John Muir

Creative Scotland: Insights & Ideas: Natural Scotland

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If you are looking to find out more about artists and the Year of Natural Scotland, check out the Insights & Ideas creative cafe event on 6 June.  Creative Scotland: Insights & Ideas: Natural Scotland.

2013 is the Year of Natural Scotland. Come along to the June Insights Cafe to hear about exciting projects and activities taking place. Our speakers will talk about how, by working with partners like The Forestry Commission, artists can help explore and celebrate natural Scotland.

Speakers:

An overview from Scottish Natural Heritage on the Year of Natural Scotland

Yolanda Aguilar, Smallpetitklein – discussing TENT:acular, an outdoor event with dancers exploring the history, fauna and flora and a scavenger hunt around Tentsmuir Nature Reserve, culminating in a spectacle performance in a series of Super Eco Dome tents.

Jan Hogarth, Wide Open – introducing the Environmental Art Festival, a new, Dumfries & Galloway wide event celebrating the regions strengths in environmental art.

Jo Moulin, John Muir Trust on the John Muir Birthplace Museum and John Muir Day.

Availability:

Tickets for the event are free of charge, but spaces are limited and must be booked in advance. The event begins at 2pm and registration will be open from 1.30pm on 6 June.

For further information, please contact insights@creativescotland.com, or visit http://june13insights.eventbrite.com/. The deadline is Thursday 06 June 2013 at 12:00.

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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Collaboration: Improving the Model

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Steep Trail image

Steep Trail Conference - Collaboration : Improving the Model

12 June 2013
9.30-4.00
Brunton Theatre, Ladywell Way, Musselburgh, EH21 6AA

The event is free but places must be booked. To book your place email admin@edinburghsculpture.org or call Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop on 0131 551 4490.

The nature of collaboration, particularly cross-disciplinary, is examined with a view to asking how current models of collaboration function, and ways in which they could be improved.

This day-long conference is being organised as part of Steep Trail, an international project set up by Polarcap, Fife Contemporary Art & Craft and Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, to explore the legacy of John Muir and his continuing relevance to current environmental and cultural debate in the 21st century with a keynote speech by Dr Iain Biggs of the University of the West of England and chaired by Ben Twist of Creative Carbon Scotland.

The project has developed through several strands, art/eco labs were established along the East coast of Scotland which brought together artists, scientists and environmental activists to follow John Muir’s example of physical and intellectual exploration through walking and talking. Participants met over two days to discuss their work within the contexts of climate change, public dissemination and social impact. Talks about the project have allowed other organisations within and outside of Scotland to use this model, and artist exchanges and exhibitions set up between China and Scotland in 2012 have widened the context of the discussion.

Using themes identified from these activities, the conference seeks to bring together strands of shared concerns between artists, scientists and writers including conservation, sustainability, climate change and the role of contemporary art in helping to foster effective dialogues.

Ben Twist (Chair): Carbon and Arts Management Consultant, Creative Carbon Scotland

Dr Iain Biggs: Director PLaCE, University of the West of England

Prof David Munro: Historical geographer, author of ‘Scotland: An Encyclopedia of Places and Landscape’

Mary Modeen, artist and Senior Lecturer in Fine art and Art and Philosophy at the University of Dundee. Convener PLaCE, Scotland

Claudia Zeiske, Director Deveron Arts,

Rania Ho, artist in Beijing, Co-founder of Arrow Factory, Partner at Kupa Studios, Steep Trail exchange artist to Scotland

Graeme Todd, artist, co-founder of Polarcap and Steep Trail exchange artist to China

Dr Alexandra Wortley, Royal Botanic Gardens and Hamer Dodds, artist, cross disciplinary practitioners

Chris Fremantle, producer, researcher, writer cultural historian,

Supported by Steep Trail Project, University of Edinburgh: Knowledge Exchange, East Lothian Arts Services: ELC and Creative Scotland

How to get there:

Location

Transport options:

Train,

Lothian Buses (26, 44) 30-40 mins from outside Waverley Station Edinburgh.

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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Steep Trail Walk & Talk in St Andrews botanical garden

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Steep Trail, the ongoing art and ecology programme inspired by the life and work of John Muir, has an exhibition of work resulting from residencies in China, plus an opportunity to ‘walk and talk.’

