Urban Environments

Summer of Soil

This post comes to you from Cultura21

summer-of-soilJune 15 – August 15, 2013

Summer of soil : A Green Exhibition in Järna, Sweden

Summer of Soil is a 5-week, multi-disciplinary accelerator program designed to awaken and inspire a collaborative movement to rebuild and maintain living soils. The program will include a series of hands-on soil-related courses, an exhibition of regenerative growing practices and the 5-day Living Soil Forum for bringing conversation to action.

The Exhibition serves as an entrance space into Summer of Soil, and aims to educate and raise awareness about the state of soil. It aims to give insight into the amazing substance soil really is, as well as showcasing different growing practices which promote soil regeneration in both rural and urban environments. It includes a pavilion with small scale “Do It Yourself” solutions, Ekoleden – an eco-tour around the local sustainable food society, a “2000 square meter project” –The Exhibition is open to the public and consists of three interconnected areas; the Pavilion, the Kulturcentrum Trädgårdsparken (Garden and Park) and the Ekoleden, helping to understand and realise the conditions of soils from a global point of view. The Soil Lab invites the visitor to experiment with soil, put your hands in the dirt, smell the soil, look at the roots and use your senses to experience the magic.

This summer, the park grounds will feature Summer of Soil’s Story of Soil, an intiative designed to raise awareness about soil. This will be achieved by identifying and explaining various processes connected to soil as they appear around the campus.This project aims to inspire people to care for the land and show how a good relationship with our earth can create a positive, creative development for our planet and for our fellow humans.

For more information about the project : 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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CSPA Quarterly Calls for Submissions

The most recent issue of the CSPA Quarterly, which called for work related to International initiatives, is now available on MagCloud.com.  The issue includes contributions from ARTPORT, Arts In The One World, Forum for the Future, Moe Beitiks, Roberta Holden, Emily Mendelson, and Shinji Turner-Yamamoto.  Installation, public policy, photography, and theater are all represented in Issue Five.

Submissions are now being accepted for issues seven and eight.  Topics for these issues are Art and Agriculture and Nature vs. Nurture.  The sixth issue, to be released in June, will feature projects that make the invisible visible.

Art & Agriculture

Our livelihood depends on both, yet both seem to be endangered in the non-commercial realm.  What happens when art and agriculture collide?  This issue will feature projects that are related to today’s agriculture and will explore the connection between the two.

Art & Agriculture Deadline for Submission:  June 1, 2011

Nature vs. Nurture

For this issue, we are interested projects and stories that match nature to nurture, art to science, human to machine.  What defines nature in urban environments, and what is our natural relationship to it?  What is happening to our sense of cultural sustainability in a digital age?  Are societies impacted more by art or science?  And, how are natural and synthetic environments interchangeable?

Nature vs. Nurture Deadline for Submission:  July 1, 2011.

 

The CSPA Quarterly explores sustainable arts practices in all genres, and views sustainability in the arts through environmentalism, economic stability, and cultural infrastructure.  The periodical provides a formal terrain for discussion, and seeks to elevate diverse points of view.

 

Please send your opinion articles, project case studies, researched essays, and photos to: Miranda@SustainablePractice.org.

 

To view past issues, along with our current issue on digital work, please visit:  http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Magazine/38626

Record the sound around you for a map of UK soundscapes

Researchers at the University of Salford are building a sound map of the UK as part of a study into how sounds in our everyday environment affect how people feel about their environment.

For Sound Around You, researchers are calling for people to use their mobile phones or another audio recording device to record 10- to 15-second clips from different sound environments, or soundscapes.

The information on the project website is biased towards urban environments, but there is nothing exclusive about where the sounds may be recorded. Sound Around You aims to raise awareness of the influences of soundscapes.

