Public Spaces

Looking for examples of eco art in public spaces?

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

If you are interested in examples of eco public art, or you have undertaken an eco public art project (temporary or permanent) you should seriously consider adding it to this important new database.  It’s already got a wealth of interesting projects.  There is information on how to submit on the website (and it’s peer reviewed so the quality is good).  Thanks to Ian Garrett and the CPSA for highlighting this.

It’s part of the wider Curating Cities research programme,

Curating Cities is a 5-year research project that examines how the arts can generate environmentally beneficial behavioural change and influence the development of green infrastructure in urban environments. Founded on the principle of using art and design to curate–literally, to care for–public space, the project places creative disciplines at the heart of the sustainability agenda. In doing so it advances an ambitious research plan for aesthetic practice, proposing ‘curating’ as a method for working through the practical concerns of sustainable living.

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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CO2 Edenburgh: Can art change the climate? – Spirited discussions Pt. 1

This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

922087632f7564901a6892281f6cadc2In amongst the people handing out leaflets for shows and holding up placards for restaurants, there are a couple of people wearing white coats walking around bearing standards reminiscent of Roman Legions, though these are not surmounted by eagles, but rather by LED displays reporting CO2 levels.  These are ‘Carbon Catchers’.

They are part of the Collins and Goto Studio‘s project called CO2 Edenburgh: Can art change the climate? and are working out of the Art, Space and Nature MFA‘s Tent Space at Edinburgh College of Art.  The data that the Carbon Catchers are collecting plus the data from a number of Festival venues (theatres, galleries and public spaces) is all feeding into a wall of information.  Creative Carbon Scotland, commissioners of the project, have relocated their office to the space so they are living with the blinking red LED’s as well as a background pattern of noise generated from the data and emitted into the space.

Yesterday, at the first of a series of discussions (see below for details of the next ones), Tim Barker, a media theorist from Glasgow University, talked about the history of interference – the point at which we became aware of the invisible. So in 1886 there was unexpected interference on the new Austrian telephone system. This was electromagnetic radiation from the sun was picked up by the copper wires. (Also Alexander Graham Bell’s assistant used to just sit and listen to the noise on the wires.) So there’s something about noise overpowering signals that’s pretty important in the history of science. Or maybe its the converse – as someone said yesterday afternoon, what’s important is, “…the desire to uncover the new by a disruption and treatment of the real.”

Why does this matter? Because our relationship to CO2 is pretty much at a similar stage – scientists are monitoring it (and it was a research station in Hawaii which first recorded passing 400ppm earlier this year). But we only think we understand what all this means. Actually the sensors that form part of this project are taking readings ranging from 320ppm to over 1000ppm. Walking around the City Centre yesterday with one of the team of ‘Carbon Catchers’ taking readings, we were getting different levels along the Cowgate. Someone commented during the discussion in the afternoon that they were surprised that the CO2 level in the room was going down because there were 10 people talking and no obvious carbon sink.

Harry Giles, the other invited speaker, challenged us to set aside the two cultures argument and pay more attention to the militaristic nature of the territory we are in (and he wasn’t talking about the Edinburgh Tattoo). The maps and sensors being used enable the surveillance of the environment in ways that has both tactical and strategic purposes. Art has often been allied with power

We might argue that the arts are engaged in both tactical and strategic purposes. There is an avowed intention on the part of Collins and Goto to challenge assumptions about aesthetics. There is not a lot of ‘sublime’ or ‘picturesque’ in this environmental art work. We might well ask where is the aesthetic? Surely this is just public engagement in science – how is it different from something that the Science Festival might put on? And if it’s public engagement with science, is it effective? Is this a Kaprowesque blurring of art and life? Is this like Burrough’s cut-ups, something as normal as a book cut up to offer new meaning, and at once so strange that it appears as just noise without meaning? If we are dealing with things that we can’t perceive with our senses, and which have timescales that we find difficult to comprehend, then should the aesthetic be that of, as someone suggested, a horror movie?  Don’t we need a new aesthetics for a new experience and a new scale?

On the strategic level Creative Carbon Scotland aims to green the cultural sector supporting organisations and institutions to reduce their carbon footprints. This is of course part of a pattern of attention on environmental issues which means that climate change comes up in pretty much every conversation, every organisation has a climate change policy (and it would be fun to make a collection of these), and the sustainability question in grant applications may in the future include environmental alongside economic criteria. But usually these programmes are ‘business to business’ rather than ‘business to consumer’ (if we accept that an exhibition in the Edinburgh Art Festival is by and large a ‘consumer’ facing affair).

So the events programme, a series of four conversations which ecoartscotland has helped to put together, is perhaps the point where we break out of these sorts of dichotomies.