Winter Walk & Talk, Sat 2 Mar 2013, 1.30pm, St Andrews Botanic Garden (Canongate, St Andrews). Linked to FCA&C’s exhibition Steep Trail, Nikki Macdonald will lead the walk, bringing aspects of John Muir’s work into discussions as you tour the garden. Meet at the Glass Class (wet weather alternative will be provided). Refreshments will be served in the Glass Class afterwards. Talk free but usual entry to the Garden applies – £2 (adults)/£1 (concessions/children); free to Friends of the Botanic Garden and RHS members. To book, please contact FCA&C – 01334 474610 or mail@fcac.co.uk.

Steep Trail Walk & Talk. 

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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Steep Trail: an Ecolab in Fife

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On the sunny 9th and drenching 10th of August, a group of artists, environmentalists, and community workers met in Fife as part of a series of event coordinated by Fife Contemporary Arts and Crafts, Polarcap, and Edinburgh Sculpture Studios. (For reports on earlier events, see the ecoartscotland blog  and the Greener Leith Blog) The themes were land, walls, boundaries – plus John Muir and China. The first venue for a day of walk and talk was the Ecology Centre near Burntisland, with its impressive blend of social and ecological engagement. Ronnie Mackie and Julie Samuel explained how determination had made the place happen, by nurturing volunteer contributions and generating community input. Biodiversity is catered for too, with this wetland created from a former industrial dump. We found toads, well-tended poly-tunnels, allotments and more. John Muir was the main topic of afternoon talks, being introduced by Liz Adamson of Polarcap and Jo Moulin in the afternoon of talks – Muir’s birthplace in Dunbar   is a visitor centre that contributes to sustainable living in East Lothian. The group mulled over the Muir quote: “I went out for a walk and stayed out till sundown, for going out I found I was really going in.” Wild development was an idea presented in another form in scenes of contemporary China presented by Peter Lindow. On the wet 10th, we convened at Falkland Centre for Stewardship. The day was introduced by Ninian Stuart and Tess Darwin with a tour of woodland walks and farmland – following boundaries and learning (indoors) how the estate has become a place to learn to live more sustainably, threading traditions of stewardship with community involvement and ecological design. The Centre extends support to artwork such as Resounding – sound installation including work by Louise K Wilson – and also to a new conservation project – Lomond Living Landscapes. The latter was presented by David Munro, describing how the ‘commonty‘ of the hills (currently dissected by the Fife/Perth boundary) had been successively divided and enclosed, with ‘marches’ and ‘meiths’ [boundaries] surviving. How can art/craft and biodiversity link? This was a themes developed by Reheema White, lecturer in Sustainable Development at St Andrews. Her presentation made no bones about the implications of species loss and unsustainable lifestyles, but allowed for a creative engagement. This allowed me to explain why I value ecoartscotland as a network, seeing ‘ecoart’ as linking different kinds of knowledge and moving ourselves outwith comfort zones. A theme emerged: what would John Muir take into account if he were alive now? One response was that having taken Teddy Roosevelt to the Yosemite, he might take Alex Salmond to Menie Links in Aberdeenshire (the Trump development). A stimulating event of exchanges, with no particular outcome required but things brewing. posted by Kate Foster

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

Steep Trail

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Roosevelt and Muir

Polarcap, the curatorial project of Liz Adamson and Graeme Todd, has established Basecamp on the legacy of John Muir, one of Scotland’s most important environmentalists.  Polarcap is located in Dunbar, where Muir came from (though he is most frequently associated with the National Parks of North America).

Today and tomorrow a group of scientists and artists will, using Muir’s method, walk and talk in and about the environment.  Muir’s knowledge of the environment was developed through direct experience (including one walk of 1,000 miles from Indiana to Florida), and this was the grounding of his campaigning, agitation and organising.  The most famous example of Muir’s method was when he took Theodore Roosevelt into Yosemite in order to convince him that mismanagement and exploitation were destroying the valley and that government intervention was required.

This is the first event of a series planned by Polarcap, moving up the East Coast of Scotland through Edinburgh (collaborating with Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop) to Fife (with Fife Contemporary Arts & Crafts) and planning to end in Aberdeen.

The aim of Steep Trail is to build mutual understanding between artists and scientists through shared experiential activity and reflection.

If you are interested in checking it out, head for West Barnes Studios, School Brae, West Barnes, Dunbar, EH42 1UD this weekend.  ecoartscotland will continue to cover the Steep Trail programme as it evolves.

steep trail basecamp press release

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