People can then upload those recordings onto a virtual map, along with their opinions of the sounds and why they chose to record them. Recordings and responses will be analysed by acoustic scientists and findings will be reported on the Sound Around You website.

www.soundaroundyou.com

NYC Benefit Supports Green Roofs

Reprinted from NewsBlaze: “Raising the Roof with ‘Green’ Entertainment to Benefit the Environment” by Rajdeep K. Bhathal, November 3, 2009

Manhattan’s Theater for the New City will present “Raising the Roof” November 9, 2009 at 7 PM to benefit its green roof garden project. The event will feature actress and singer Tammy Grimes singing “It’s Not Easy Being Green”; actress Betsy von Furstenberg with a “green” reading; singer Judy Gorman with her repertoire of songs about peace and justice; post-vaudevillian (and author of NYC Fringe hit “Willy Nilly”) Trav S. D. performing songs from his show “Kitsch,” or “Two for the Price of One” which is upcoming at TNC; Richmond Shepard and Alex Simmons in a new play, “Luncheon or Two Men, a Park & Pigeons” by Paulanne Simmons; a concert reading of “Long time Passing,” a fable set in the ruins of a war-torn Central Park by award-winning playwright Barbara Kahn; environmentally friendly and funny songs by Lissa Moira and Richard West; and much more.

Betsy von Furstenberg, a longtime Theater for the New City friend, says, “I cannot speak highly enough of Crystal Field and TNC. She has achieved the unachievable every year.” “What makes you think that will work?” a board member once asked about an unlikely goal.” “Because I’m doing it,” she answered with such conviction there was no room for doubt. “And the theater’s green roof (the first in New York City!) will eventually blossom no matter what the hurdles TNC has to overcome. I’ll bet my life on it.”

Green roofs, building roofs that are covered with soil and vegetation, grant many benefits for urban environments: they absorb rainwater, provide insulation, combat pollution and offer a habitat for birds. Crystal Field, who initiated the project, hopes Theater for the New City’s green roof will be a beacon for the entire city. “We will be the first theater in New York City to have a green roof,” she says. “It will help our neighborhood. It will help the air quality on our block. There should be a green roof on every flat roof in New York City. Then we will have a green grid.”

“Raising the Roof” will take place at Theater for the New City, located at 155 First Avenue, between Ninth and Tenth Streets, in Manhattan. Tickets to the event are $10 and are availible online at www.theaterforthenewcity.net or through the box office phone at (212) 254-1109.

Go to the Green Theater Initiative

APInews: Vertical Gardens Extended at Exit Art

 Exit Art in New York City has extended the run of an interesting show: “Vertical Gardens,” a project of Papo Colo’s SEA (Social-Environmental Aesthetics). Extended through June 6, 2009, “Vertical Gardens” is an exhibition of architectural models, renderings, drawings, photographs and ephemera that depict or imagine a vertical farm, urban garden or green roof. It features over 20 projects, both imaginary and real, by artists and architects that envision solutions for building greener urban environments. Special events have included talks by public-health scientist Dickson D. Despommier, founding director of the Vertical Farm Project; and SITE Founder James Wines on ways to meet the demands of economic crisis, energy efficiency and sustainable design without a loss of aesthetic quality; plus poetry readings and composting workshops. SEA is an endeavor that presents a diverse multimedia exhibition program and permanent archive of artworks that address social and environmental concerns. [LINK]

via APInews: Vertical Gardens Extended at Exit Art .

Making ‘People-Friendly’ Towns: Improving the Public Environment in Towns and Cities by Tibbalds, Francis

Francis Tibbalds provides a new philosophical approach to the problem of urban environments and town planning, suggesting that places as a whole matter much more than the individual components that make up the urban environment such as buildings, roads and parks.
Go to RSA Arts & Ecology Reading List

Making ‘People-Friendly’ Towns: Improving the Public Environment in Towns and Cities by Tibbalds, Francis

Francis Tibbalds provides a new philosophical approach to the problem of urban environments and town planning, suggesting that places as a whole matter much more than the individual components that make up the urban environment such as buildings, roads and parks.