  • On Saturday (10th August) the conversation will track across art, technology, activism and knowledge with the help of Dr Wallace Heim (of the Ashden Directory) and Joel Chaney (from the Energy Research Group at Heriott Watt).
  • The following Wednesday (14th August) focusing on “Environmental Monitoring” we be joined by Prof Andrew Patrizio (art historian and head of research at Edinburgh College of Art) and Jan Hogarth, (Director of Wide Open and one of the key people behind the imminent Environmental Art Festival Scotland).
  • An for the last event “Going beyond the material” (21st August) we’ll be joined by Samantha Clark, artist, and Lucy Mui, student, activist and Theatre Manager for Bedlam.

Full details on the CO2Edenburgh website.

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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Call for applications for International Artists’ Residency: In Context: public.art.ecology, FOOD EDITION-II

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Deadline: 4 JANUARY, 2013 – Online applications only

Khoj’s international residency: In Context: public.art.ecology focuses on exploring ecological themes in and around public spaces in Delhi and is being carried forth into its fourth year. In continuance with last year’s trajectory, the residency, FOOD EDITION-IIwill once again have a special focus on examining the notion of food and its myriad articulations in art. The residency will be for six weeks duration starting in the first week of March until mid April 2013.

Applications are invited from individual artists and artists’ collectives, with proposals for art projects exploring the intersection between art and ecology through a critical examination of issues surrounding the politics of food. Food as artistic medium incorporating performance, art installations or interactive events that re-examine the significance and relevance of food in the social context, simply in its connection with the body or as a primary ritual that fosters engagement, interaction and collaboration.

The applications should include the following:

  • Artist biography & images of previous projects
  • Concept Note
  • Production & Installation Budget not exceeding INR 50,000 (USD 1,000) for the proposed project

Costs of travel, modest accommodation and daily allowance are separate from the above production budget.

Please send your proposals to applications [at] khojworkshop [dot] org. Mention ‘Food Edition-II’ Residency and ‘your name’ in the subject line.

Reposted from Khoj International Artists’ Association newsletter.

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

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Talk & Opening: In Context: Public.Art.Ecology – Food Edition – I

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Friday, 13th April, 2012 - 6:00 pm onwards – New Delhi

Khoj Studios , S-17 Khirkee Extension

Works on view till 18th April, 2012  – 11:00 am – 7:00pm

In Context: Public.Art.Ecology, Food Edition I is an International Residency with art projects and interventions in public spaces exploring the intersection between art and ecology through the politics of food.

Can Art be Tasted? – A talk by Ryan Bromley
6:00 pm followed by the opening
This talk is a critical examination of issues surrounding the sense of taste and flavor in art, utilizing modernist cuisine and flavor chemistry as materials for artistic communication.

Artists-in-Residence

Julian Abraham, Indonesia
In Collaboration with Rabindra Patra, India
Mechanical installation involving an experiment in fermented alcohol production

Shweta Bhattad, India
Sculptural installation, video and performance

Alfonso Borragán, Spain
Fosfofagias: fluorescent beverage and food interfaces

Frame Works : Ruchika Negi & Amit Mahanti, India
Video installation

Andrea Caretto & Raffaella Spagna, Italy
Installation and interventions in public space

Critic-in-Residence: Ryan Bromley

 

More Info: www.khojworkshop.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

Michael Pinsky LIFT unveiling 7 February

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

To celebrate thirty years of groundbreaking international theatre across London, LIFT  partnered with Arts Admin., as part of the IMAGINE 2020 network, to commission a new piece of public art work in central London.  Michael Pinsky, a renowned British artist, who has created artworks in public spaces and galleries across Europe, won the commission.  His work will respond to the issue of climate change.  This secret project will be launched 7 February 2012.  Stay tuned for more details.

 

“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)

ashdenizen is edited by Robert Butler, and is the blog associated with the Ashden Directory, a website focusing on environment and performance.
The Ashden Directory is edited by Robert Butler and Wallace Heim, with associate editor Kellie Gutman. The Directory includes features, interviews, news, a timeline and a database of ecologically – themed productions since 1893 in the United Kingdom. Our own projects include ‘New Metaphors for Sustainability’, ‘Flowers Onstage’ and ‘Six ways to look at climate change and theatre’.

The Directory has been live since 2000.

Go to The Ashden Directory

Call for Proposals 2012 Cheng Long International Environmental Art Project in Taiwan, “What’s for Dinner?”

Artists from all countries are invited to send a proposal for a site-specific outdoor sculpture installation to be created during a 26-day artist in residency (April 11 – May 7, 2012) in Cheng Long, a small rural village near the southwestern coast of Taiwan in Kouhu Township,Yunlin County. This art project is an expansion of the 2010 and 2011 Cheng Long Wetlands International Environmental Art Projects, going into the Village as well as the Wetlands. The selected artists will work with elementary school children and community residents to create large-scale sculpture installations focused on the theme of “What’s for Dinner?”  The artworks should reflect on environmental issues surrounding food production and emphasize organic aquaculture.  Artworks will be in village public spaces, on abandoned buildings, and in the wetlands nature preserve, and artists will use recycled materials and natural materials to create their artworks that will stay on exhibition through 2013.

Proposals Due:  Feb. 8, 2012

Artists Notified by:  Feb. 22, 2012

Residency in Taiwan:  April 8 – May 7, 2012

Selected Artists Receive:  NT50,000 (US$1,662), round trip economy airfare, accommodations and meals for 26 days in Taiwan, local transportation, volunteer help to find materials and make the artworks

Send the following by email to Curator, Jane Ingram Allen, allenrebeccajanei@gmail.com

  1. Description of your proposed sculpture installation giving estimated size and materials to be used (limit 1 page as a .doc or .pdf file).
  2. Sketch of your proposed work as a .jpg or .pdf file (less than 1 MG in size)
  3. Images and image list (title, date made, dimensions, materials/media, and where located) of 6 previous outdoor sculpture installations (6 .jpg files each less than 1MG in size)
  4. CV or resume showing exhibitions, awards, residencies, education and experience as an artist (.doc or .pdf file)
  5. Contact information:  Name, Present Address, Nationality, Email address and Website (.doc or .pdf file)

For more information visit the Blog at http://artproject4wetland.wordpress.com or contact Jane Ingram Allen, allenrebeccajanei@gmail.com

Khoj International Residencies and Projects

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Khoj International Artists’ Association is an artist led, alternative forum for experimentation and international exchange based in India. It sees its role as an incubator for art and ideas, artistic exchange and dialogue in the visual arts. In the last few years it has developed an active network of artists in South Asia.

Applications are invited for an international residency ‘In Context:public.art.ecology Part III’ @ Khoj, for art projects exploring ecological thematics preferably in public spaces around Delhi. The residency will be for 4- 6 weeks starting in the first week of March to mid April 2012. The deadline for submitting the application to applications [at] khojworkshop [dot] org is the 30th of November.

Invited are proposals from individual artists and artists’ collectives, with projects fokussing urgent ecological issues affecting the urban city. This year’s special focus is laid on the notion of food. Food can be seen as an artistic medium incorporating performance, art installations or interactive events that re-examine the significance and relevance of food in the social context, simply in its connection with the body or as a primary ritual that fosters engagement, interaction and collaboration.

For application details see this page.

Furthermore applications are invited for the Negotiating Routes – Ecologies of the Byways project- Part III, from  artists, artists groups or professionals of Indian origin, to propose projects which are site-specific preferably in smaller cities in India. They must have an inter-disciplinary approach that combines research and art creation by artists and local communities, addressing the visible and invisible transformations currently taking place in their immediate environments.
The project must be completed within a maximum of 3 months from the date of commencement within the stipulated time frame of February- June 2012.

For more details take a look at this page.

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

City of Pieces – an urban festival of creative practices

This post comes to you from Cultura21

Bangalore

22nd to 30th of October

Maraa, a media and arts collective, invites to City of Pieces, an urban festival of creative practices:
City of pieces is a nine day festival that interrogates the violence of the everyday transformation of the city from the perspective of creative practice. This festival marks the third anniversary of Theatre Jam, a monthly forum to trigger dialogues about art and media in the public space through practice, performance and expression. It travels across different public and semi-public spaces, committed to reclaim dead, found and empty spaces in the city. City of pieces brings artists and creative practitioners to respond to the city we inhabit.
The city transforms and we continue to experience it in fragments, in the debris of what once was and the flash-forwards of its future in fresh grey concrete. And we move through it refracted in fragments with every contact with it. But as this city of pieces forms us it is formed by us in turn- a disjointed tapestry of multiple stories, desires and memories. As the week unfolds, urban pieces and fragments are gathered and re-combined to tell a different story that acknowledges the creative modes of negotiating this city shaped by the violence of transformation. Through storytelling, films, performance, poetry and conversations we hope to make sense of an ever changing Bangalore.

Reposted from: http://maraa.in/arts/city-of-pieces/

Be part of the last two events and register today:

Middle of somewhere | Theatre Workshop 29 Oct | Cubbon Park Band Stand | 10 am-3 pm

Middle of Somewhere was a performance done last year, set between scaffolding in a dilapidated house on Rest House Street. This performance used personal stories that were interwoven with anecdotes of the city with the story of Akeli, a fictional story. The performance is a never ending project. It grows with people’s stories and fantasies. We invite you to a theatre workshop to re-narrate fears, aspirations, and memories experienced in your life in the city through short improvisations and street performances around Cubbon Park.

