Twitter

Culture and Climate Change: Recordings

October 5, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, blog, Climate Change, Culture Change, Directory, Environment, Features Interviews, Flowers, Interviews News, Metaphors, Pdf, Podcasts, Reflection, Robert Butler, Robert Wallace, Six Ways, sustainability, Timeline, Twitter, United Kingdom

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

A pdf of Culture and Climate Change: Recordings is now available.

See four podcasts on culture and climate change

Download the podcasts

A final posting from Cape Farewell expedition

September 14, 2011Ashden DirectoryArtist Sculptor, Basalt Columns, Basking Sharks, Cape Farewell, Climate Change, Gutman, Interviews News, Island Profiles, John Cumming, Kame, Lexicography, Minke Whales, North Rona, Pilot Whales, Risso, Robert Butler, Screes, Sea Journeys, Shetland Islands, Time Journey, Twitter

Shiants - watercolor by John Cumming

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Kellie Gutman writes:Â The artist, sculptor and writer John Cummingtook part in the fourth and final week of Cape Farewell’s expedition to the Shetland Islands this summer. Â John was born and raised in Burra Isle, Shetland. He writes:

What draws me to these places is hard to define.Â The journey is part of the magic.Â The sea is endlessly, and wonderfully alive; unlike concrete, unlike tarmacadam.Â No two sea journeys are ever the same.Â On the trip to North Rona, we met families of dolphin, Rissoâ€™s, basking sharks and minke whales.Â The sea was calm, the swell long and leaden.Â The night-time journey back was before a north-easterly gale, sailing only on the jib.Â Â Driving southwards at eight to ten knots, we listened to the clicking of a school of pilot whales some three miles away.

Next day the sheer sculptural magnificence of the Shiants was a revelation.Â I have a personal lexicography of island profiles; the Kame of Hoy; the Kame of Foula; the Drongs of Eshaness; each place uniquely powerful and awe inspiring, yet even now, weeks later the basalt columns and screes of the shiants are etched on the back of my eyelids.

For his complete posting, including additional sketches, as well as postings of others on the expedition, see the Cape Farewell blog here.

New version of 3rd Ring Out opens in Edinburgh

August 25, 2011Ashden Directory, FringeAga Khan Foundation, Aga Khan Trust, Alternative Futures, Charitable Trusts, Drama Critic, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Editorial Adviser, Grassmarket, Independent On Sunday, Patricia Morison, Pleasance Courtyard, Practice Art, Robert Butler, Sainsbury Family, Shelley Sacks, Shipping Containers, Simulation Cell, Slide Presentations, Term Crisis, Twitter

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

One of the winners of the 2010 Tipping Point commissions, 3rd Ring Out (which we blogged here and here) has now opened at the Grassmarket in Edinburgh. Its director ZoÃ« Svendsen says:

We’ve now got a ‘strategy’ cell as well as a ‘simulation’ cell – we’ve split the use of the two containers into (1) short term crisis in a climate-changed future, under a business -as-usual scenario (which is the same format as last year but now about the Suffolk coastline); and (2) long term alternative futures about the city we are in, generated by ideas gathered from the public and others.

18-28 August, Edinburgh Fringe Festival
In the bright orange shipping containers. Grassmarket
Pleasance Courtyard
60 Pleasance
Phone 0131 556 6560

Other shows of interest at the Edinburgh Fringe blogged here
ZoÃ« Svendsen’s metaphorÂ for sustainability on this blog and the Ashden DIrectory

New metaphors for sustainability: the timeless meal

August 16, 2011Ashden DirectoryCurated, Decorum, Doom And Gloom, Ethical Problem, Feast, Film Photo, Life On Earth, Metaphor, Metaphors, Notion, Share Conversation, Share Food, Share Ideas, Social Relevance, Sums, sustainability, Tendency, Tim Mitchell, Twitter, Urbanist

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Carolyn Steel calls herself a ‘food urbanist’, andÂ she brings a notion of the ‘good life’ toÂ our series of New metaphors for sustainability.Â

What is it weâ€™re trying to sustain? For me, the meal is the emblematic, wonderful situation that sums up the whole point of sustainability.

I think in metaphor all the time and food has become this way of seeing the world not just in terms of ‘how are we going to feed ourselves in future?’ – this kind of doom and gloom thing – but also in terms of asking ‘what kind of society is it that we are trying to create as well as sustain?’.

When you talk about food, thereâ€™s a tendency to talk about â€˜how much grain can you produce on that much land with that much waterâ€™. Thatâ€™s very important, but you have to relate every conversation you have about food with the kind of life that you are talking about. Itâ€™s about a vision of society, an idea of the good life.

The table is a place where you don’t just share food, but you share ideas, you share love, you share conversation.

Itâ€™s a beautiful metaphor of the kinds of things that weâ€™re trying to sustain. Itâ€™s society. Itâ€™s â€˜good lifeâ€™ in every possible sense – not just good in terms of wonderful food – but also good in terms of the ethics of what you eat. If I am hungry I have a practical problem. If you are hungry, I have an ethical problem.

