Local Community

Open Call: ARTIST IN RESIDENCE – ARTIST OR CREATIVE PRACTITIONER

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

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Corgarff, 2013, Photo: Chris Fremantle

This has a deadline of 10 August 2013

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE – ARTIST OR CREATIVE PRACTITIONER

The Forestry Commission is inviting tenders for ‘A Breath of Fresh Air’ which will see two artists or teams of artists appointed to support the development of a new woodland park encourage local residents to get involved, get active and be inspired by their local woodland green space.

As part of the Creative Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage funding for Year of Natural Scotland 2013, Forestry Commission Scotland has been awarded funding to support two unique Artist In Residence opportunities which will form part of an exciting project to develop a new inner city woodland park as part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games Legacy.

A Breath of Fresh Air will see two artists or teams of artists, with a passion for the natural environment, appointed to support the development of a new woodland park and raise awareness within the local community of what benefits access to woodlands green space can bring.

The artists will work closely with staff from both Forestry Commission Scotland and Clyde Gateway to understand the aspirations of the project and with local residents and organisations to ensure the works produced reflect their views.

There are two contracts available. Contract 1 will require the contract holder to:

  • Organise and deliver a range of interactive / participatory workshops with local community members from across the city linked to the Commonwealth Woodlands Games Legacy project.
  • Create a range of concept proposals (Minimum 4) for two permanent installations and a series of linking sculptural interventions, including models and visual representations where appropriate, inspired by those communities and the partner organisations ethos and ambitions for the project.
  • Produce a public display of the options to allow feedback on the preferred option.
  • Work with the project board to identify the preferred option for development,
  • Work with the design and construction team to develop tender documents and installation requirements to allow the chosen works to be fabricated and installed as part of the wider project (to be funded out with the residency).
  • Ensure that the proposed installations are designed in a way which is durable, requires minimal ongoing maintenance and reduces the opportunity for vandalism or miss-use

Contract 2 will require the contract holder to:

  • Organise and deliver a range of interactive / participatory workshops with local community members and identified groups.
  • Create a range of temporary works which are inspired by the local community.
  • Showcase the work of both the artist themselves and those who contributed to the workshops in a range of locations which will draw attention to the project and raise the profile of the benefits of access to woodland green space.
  • Both residencies must relate their works to the unique offering of the new Cuningar Woodland Park as a flagship Commonwealth Woodland and the role access to woodland green space can play in encouraging healthy lifestyles.

The estimated total value of the contract is around £8k for contract 1 and around £6k for contract 2. This excludes t&s costs which will also be paid to the successful bidders.

The anticipated contract start date will be:

Contract 1: 1st September to be completed by 1st January

Contract 2: 1st November to be completed by 1st February

For further enquiries regarding this contract please contact Tom Wallace no later than 10th August 2013

To express your interest and to request more information please contact Tom Wallace no later than 10th August 2013 with submission by 14th August @16:00hrs

Tom.wallace@forestry.gsi.gov.uk

Or

Cuningar Loop, Clyde Gateway URC, Bridgeton Cross, Bridgeton, Glasgow Deadline for submissions: 4pm, 14th August

Artist Brief: finalairbrief

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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Call for papers: Dreams, Revolution and Process : Spatial & temporal approaches to rural sustainability and regeneration

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This post comes to you from Cultura21

handmadecabin02Deadline = August 9th

5th October 2013, Dreams, Revolution and Process : Spatial & temporal approaches to rural sustainability and regeneration, at fforest, Cilgerran, Ceredigion (UK)

This interdisciplinary conference aims to respond to a range of material that addresses rural sustainability and regeneration, with a focus on how and why decisions are made at individual, local, community and government level. Bringing together perspectives from geography, history, policy-making, regeneration practitioners and the arts, the conference will open up the gaps between individual and collective aspiration and reality.

Since the development of the urban, the rural has been a place of both harmony and negativism. It switches from radical, alternative (anti-industrialist) space where we can renegotiate a relationship with ‘nature’, to uncultured backwater, representing little more than material resource. Such perspectives are formed in relation to history and space and need to be considered when reaching an understanding of, as well as approaches to, rural regeneration, in order to ask : Who is regenerating, and for whom?

Submissions are invited from any discipline – sciences, humanities, regeneration practice, arts – which, within the overall theme of a temporal/spatial understanding of rural sustainability and regeneration.

More details on the website : click here

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

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Ukraine: Encouraging local creativity to support sustainability

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This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

A pancake fair in Donetsk, Ukraine, used the last two days of the Pancake week, an Eastern Slavic folk holiday, to encourage local creativity and teach sustainability as a way of thinking.

IZOLYATSIA_festivalphotos59The organisers of the Pancake Fair, IZOLYATSIA Platform for Cultural Initiatives, had invited about 60 local artisans and designers to communicate with each other and with the local community, to show their products, techniques and hold free workshops for citizens. It became an event which attracted the record number of guests per day — more than 1,500 visitors in three hours.

IZOLYATSIA allegedly received “an ocean of positive responses” on social media after the event, which has inspired the team of organisers to continue this way of giving arts and culture an active role in changes for sustainable societies.

IZOLYATSIA stands for “preservation, cultural replenishment and regeneration”. It is a non-governmental arts foundation located on the territory of a former insulation materials plant in Donetsk, Ukraine. ‘IZOLYATISA’ is the name inherited from the factory.

• Photos from the event

• facebook.com/IZOLYATSIA

• izolyatsia.org

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration of organizations and individuals who are concerned with shaping and delivering a proactive cultural agenda to support the necessary transition towards an Ecological Age by 2050.

The Cultural sector that we refer to is an interdisciplinary, inter-sectoral, inter-genre collaboration, which encompasses policy-making, intercultural dialogue/cultural relations, creative cities/cultural planning, creative industries and research and development. It is those decision-makers and practitioners who can reach people in a direct way, through diverse messages and mediums.

Affecting the thinking and behaviour of people and communities is about the dissemination of stories which will profoundly impact cultural values, beliefs and thereby actions. The stories can open people’s eyes to a way of thinking that has not been considered before, challenge a preconceived notion of the past, or a vision of the future that had not been envisioned as possible. As a sector which is viewed as imbued with creativity and cultural values, rather than purely financial motivations, the cultural sector’s stories maintain the trust of people and society.
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Community Energy and Efficiency

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In these times of rising gas and electricity costs, and concern about the impact of our lifestyles on the planet, there is growing interest in local renewable energy generation and efficiency.

DECC have launched a new fund for communities in England and Wales who are playing an active role in the development of a low carbon society. They want to fund projects that increase understanding of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. This is really interesting for Arcola Energy with our research in hydrogen power and long-term involvement in our local community.

There’s also very encouraging news from Germany, where as TreeHugger reports over half of the renewable energy produced is owned by citizens and farmers, and not utility companies. Perhaps the same situation will start happening in the UK…

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Green Arts Festival on IndieGoGo

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Houston’s first Green Arts Festival will take place on July 9 2011 as the culminating day/presentation of the Flor Y Canto sustainable green theater camp. The kids and their families and all of H-town will be invited to participate in and attend the Green Arts Fest! Created in partnership with GreeniRecycling, Houston Green Scene and Planeta Verde Now, dozens of local GREEN artisans will flock to Talento Bilingue de Houston 333 Jensen blvd to sell, collaborate, free trade and educate the local community about ALL of the many green options in Houston! The day will end in a community theater performance of “The Last Paving Stone” a beautiful family friendly piece describing the dysfunction of a society removed from their own green space.

Green Arts Festival — IndieGoGo.

Growing Communities pick-up point in the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden

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Sustainability embodies many facets; entwined in the common strands of energy and water efficiency and cutting carbon emissions sits food. As a nation a lot of the food we consume is non-seasonal and has to be imported. This has a tremendous impact on the environment through transportation pollution from increased food miles. We could easily make changes to our eating habits and more carefully choose the foods we eat to include more fresh locally produced seasonal produce. Making this change would have many benefits, such as supporting the local economy, reducing food miles and therefore environmental damage, involving local community groups in producing the food, and encouraging healthy eating.

In Hackney, this change is made easier for you by the work that Growing Communities does. It is a social enterprise which runs community-led box schemes that build community-led alternatives to the current damaging food system. In short, community groups grow vegetables which are delivered in boxes to various pick-up points in Hackney which you then go and collect. How does this work? You choose the size of your box, you place a standing order, and this guarantees you a box of fresh vegetables each week! This is a fantastic idea which means you are eating seasonal locally produced food, from carrots to cucumbers and leeks to beetroot, and lies at the core of the importance of sustainability.

We would like to know your thoughts of this scheme and whether you would use a Growing Communities pick-up point in the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden.

If you would like to know more about the scheme or to place an order, click on the link below:
http://www.growingcommunities.org/organic-box-scheme/pick-up-points/

If you are interested in a possible pick up point in the Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, please email: boxscheme@growingcommunities.org

Below is a link to the Eastern Curve garden where you could soon be collecting your veg boxes from!
http://www.dalstongarden.com/

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