To register mail pallavichander [at] gmail [dot] com or call 98869-28582

Bangalore Talkies | Video Art and Music |30 Oct | Jaaga, Double Road | 6 pm onwards

When you live in a city, your encounters with roads, friends, and strangers are all in pieces of images and sounds. What can you interpret of a city that you experience everyday in pieces? Bangalore Talkies a forum to see Bangalore through different eyes, through different lenses. How do YOU connect to Bangalore -  bus rides/auto rides, pubs, darshinis, your neighborhood, street dogs, trees, the weather, street food,  construction and deconstruction – it could be about any creature, thing, space or feeling in the city. Collect your stories on anything that can shoot image and record sound. All videos must play on VLC and should not be longer than 5 mins. Submit your entries on DVD OR mail it, upload it and send us a link on ekta [at] maraa [dot] in by tomorrow latest. Your stories will be screened for the public at the Bangalore Talkies at Jaaga, Double Road, on 30th October, 6:30 pm onwards. Remember it’s about the story, not so much about making a perfect film. This will be followed by a music jam between independent musicians in Bangalore. If you are a musician and want to play, get in touch with us today!

To register mail ekta [at] maraa [dot] in or call 96328-31275 before 29th October

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

Virtual Public Art Project

The Virtual Public Art Project is an Augmented Reality platform for the public display of digital works of art. VPAP is the first mobile AR outdoor art experience ever, and maximizes public reception of AR art through compatibility with both iPhone 3GS and Android phones!

Unlike current AR smart phone utilities that enable users to view a location with an additional layer of information about that location – i.e. information about a restaurant, VPAP creates site-specific sculptures at a location that invite viewers in for close observation from all sides and from multiple perspectives.

Augmented Reality and Public Art

Augmented reality is a view of the physical real-world environment merged with virtual computer-generated imagery in real-time. VPAP merges the real-world physical environment of public spaces around the world with site-specific virtual sculptures that can only be viewed in-the-round using the iPhone 3GS and Android phones when one is at the sculpture’s real-world location.

Virtual Public Art Project.

Destination Schuylkill River – DestinationSchuylkillRiver: The River is your destination for ART this Fall

This fall along the Schuylkill River, art that celebrates the environment and our connection to the Earth, “Eco-Art”, is on the agenda. A series of three diverse locations will feature art installations by multiple local and national artists on three successive weekends:

Sep 19th – November: Ground Play: Nexus at the Schuylkill Center

Opening Reception, September 19
4pm – 6pm, Ground Play/ Family Friendly Activities
6:30pm – 8pm, Artists’ Tour and Performances

In Ground Play, Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education invites six artists from NEXUS Foundation to respond to the history and physical space of its Brolo Hill Farm. The work in Ground Play is an expression of the insightful ways these six artists use color, scale, sound, texture, humor, fear, storytelling and performance as their own artistic playground, coming up with new modes of expression and creating experiences meant to delight and provoke visitors. Featuring the work of Susan Abrams, Nick Cassway, Jebney Lewis, Michael McDermott, Leah Reynolds, Jennie Thwing.

Exhibit will be up through November. Find out more HERE.

September 25 & 26: Destination Schuylkill River curated by ecoartspace
Starting one week before the 1st Annual Manayunk Eco Arts festival, five artists from across the country will be in Manayunk installing eco-art along the canal and in other Manayunk public spaces. Come out and watch the process, see the completed pieces at the Eco Arts Festival on September 25 and 26, and then visit the installations as they slowly return to the Earth over the coming months.

Milwaukee-based artist Roy Staab will create a work suspended over the Manayunk Canal using plant materials. Toronto-based Chrysanne Stathacos will be creating a poem of flowers to float on the Manayunk Canal. Habitat for Artists’ installation will examine how our culture approaches conservation. NYC-based artist Chere Krakosky will hang a clothesline along the Canal to talk about issues of energy and domesticity. Finally RAIR (Recycled Artist-In- Residency) an exciting, new non-profit in Philadelphia will also take part. Find out more HERE.

October 1 & 2: East Falls Eco Art Project
A special feature of the 5th annual Arts by the River and Eco Fair in East Falls (October 2, 10-5 at Inn Yard Park) will be fish-themed eco art. Eleven unique pieces of fish-themed art which use repurposed or natural materials are being commissioned. Chosen works will be revealed complete or in-progress at the festival and will ultimately be installed along the East Falls Riverfront Business District. One additional piece will be created through a community-process at the festival itself; “Waffles the Catfish”, a 4’5” tall, 80 lb. sculpture will be decoupaged by festival-goers. Attendees are invited to bring something about themselves or their families on a 3×3” paper, and have their memory preserved on Waffles.

Also new this year is the East Falls Weekend Gallery, which will feature local artists’ work displayed at the Masons’ Building, 4200 Ridge Avenue. Artist reception on Friday, October 1, 7-9pm with gallery hours continuing on Saturday from 10am to 5pm.

Find out more HERE.