Regeneration

The Man Who Planted Trees at WSD2013

mwplatedWed 11 Sept 13.30

The Willow Theatre

This multi-sensory theatrical adaptation of Jean Giono’s environmental classic tells the inspiring story of a shepherd who plants a forest, acorn by acorn, transforming a barren wasteland.

As much a touching tale as it is a hilarious puppet show, The Man Who Planted Trees shows us the difference one man (and his dog!) can make to the world. Touring since 2006 in the UK and internationally including repeat seasons at the Sydney Opera House and New York’s Lincoln Centre Institute.

“Laughs, heartbreak, war, regeneration, scented breezes, sparkling wit and the best dog puppet ever. Perfect for children and grown-ups. Terrific.” (The Guardian)

Who should attend?

Suitable for adults and children over 7.

Price: £6

BUY TICKETS

Key contributors

Elspeth Murray
Richard Medrington<
Puppet State Theatre Company

Links:
www.puppetstate.com 
@PuppetStateThtr
facebook.com/puppetstate

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

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

Go to Cultura21

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Eight UK museums set out to ‘make carbon history’

This post comes to you from Culture|Futures

tyne-and-wear-museums590Eight museums in the Tyne and Wear in the north east of the United Kingdom are taking action to address climate change. In April 2013, they launched a new initiative called ‘Make Carbon History’. The first goal is to reduce their carbon footprint by 12 percent within the next two years.

With the UK Government committing to reduce carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050, museums across the north east of the country, in a region called Tyne and Wear, have decided they want to play their part in helping to achieve this target.

Led by Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums (TWAM) through the Museum Development Programme funded by Arts Council England, ‘Make Carbon History’ is a two-year programme of support that will enable museums to reduce their carbon footprint by 12 percent by 2015, whilst helping reduce their carbon footprint and become more sustainable. And not only that, they also want to help create a sustainable future for communities across the region.

“Art and culture has played a huge role in Tyne and Wear’s regeneration, however, the sector faces significant challenges ahead,” explains Sarah Carr, Senior Museum Development Officer at TWAM. According to her, the initiative is about creating a sustainable future for the region’s museums and in this way to ensure that they can continue to have a positive impact on the surrounding communities: “The purpose of museums is to inspire and educate, and I hope that the action we are taking to address climate change, will also influence museum audiences to look at how they can implement sustainability and reduce their own carbon footprint.”

The not-for-profit low-carbon consultancy CO2Sense will work with the eight museums to identify and implement practical solutions to minimise their carbon emissions through reduced grid energy demand and sustainable facility management. These measures will allow the museums to reduce their energy bills, whilst also creating a more comfortable environment for visitors, staff and volunteers.

Environmental commitment 
Tyne and Wear Museums is a grouping of 11 museums and galleries in the north east of England, administered by a joint board of local authorities. The group writes on its home page that its commitment is to provide “a world-class service that is sustainable and which aims to minimise the environmental impacts of our operations. We are committed to continually improving our green policies and will work to reduce our consumption of gas, electricity, water and other materials.”

“The Director is fully committed to supporting the green campaign and champions green issues including setting a corporate objective in the organisation’s operational plan, chairing the TWAM Energy Reduction Group and ring-fencing an allocation of capital resources for sustainable ‘invest to save’ initiatives.

The Senior Management Team takes the lead on environmental performance, awareness and engagement activities for TWAM. Managers throughout the organisation are committed to improving the physical infrastructure and environmental management of their individual venues, and minimising the environmental impact of services they provide.

Staff are encouraged to participate in green polices and are kept up to date with green initiatives and activities through:
• Staff newsletter
• Quick tip emails to staff on energy saving and recycling
• Minutes of the Energy Reduction Group

TWAM has achieved the Julie’s Bicycle certification programme standard, Industry Green, which acknowledges its environmentally responsible business practices, and its commitment to ongoing improvement.

The Industry Green (IG) Standard is the environmental certification scheme managed by Julie’s Bicycle which provides an audit report of environmental performance covering energy, waste, water and travel.

The four core Industry Green criteria are:
• Commitment
• Understanding
• Improvement
• Communication”


The museums across Tyne and Wear who are currently engaged in the programme are: Bebe’s World, Heugh Gun Batterty, Killhope Lead Mining Museum, Woodhorn Museum, Oriental Museum, Durham Light Infantry, Middlesborough Institute of Modern Art, and Hexham Old Gaol.

For more information on how CO2Sense work with museums, you can contact Kristina Lomas on e-mail: Kristina [DOT] Lomas [AT] co2sense [DOT] co [DOT] uk or visit their home page:co2sense.co.uk

Sources: 
dur.ac.uk/oriental.museum/news
twmuseums.org.uk

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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Windows of opportunity: artists taking over retail space

Based on that story a couple of weeks ago on the RSA Arts & Ecology website, I have this feature in the current New Statesman:

There’s a hint of tumbleweed blowing down the nation’s high streets. Behind the headline-worthy collapses of Woolworths and MFI are the disappearances of hundreds of smaller shops. By the end of 2009, the analyst Experian predicts, one in six UK shops will have closed down. Not only will the effect on employment be catastrophic, the projected 135,000 vacancies will not be good for the health of town centres – empty shopfronts quickly multiply.

Yet what is grim news for some may prove a bonus for artists.

From the abandoned warehouses of Shoreditch in east London to the empty apartments of Berlin, we know artists gravitate to disused space, and have been successful in transforming it. Can art now drive the regeneration of slack retail space by turning it into a low-cost cultural playground?

In Durham, Carlo Viglianisi and Nick Malyan, an artist and an art fan, both in their early twenties, took over the lease to a disused off-licence in December last year and reopened it as Empty Shop (www.emptyshop.org), a gallery and creative centre where local sixth-form college students can go for media and art classes. “The local response has been fantastic,” says Viglianisi.

They are far from alone. Across the country, artists and would-be gallerists have been having the same idea, seemingly quite spontaneously. This January in Brent, a group of artists formed Wasted Spaces; they are holding their first show in a vacant retail space in Wembley this summer. In Halifax, another group has taken on an empty unit at the Piece Hall and opened Temporary Art Space (www.temporaryartspace.co.uk), which will run for six months…

See the rest of the feature here.

Photo by Tony Knox.

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology