressed by the artists and artworks it presents.”.

“Our focus is on Monsanto’s role in transforming and damaging the ecologies, economies, and social relations of this region. Proceedings will unfold in several stages, and as the deliberation process builds, it will add to the accumulating record of harms perpetrated by this corporation against human and non-human bodies, food, biological processes, weeds, neighborhoods, farmers, alternative forms of knowledge, and finally the environment from which all these entities emerge.

Through this project, we challenge rigid categories of legal protection, and seek an ethics that protects life itself from coercion. We invoke the form of a trial to produce a comprehensive public understanding of harms, and to determine responsibility for those harms. Existing judiciary frameworks are inadequate to the scale and nature of the ongoing damages perpetrated by Monsanto, which, under current law, is granted the rights of a legitimate “person,” while human non-citizens and non-human agents in our biosphere are not recognized. Existing law produces exclusive notions of legitimacy and harm that ignore and damage entities that do not favor a reductive calculus of profit.

Our proposition is to consider all living things as potential plaintiffs in an accounting of Monsanto’s crimes. We submit to public review impacts that are experienced materially and culturally, in the past, the present and extending into our shared future. By expanding notions of legal standing and of legitimate harm, we assert our interdependence. The urgent question is: what will it take to safeguard the interlocked nature of the world against criminally reckless corporate priority?”

The first hearing will take place at:

Time: Saturday, January 28, 2012, 11 am
City: Carbondale IL; Chicago IL; Iowa City IA; others TBA
Country: USA
Location: 37° 43′ 35.11″ N, 89° 13′ 12.97″ W
Address: Lesar Law Building Courtroom, Carbondale

Midwest Radical Culture Corridor has undertaken a number of drifts with the likes of Temporary Services and Brian Holmes.  Their Call to Farms project and publication is inspirational.

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

The Home and the World – On Being at Home

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This post comes to you from Cultura21

From the 19th to the 21st of June 2012 a creative summit for artists and other thinkers will take place at Dartington Hall Estate in south Devon/England.
The summit will focus on the question if the alienation of humankind from the natural world has effected his condition and psyche and if there is a general loss of knowledge about the interdependence of all living things.

The leading questions are:

  • What does it mean to be at home in the world? What does home mean to us?
  • How can we be more aware of our ‘inhabited place’ in the world?
  • Why do we all too often fail to understand the impact we have on the world around us?
  • It’s been more than fifteen years since Gablik suggested that art can re-enchant our connection to the world – how have we responded?

Artists and thinkers are invited to submit proposals. The organizers search for a broad mix of challenging ideas and submissions for the three days of the summit. These ideas should investigate, how we live in the world; how we find our place – our home – and how we use creativity and the arts to ask questions, present problems, and offer up solutions, homages, and celebrations.
Submissions with innovative, participatory, performative and/or interactive formats will be favoured. Since most of the sessions are live streamed on the internet, applicants may work  this into their proposal.

The hosts of the summit are Aune Head Arts and The Arts at Dartington. It is part of the ‘Artful Ecologies’ series of conferences organised by RANE at University College Falmouth.
The deadline for submissions is the 24th of February 2012.

For further information about the submission details see www.thehomeandtheworld.info
The Call for Proposals as well as the print flyer can be downloaded there, too.

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

Go to Cultura21

New metaphors for sustainability: an indigenous tribe of the Amazon

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This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Francesca Galeazzi is a sustainability engineer and artist, currently working for the design studio of Arup Associates in Shanghai, in pursuit of a greener and more sustainable model of urban development in China. Her art work focuses on issues of climate change, urbanisation and sustainable development. Here, she continues our series on New metaphors for sustainability.

I underestimated the amount of time and thinking that it would take me to come up with something that I am happy with. Sustainability not only is something that I care about, but it is also extremely difficult to pin down to something specific. It holds many facets and most are often equally important!
Having said this, I still believe that diversity is key to sustainability.
Ecosystems rely on a complex set of relationships and interdependence of diverse species and creatures to sustain themselves. This is the basis of all life on our planet and applies to flora and fauna, as well as society and culture. However, the current aggressive approach to global development that we have experienced in the last century is threatening diversity at all levels.
Visualising diversity is a difficult task. The first images that sprung to my mind were not too dissimilar to the United People of Benetton campaign in the 90’s, highlighting the beauty of multiculturalism. But how obvious it is! I also thought about cities, food, gardens, oceans, the coral reef – but none seemed really appropriate.
The metaphor that to me best evokes the idea of both ecological and social diversity is the Amazon, probably the most important biodiverse and rich ecosystem of our planet, under so much threat of irreversible change. But the image of that magnificent tropical rainforest is not sufficient to me to evoke the notion of sustainability; as a general metaphor I think it is too obvious and worn out.
I am instead choosing the image of an indigenous tribe of the Amazon. To me this conveys not only the ecological issues that rainforests around the world face today (deforestation, illegal logging, land exploitation, mining, etc) but also talks about that fundamental element that is societal diversity. Indigenous tribes, ethnic minorities and rural communities around the world represent a huge treasure of culture and unique heritage that is under increasing threat of disappearance.
The indigenous tribe of the Amazon is a metaphor for all those ethnicities in the world under physical and cultural threat, and indirectly for their endangered environment, too. It is also a metaphor for knowledge and strength, for cultural richness and social resilience, for strong community cohesion, for respect and adaptability to the natural environment, all of which to me are the pillars of sustainability.

 

“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)

The editors are Robert Butler and Wallace Heim. The associate editor is Kellie Gutman. The editorial adviser is Patricia Morison.