This business of sitting around a table with other people, the decorum of the table, and the sharing food – it brings the social relevance of sustainability into the conversation.

A timeless meal, a meal that is enjoyed through time that has a past that we all intuitively understand, but a future as well, sums up for me the idea that food is life on earth.

Carolyn is included in our film.

Photo: Feast on the Bridge, 2009, curated by Clare Patey. Photo by Tim Mitchell.

New metaphors for sustainability: nine so far

August 13, 2011Ashden DirectoryAssociate Editor, Climate Change, Divider, Drama Critic, Editorial Adviser, Environmentalists Activists, Glass Ceiling, Independent On Sunday, Iron Curtain, Key Concepts, Metaphors, Nietzsche, Patricia Morison, Practice Art, Robert Butler, Sailboat, Shelley Sacks, Sustainability Art, Sweet Pea, Twitter

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory
From the ‘iron curtain’ to the ‘glass ceiling’, metaphors are one of the most powerful ways in which we frame the way we think.

Yet one of the key concepts in environmentalism – sustainability – seems to be remarkably short of vivid metaphors.

So we asked some artists, writers, architects, cultural commentators, environmentalists, activists and scientists to come up with their own metaphors for sustainability.

We’ve published nine new metaphors so far. More to follow.

Watch a film about four of the new metaphors.

Please suggest metaphors of your own. As @TheMuseDailytweeted yesterday, “The drive toward the formation of metaphor is the fundamental human drive. – Nietzsche”

New metaphors for sustainability: "Come into my house" (DVD)

August 7, 2011Ashden DirectoryAlchemist, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Doorstep, Drama Critic, Editorial Adviser, Global Policy, Hester, Independent On Sunday, Metaphor, Metaphors, Paradigm Shift, Patricia Morison, Poetic Imagination, Practice Art, Reeve, Richness, Robert Butler, Shelley Sacks, Term Sustainability, Twitter

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

When we asked Hester Reeve, artist and lecturer,Â to suggest a metaphor forÂ our series New metaphors for sustainability, she offered to makeÂ this DVD, “Come into my house.”

The term ‘sustainability’ is rightly used first and foremost in the contexts of both local and global policy changes. Whilst acknowledging the crucial role played by activist pressure in ensuring sustainability is on the agenda in the first place, I see its implementation chiefly as the responsibility of politicians (shame on them).

I made my metaphor in my house. The camera is out on the street and I open each door/window in turn and call out for various thinkers to “Come into my house.”

As an artist, I am more interested in restoring richness to the ‘cult’ of everyday life and in incorporating the force of poetic imagination than in reflecting/interacting with culture at large. My metaphor therefore reflects this sensibility.

I suppose the only thing someone like me at this point in the environmental direness of 2011 can do is to come back to the doorstep, where the agency of the single being starts and to call for that paradigm shift in our thinking that might finally allow us to dwell as an act of loving the world.

New metaphors for sustainability: my sweet pea

August 3, 2011Ashden DirectoryAspiration, Beehive, Bees, Climate Change, Co Editor, Connectedness, Directory Co, Earth Summit 1992, Ecological Systems, Edging, Environmental Change, Environmental Justice, Head And Heart, Human Species, Metaphor, Metaphors, Parfitt, Petals, Rio Earth Summit, Sweet Pea, Twitter

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

In a recent series of seminars on site-based performance and environmental change, our Ashden Directory co-editor Wallace Heim met Alison Parfitt, of the Wildland Research Institute, and writer on conservation. Here, Alison considers her sweet pea as a metaphor in our series New metaphors for sustainability.

Sustainability. After the Rio Earth Summit 1992, I was impassioned about this challenging aspiration, with head and heart. Many of us struggled over complicated diagrams, wanting to encompass everything. We talked about ecological systems and the need for the sacred and spiritual, the connectedness of all. We explored social and environmental justice and quality and equality â€“ with diversity. Models and metaphors came and went, bees in a beehive.

Now I see this challenge of understanding the potential and power of sustainability in a more intimate way. And I suspect that the full and inspiring notion of sustainability (sometimes understood but often not) is showing a way, a direction for the human species to evolve, if we can.

As I write this there is a sweet pea, picked this morning, beside me. A soft fresh fragrance. This flower is creamy pale with a purple, or even nearing indigo, fine edging on the petals. It looks and feels precise, very clear yet fragile. It moves in the air coming through the door. The flower is here today but gone tomorrow, the plant goes on and I shall gather seed. It is everyday and uniquely precious.

I accept that my sweet pea is not really a helpful metaphor for sustainability but for today, now, it enlightens me and reminds me of my relationship within all else. And how I could be more human. And thatâ€™s where my quest to understand has got to. I suspect it will move on again, soon.

Cape Farewell and the Scottish "bellwether" islands

August 1, 2011Ashden DirectoryArtist Residencies, Bellwether, Bellwethers, Cape Farewell, Climate Change Impacts, Coastal Islands, Effects Of Climate Change, Environmental Science, Forms Of Communication, Gaelic Language, Global South, Inner Hebrides, Island Communities, Island Cultures, Isle Of Lewis, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Left Hand Column, Lewis Outer Hebrides, Musical Tradition, Profound Changes, Rising Sea Levels, Sustainability Projects, Twitter

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Cape Farewell known for its seafaring expeditions to theÂ Arctic to study climate change, with scientists and artists aboard, isÂ taking a journey closer to home.Kellie GutmanÂ reports on Cape Farewell’s latest voyage.

For four weeks starting July 15, a rotating crew of thirty-two artistsÂ and nine scientists will sailÂ around Scotland’s coastal islands to investigate the effects ofÂ climate change on the island cultures and ecologies. Â A recent reportÂ by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation warns about the ‘severe impact’Â rising sea levels are likely to have on the coastline of the UK, andÂ the Outer and Inner Hebrides are the ‘bellwethers’ for the coast.Â Each week will have a theme: Gaelic language; island musical traditionÂ and story-telling; marine and environmental science; local resourcesÂ and the built environment.

Cape Farewell associate director Ruth Little comments:

‘One of the aims of the project is to challenge the widespread assumption that climate change impacts are only relevant to coastal communities in the global south. Â The environmental, social and economic situation in Scotland’s island communities resonates strongly with that of other island and coastal cultures worldwide… [We] will seek to develop new forms of communication for the human experience of climate change, and new forums for collaboration and bold imaginative response to the profound changes we all face.’

The islands have a wide range of sustainability projects ongoing, andÂ Cape Farewell will use these as a starting point for a four-year planÂ of artist residencies to document, disseminate and bring together
islanders around the issues of sustainability.

The expedition blog can be followed on the Ashdenizen blogroll in ourÂ left-hand column.

New metaphors for sustainability: the sailboat

July 26, 2011Ashden DirectoryAlchemist, Associate Editor, Climate Change, Drama Critic, Editorial Adviser, Finite Capacity, Finite Resources, Finiteness, Forces Of Nature, Future Generations, Independent On Sunday, James Marriott, Metaphors, Motive Power, Oar, Patricia Morison, Power Of The Wind, Robert Butler, Sailboat, Twitter

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

We continue our series of New metaphors for sustainability withÂ the sailboat, suggested by James Marriott, artist, activist, member of PLATFORM.Â

The boat for me is a very powerful metaphor. Sustainability is a rather grey and unclear term, but if it means anything, it means that we have to live with the finite resources of the earth. We have to deal with this in our generation and pass it on to future generations.

It is this sense of the finite capacity that I find interesting and comes to me through the experience of boats. I mean boats which are driven by sail and by oar â€“ that use the motive power of the wind and the tide captured through wood and flax and hemp and use that to move from â€˜aâ€™ to â€˜bâ€™.

Iâ€™ve been learning to sail, and itâ€™s been a wonderful experience. It makes you extremely aware of the forces of nature â€“ it makes it very intimate. Youâ€™re at the mercy of the winds. You have to work with the tides â€“ the skill comes from using whatever is there, that finite amount of power.

The finiteness, too, comes from the space of the boat itself. You have to pack everything in it that you might need or want. The boat frames my needs and desires about where I can go and how long itâ€™s going to take me.

It concentrates the mind about the nature of the space in which Iâ€™m in, and about the wind and the water and the movement of the tide and the flow of the river.

The Southbank re-designed with the tides in mind

July 25, 2011Ashden DirectoryAga Khan Trust, Art Organisations, Art University, Ba Hons, Changing Tide, Climate Change Awareness, Drama Critic, Editorial Adviser, Final Year Project, Independent On Sunday, Patricia Morison, Practice Art, Robert Butler, Shelley Sacks, Southbank London, Sustainable Approach, Television Film, Twitter, University Of The Arts, University Of The Arts London

This post comes to you from Ashden Directory

Ella-Marie Fowler got in touch about her BA project on sustainability, and here she describes it.

I’m a graduating student from Design for Performance (BA Hons) at Wimbledon College of Art, University of the Arts London. For my final project, I chose to focus on sustainability within theatre and how the arts can affect climate change awareness.

I designed a proposal for a Sustainable Arts Centre on the Southbank, London (pictured). The centre would provide space for visiting artists, performers and theatre companies to respond to climate change awareness. The building would be constructed from reclaimed materials and use green energy sources. Visitors to the centre would encounter different experiences throughout the day due to the changing tide of the Thames.

Last year, I visited the Jellyfish Theatre and researched art organisations such as TippingPoint through the Ashden Directory. This sparked ideas about my final year project. As a graduating student in theatre design, I wanted my work to reflect contemporary issues and consider how to develop a sustainable approach to my future work.