Shanghai – The CSPA

Eco Values Art Exhibition at 2012 Eco Design Fair in Shanghai

The 2012 Shanghai Eco Design Fair will be held on April 14 from 10:00 to 17:00 at the Cool Docks, 515 Zhongshan South Road, Shanghai. An exterior plaza at the Cool Docks will be devoted to giving the public an opportunity to interact with representatives from Shanghai environmental organizations and NGOs and view an art exhibit created through collaboration with members of each organization.

â€œLearn, Grow, Exploreâ€ is an interactive exhibit that employs +/-100 symbols for â€œeco-valuesâ€, painted on on rice paper using Chinese ink by participants of separate workshops organized by ARTSpring and each NGO during February and March, 2012. During the workshops participants create a new ideograph, using ancient Chinese characters as a model, that expresses contemporary values respecting the environment.

The final installation is designed and constructed by Zhao Yunbo, a multi-media artist based in Shanghai. Visitors to the fair may experience the exhibit, interact with the various artists and print the designs of their choice on t-shirts and cloth bags purchased from the participating organizations.

Reposted from ARTSpring (http://art-spring.org)

More information on the website of the ecodesignfair: http://www.ecodesignfair.cn/

Cultura21 is a transversal, translocal network, constituted of an international level grounded in several Cultura21 organizations around the world.

Cultura21â€²s 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 LÃ¼neburg, Germany) and Rana Ã–ztÃ¼rk (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

Prix Pictet winner: Nadav Kanderâ€™s Yangtze river project

Chongqing XI, Series: Yangtze, The Long River, Chongqing, China 2007 by Nadav Kander

Just over a week ago Nadav Kander was named as winner of the excellent 2009Â Prix Pictet, the prize given to photography on the theme of environmental sustainability. Last yearâ€™sÂ shortlist, which included Benoit Aquin, Edward Burtynsky, David Maisel and others, produced a really astonishing collection of images on the theme of Water; it showed how powerful photography can still be when it inhabits the zone between art and documentary.

This year the theme,Â Earth, produced equally sock-knocking results; Britainâ€™s Nadav Kander was up against Darren Almond, Edward Burtynsky (again) andÂ Andreas Gursky and others. Iâ€™ve blogged about theÂ brilliant shortlist previously.

Maybe because theyâ€™re part documentarists, thereâ€™s something very pithy about photographerâ€™s artistsâ€™ statements that I really like. Hereâ€™s part of Kanderâ€™s artistsâ€™ statement about the whole Yangtze,Â The Long River project:

The Yangtze River, which forms the premise to this body of work, is the main artery that flows 4100miles (6500km) across China, travelling from its furthest westerly point in Qinghai Province to Shanghai in the east. The river is embedded in the consciousness of the Chinese, even for those who live thousands of miles from the river. It plays a significant role in both the spiritual and physical life of the people.

More people live along its banks than live in the USA, one in every eighteen people on the planet.

Using the river as a metaphor for constant change, I have photographed the landscape and people along its banks from mouth to source.

Importantly for me I worked intuitively, trying not to be influenced by what I already knew about the country. I wanted to respond to what I found and felt and to seek out the iconography that allowed me to frame views that make the images unique to me.

After several trips to different parts of the river, it became clear that what I was responding to and how I felt whilst being in China was permeating into my pictures; a formalness and unease, a country that feels both at the beginning of a new era and at odds with itself. China is a nation that appears to be severing its roots by destroying its past in the wake of the sheer force of its moving â€œforwardâ€ at such an astounding and unnatural pace. A people scarring their country and a country scarring its peopleâ€¦

Go to RSA Arts & Ecology