International Networks

What does an Ice-Free Arctic mean?

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Stephen Leahy’s article (published by the Inter Press Service) on the “uncharted territory” of an ice-free arctic makes interesting reading.  It’s not just a problem for the indigenous peoples of the circumpolar region.  It’s not just a problem for polar bears, although they are faced with extinction as a result.  And in that context talking about it being a problem for us because it’ll change our weather seems facile.

What is interesting is reading it having just been reading Farley Mowat’s Canada North Now: The Great Betrayal.  The Second Edition was published in 1976, and whilst the impact of extraction industries on the landscape and culture of the North was foremost in the author’s mind, at that time the Arctic Sea Ice was a given.  There is no sense in this book of the Polar Ice Cap changing.  In 36 years we’ve gone from assuming that it’s a given, a permanent feature of the world, to a point where one summer it’ll be gone and the news will cover the first ship at the North Pole.  It’s quite a change.  The speed of change is what we seem to be unable to grasp.

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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Agreement entitles Whanganui River to legal identity

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Companies have ‘personhood,’ ie. a legal identity equivalent to people in the sense that they can enter into contracts and agreements (see Wikipedia article). This is a subject of considerable argument, and there are several campaigns to remove this status.

On the other hand in New Zealand there is a move (reported in the New Zealand Herald here) to give a river the status of a person, for the river to have a legal identity.  If we accept that all things have agency, not just human beings, this legal recognition of the personhood of a river, developed from the indigenous knowledge tradition and by the Whanganui River Iwi, is incredibly important.

To give a river (or presumably a mountain, valley or island) this status of personhood is important because it repositions us, human beings, within the environment, rather than over it.

Where the problem with corporate personhood is that it requires the law to respect corporate interests as equivalent to the interests of people, the positive benefits of giving at least some natural features some legal agency or status as persons is potentially transformative.

The recognition of indigenous knowledge traditions is of course also enormously positive and challenging to Western epistemologies.  If the river is a person, what does the river know, and how do we value that form of knowledge.

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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CultureLab: Bio-artists who tinker with tools of science

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The New Scientist’s CultureLab blog ran a story, Bio-artists who tinker with tools of science, in early August on artists working with “the tools of science.”  The article draws in particular on the work of SymbioticA.  It doesn’t talk about Critical Art Ensemble or Eduardo Kac, but it does acknowledge the multiple possible outcomes of art working with science (and those tools).

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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PLATFORM is hiring

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From the PLATFORM newsletter:

We’re looking to hire not one, but two positions. Please share this info with anyone who you think might be interested and help us find some really great people!

The deadline for both sets of applicants is 6.00pm Friday the 14th September.

Coordinator for ‘Shake! Young Voices in Arts, Media, Race & Power’ Driving our three-year cultural activism programme with young people (16-25 years old) tackling social and environmental injustice from a race perspective. Shake! will develop a new generation of cultural activists. The new post will co-ordinate with a team of artist-facilitators, campaigners, young people and partner organisations, and oversee dissemination of Shake’s work to a wider public. More info here.

Oil & Human Rights Campaigner Investigating and challenging the environmental and human rights abuses carried out by oil companies in the Niger Delta. Supporting social movements and activists in Nigeria in exposing and holding those responsible to account. Challenging British military and diplomatic support for oil-driven militarisation. More info here.

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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Funding Natural Heritage Projects

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Scottish Natural Heritage publishes a guide to various funding sources for natural heritage projects – included are schemes that support on the ground action as well as communication and education.  This guide covers EU, Public Sector, Lottery as well as Trusts and Foundations and can be found here.

Also worth checking out is the website of the Environmental Funders Network, and in particular their publication, ‘Where the green grants went.’

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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2° Celsius = 565 gigatons but 2,795 gigatons = $27 trillion

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I normally criticise environmentalists using financial numbers, but Bill McKibben’s argument in August’s Rolling Stone is based on really interesting numbers:

167 countries are signed up to the 2° target (keep the impact of climate change within this range).

565 gigatons is the amount of carbon we can release into the atmosphere (roughly speaking) before we cross the 2° threshold (maybe).  That’s just 16 years on current projections.

2,795 gigatons is what the current reserves of coal and oil based on fossil fuel industry reporting.

$27 trillion is what this represents on the balance sheets of the fossil fuel companies.

Read on here.

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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The Reverend Billy says OCCUPY and 350.ORG—You Come Down Here and Embrace!

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This is the cover story in Brooklyn Rail…

On Henry Street just uptown from Foley Square in Manhattan, there is a church called Mariners’ Temple. One Sunday we were among hundreds of folks listening while Mother Henrietta Carter preached. She stood up there, white-robed, and gestured out across the assembled faithful. “We need to see some embracing today,” Mother Carter said, and then she explained that two families were blessed just recently with newborn babies, in the same week.

She boomed out: “I want you two families—come down here and embrace each other! We’ll wait! Oh, you come down here! I know you two families been quarreling about something, you don’t speak much anymore. Oh we all know about it. Now—You come down here and you embrace each other. You bring those babies with you!”

The two families slowly came to Mother Carter and embraced. They were in tears. People called out “Praise!”

Embrace

As you see from the title of my little sermon, I am asking the people from two movements, 350.org and Occupy Wall Street, to do the same.  Read on…

Also of interest a review of Nature, the new volume in The Whitechapel’s Documents of Contemporary Art series.

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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Liberate Tate action

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A group of artists and activists donate a symbol of alternative energy to the BP sponsored Tate Modern

The Turbine Hall – image from Liberate Tate blog – image by Ian Buswell

Watch the Vice News video.

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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Creating climate change parks – greenspace scotland

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A new e-resource launched today by greenspace scotland, in partnership with Scottish Natural Heritage, will help park and greenspace managers respond to the challenges of climate change by creating ‘climate change parks’.  Full story at creating climate change parks – greenspace scotland. 

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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Collapse: The Cry of Silent Forms

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BRANDON BALLENGÉE
Collapse: The Cry of Silent Forms
May 5 – June 16

Vertical fall in the Winter call that dances in the spring nocturnal…, 2010/2012 from “A Season in Hell Series, Deadly Born Cry” unique digital chromogenic print 64 x 56 inches In scientific collaboration with Stanley K. Sessions Title from a poem by KuyDelair

Ronald Feldman Fine Arts 31 Mercer Street | New York, NY 10013 | 212-226-3232 | www.feldmangallery.com

Brandon Ballengée, a visual artist and biologist, will exhibit sculptural installations and photographs at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in his first major solo exhibition in New York.  The exhibition, Collapse: The Cry of Silent Forms, consists of three bodies of work that explore the effect of ecological degradation on marine life and avian and amphibian populations.  Synthesizing scientific inquiry with art-making, Ballengée transforms his field research into metaphors that reduce life to its essentials.

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