Robert Butler’s most recent publication is The Alchemist Exposed (Oberon 2006). From 1995-2000 he was drama critic of the Independent on Sunday. See www.robertbutler.info

Wallace Heim has written on social practice art and the work of PLATFORM, Basia Irland and Shelley Sacks. Her doctorate in philosophy investigated nature and performance. Her previous career was as a set designer for theatre and television/film.

Kellie Gutman worked with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture for twenty years, producing video programmes and slide presentations for both the Aga Khan Foundation and the Award for Architecture.

Patricia Morison is an executive officer of the Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts, a group of grant-making trusts of which the Ashden Trust is one.

Go to The Ashden Directory

Atlantic Rising

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httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H49fnCMi0WA

Atlantic Rising is a charity on a 28,000 mile journey circumnavigating the Atlantic overland along the 1metre contour line. This is the level scientists predict sea levels may reach by the year 2100.

Along the way we are creating an educational networkbetween 15,000 students in low-lying coastal communities. Through our photography, films andwriting, we are also documenting what will be lost if these predictions come true.

We don’t claim to have all the solutions to stop sea levels from rising.  But we hope our work will help the next generation understand their responsibility to each other to build a sustainable future.

Atlantic Rising explores what will be lost around the Atlantic Ocean if sea levels rise by one metre. Our work in low-lying communities around the ocean rim is journalistic and educational. We are creating a network between 15,000 pupils; enabling them to build friendships, share experience and collaborate on climate change projects. We are also reporting the stories of people whose lives are already being affected by sea level change and providing a platform for marginalised voices.

We don’t have all the solutions to the causes of sea level rise. But we hope our work will raise awareness about the difficulties faced by Atlantic communities and help the next generation learn their responsibility to each other to build a sustainable future.

We believe education is the most important weapon we have in combating climate change. Today’s children will inherit the environmental legacy of previous generations and it is vital that climate change is a subject that is accessible and relevant. We also believe that most children listen to their friends much more than they listen to teachers.

By building connections and discussing our shared history, we hope to make pupils aware of the interdependence of Atlantic communities. By encouraging collaboration on climate change projects we hope to highlight the immediacy of the problem and the collective responsibility we have to find a solution. By encouraging friendships we hope to make people care about it enough to act.

Atlantic Rising – About the Project.

Think It, Do It, Blog it: What is the Next Link in the Sustainability Network?

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What is the next step after the Co-op? Where do resources go after the Austin Scenic Co-op [Collaboration between Salvage Vanguard and Rude Mechs] can no longer use them? I found inspiration this week from two community service volunteers that were helping me to organize the shed where we house the Austin Scenic Co-op stock. Community service volunteers are court appointed by the city of Austin to complete a certain number of hours with a local non-profit.

This week I worked with two young men to get rid of some of our stock that had not been used since it was donated. Most of these were odd shaped platforms that are very show specific and therefore not used readily by many people. We were hauling these out to the dumpster making way for a new batch of standard 4×8 platforms –by far our most popular item to loan out. To me these old platforms –some of which have not been touched by anyone for three years–were just trash, but the guys that were helping me out asked if they could use some of the lumber. They informed me that they had friends that would break down things like what I was throwing away. If they got the things for free they could turn just enough profit to make it worth their while.

This reminded me of an essay I read recently, “Ecology and Community” by physicist and systems theorist Fritjof Capra. In it he argues that communities should turn to ecosystems to learn how to be sustainable. Capra insists that lessons learned from ecosystems aren’t mere suggestions, but are laws for how communities must organize themselves. The laws of sustainability are “just as stringent as the laws of physics . . . If you go up to a high cliff and step off it, disregarding the laws of gravity, you will surely die. If we live in a community, disregarding the laws of sustainability as a community, we will just as surely die in the long run.”

Capra identifies five laws of sustainability: interdependence, recycling, partnership, flexibility, and diversity. I think the most fascinating argument he makes in the article is when he writes, “you can define an ecosystem as a community where there is no waste.”

In establishing the Austin Scenic Co-op we have been very concerned with getting donations–making sure people know about us so that they don’t throw away set pieces that others could use. We have been working to establish networks to recycle theatre companies’ sets and we still have a lot of work to do in this regard. Now that our stock is starting to grow we are encountering a new problem–one that I did not foresee. What is the next step in the network? What do we do with those things that aren’t useful anymore to theatre companies?

Now that we have to be more selective about what we can accept and are starting to have to cull some of our less useful stock we need to establish another link in the network. Another level of recycling. I am excited about establishing another partnership one that is interested in using lumber that we cannot. And getting closer to our goal of zero waste.

–Thomas Graves, Austin Scenic Co-Op & Rude Mechs

via Think It, Do It, Blog it: What is the Next Link in the Sustainability Network?.

Sculpting clouds

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Artist-in-residence at UCL’s Environment Institute Martin John Callanan has completed his artwork A Planetary Order, a terrestrial globe showing clouds around the planet from one single moment in time. Working with satellite data provided by the Institute, he’s created a 3D representation of the data to portray this thin mantle of water vapour that shields the earth. This delicate, pale globe will be on public display soon at the institute’s Pearson Building. Callanan says, via email:

A Planetary Order is a terrestrial globe showing clouds from one single moment in time, thereby subtly highlighting the fragility and interdependence of the Earth’s environmental systems.”

The Globe was digitally manufactured (SLS) in a single piece measuring 300mm diameter with clouds scaled to 1-12 km above the Earth’s surface. Landforms are absent from the model, but cloud formations will give glues to the continents located below.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0906/09062303
http://greyisgood.eu/globe/

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology