Visual Art

Moveable micro-city to innovate culture of sustainablity

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ArtEpi-livet-mellem-bygningPaint a picture of Europe’s sustainable thinking, knowledge and experiences. That is one of the assignments for a ‘green performing city’, Art-Epi, which will be kaunched in Denmark on 18 August 2013. The project aims to find new ways of cultivating innovation and development in the sustainable sphere – socially, scientifically, artistically, culturally, tourist- and business-wise.



An interesting experiment blending arts, architecure and science is taking shape in the centre of the Danish mainland, Jutland: a moveable micro-city of 100 inhabitants, organised around a series of sustainable, environmental and resource-conscious building activities, lectures and workshops.

This year, Art-Epi will roll out a laboratory and a pilot project where sustainable thinking of the future will be stimulated and co-created. The micro-city will rise on the moor of Præstbjerg in Mid-Western Jutland from 18 August til 19 October 2013.

The goal is that Art-Epi, with all its initiatives and ideas, will travel in Europe the next couple of years. After that Art-Epi will return to Denmark and visit Aarhus when the city becomes the Cultural Capital of Europe in 2017, gathering and presenting all the experiences and inspirations from four years of travelling.

The micro-city will function as an ordinary city where 100 people live and work, half of the inhabitants are to have come from outside of Denmark and half from within the country, in a blend of approximately half from the arts world and the other half from the
world of science, creating interdisciplinary networks locally, regionally, nationally and internationally on a platform where music, theater, visual art, beekeeping, science, carpentry and farming can meet and inspire and learn from each other.

The green performing city will have a performance venue, a communal soup-kitchen, and many other facilities enabling it to host events on a daily basis. Visitors are welcomed to walk around on the site and to join the daily activities.
They must bring with them everything they need during their stay, and they should have a focus on sustainability.

Starting up in Jutland, the micro-city will be like an epicentre right in the middle of group of collaborating cities.
Art-Epi is organised by the organisation Kultursamarbejdet i Midt- og Vestjylland – The Cultural Collaboration in Mid-Western Jutland – a collaboration between 57 cultural organisations and seven
municipalities.

“The word Art in Greek means ‘crafts’. Everyone has his or her own ‘craft’ to help create new ways of thinking, acting, producing, concept development and innovate with a focus on sustainability.
By bringing different worlds together in an alternative room, we bring different mindsets together. This gives the opportunity to create new connections, new networks and the opportunity to visit different worlds,” writes t

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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Environmental Art Festival Scotland – call for proposals and partners

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

Wide Open together with Spring Fling

Landscape, Chris Fremantle

Landscape, Chris Fremantle

and The Stove have launched a call for proposals and partners for Scotland’s first Environmental Art Festival Scotland.

The deadline for all strands is Thursday 22 March 2013.

There are several strands:

Open Call for Ideas – ideas for artworks that connect aspects of land, sustainability, energy, coast, rural living, Biosphere, Dark Skies, climate change, ecosystem services, transport, etc. and are relevant or connected to Dumfries and Galloway.  These could be small or large ideas.  Proposals are invited from any discipline.

Ten ideas will be selected to receive small grants towards their development.  They will be included in the Environmental Art Festival in some form (depending on the stage of development).

Commissions – temporary installations for the duration of the festival (30 August to 2 September 2013) addressing the theme of “energy and the land”.  There is a budget of £5,000 for each commission.  Commissions can be across a wide range of media including visual art, sound, film, digital media, text based or combinations.  The Environmental Art Festival is looking to demonstrate cutting edge art practices engaged with ecology, nature or land art which is moving, meaningful and dynamic.  The

Venues, Places, Organisations – Wide Open is interested in hearing from Venues, Places or Organisations with existing or planned activity that fits with the themes of the Environmental Art Festival.

Full Call is here.

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.
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Culture|Futures Clubs gets Council of Europe Cultural Event Label 2012

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Culture|Futures Clubs gets Council of Europe Cultural Event Label 2012. The Council of Europe Cultural Event label recognises exceptional and innovative cultural and artistic projects which address key challenges of today’s European societies and convey strong messages related to the Council of Europe’s mission and values.

“Culture|Futures Club – Organisation of open, cultural and social events for young people and creative professionnels to have discussions and activities on the theme of sustainability and climate change. Representatives of different cultural expressions (theatre, visual art, architecture, film, urban future planning, cuisine, etc) will meet and discuss the issues of sustainability in daily life with a  diverse audience. These events will be organised in Copenhagen in 2012/2013 and intend to expand to other countries in Europe.”

Visit the The Council of Europe Cultural Event Label (CECEL) web page here

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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Time of the Clock, Time of Encounter

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This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland

If practitioners of environmental and ecological arts have become expert in the critique of spatial politics and practices, should they also be able to develop and use critiques of time?

ecoartscotland is a partner in an AHRC funded workshop programme entitled Time of the Clock, Time of Encounter. This forms part of a cluster of research projects focused on the theme ‘Connected Communities’.

The ‘Time of the Clock, Time of Encounter’ project has been put together by:

ecoartscotland, Woodend Barn, Encounter Arts and Holmewood School are community partners.

The aim of the project is to destabilise assumptions about temporality and to activate alternatives. The group believe that the arts and humanities have particular forms of knowledge around temporality that are of potential use to communities (e.g. those directly involved as well as in the wider sense).

There are some key experiences related particularly to the arts which are known, but perhaps not activated as tools of critique, such as ‘nunc stans’ (the experience of time standing still), ‘flow’ time when the process takes over all sense of time. But we should also note Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison’s use of ‘the urgency of the moment’, that sense of a particular time when culture is maleable, when new stories of futures can be imagined. In contrast Elaine Scarry’s discussion of pain and the loss of any sense of time is also relevant.

Perhaps one of the key cultural projects which focused on temporality was Futurism, and we now have its corollary, the Slow movement.

Amy Lipton recently posted a question to the ecoartnetwork asking artists to highlight projects which are open to the public during June 2012. Her intention was to make this information available to the Outreach Officer at the Environmental Protection Agency for inclusion in a calendar associated with the White House Initiative ‘Great Outdoors Month’.

The question is of course driven by ‘The Time of the Clock’ (or at least the calendar), but the example provokes reflection on temporality in relation to ecoart projects.

We might offer a number of other questions which might relate to clock/calendar as well as encounter:

How long did the project take?

What experience of time does the work encourage in the minds of those involved?

Ecoart projects tend to assume the wider agency of other species and systems – what is their relationship with temporality?

Did any of the artists in any way attempt to use creative strategies to affect community sense of temporality?

Are these projects ever ‘closed’ in other than a practical sense of visiting them?

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

Environmental Artist in Residence – McColl Center for Visual Art

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Charlotte, NC
Deadline: Ongoing-May 1, 2011 for first selection
Media: Sculpture, Installation
Geographic restrictions: None
Residency period: From weeks to 3 months

Call for established and emerging artists, design professionals and collaborators to create works of environmental art in the public domain. Opportunities for installations that go beyond interacting with the urban environment and become remedial interventions. The Environmental Artist-in-Residence (EAIR) program encourages artists to have beneficial impacts on the urban life through creation of art that is scientifically relevant, meaningful and beneficial environmental art.

Prospectus: http://www.mccollcenter.org/documents/eair_application_2.2011_.pdf
Information: http://www.mccollcenter.org/
email: eair@mccollcenter.org

CSPA Quarterly Calls for International Submissions

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The second edition of the CSPA Quarterly is now open for submissions.  This issue will focus on international eco-policy, policy’s effect on the arts, and the arts’ effect on policy.  The issue will feature news and events from COP15, the UN Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen this December.  Articles from all nations are welcome!

The publication will explore sustainable arts practices in all genres (performance, visual art & installation, music, and film/video), and will view sustainability in the arts through environmentalism, economic stability, and cultural infrastructure. The periodical will provide a formal terrain for discussion, and will evaluate diverse points of views.

Please send your essays, photos, and articles to:  Miranda@SustainablePractice.org

The deadline for consideration is December 22, 2009.

CSPA Quarterly Available!

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We are pleased to announce the first edition of the CSPA Quarterly! This edition of The Quarterly explores sustainable arts practices in performance, visual art & installation, green touring, and eco-policy. Articles include ‘Code Green: A Comparative Look at Worldwide Cultural Policies for Green Events,’ by Sam Goldblatt. This edition’s featured artist is Dianna Cohen, a Los Angeles based multi-media artist who is best known for her works using recycled plastic bags. Other contributors include Moe Beitiks, Linda Weintraub, Patricia Watts, Thomas Rhodes, and Olivia Campbell.

CSPA Fall 09 Cover

 

The issue is available through CSPA Subscriptions, or through our website at:

https://www.sustainablepractice.org/join-the-cspa

Living Life in Real Time

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slow-london-banner2Today, 4 May, is the final day of Slow Down London – a ten-day festival to get people to slooooow dowwwnnnnn. Personally, I walk fast, talk fast and do stuff fast, but that’s because I love things that are intense – but that is not truly at odds with the premise of Slow Down London, which is a good one:

 “Slow Down London is a new project to inspire Londoners to improve their lives by slowing down to do things well, rather than as fast as possible.”  

The point is to consciously and deliberately appreciate stuff – all stuff. From our bodies, minds, creativity, each other, life itself, the world around us and establish a deeper appreciation of time itself. 

And it got me thinking.  … doing things well requires rigour and thought and that takes time… But political, social and environmental changes happen relatively fast and need practical responses.

So here is a problem that faces me and probably you too: how do we as individuals and a society get a strong balance between this point ‘to slow things down so you can do them well’ and the political point ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it?’*

The arts need to consider this as much as ever before – perhaps more. How can the soft skills and soft power of the arts be shared more widely and do they have practical application? What do the arts do well? What could the arts do better? For example, should visual art be more democratic and what would cultural democracy look like? 

It’s not a problem if you missed the Slow Down London festival – because it is a campaign that highlights that London is full of brilliant slow things…  

The Slow Down London campaign will hold a festival (24 April – 4 May 2009) offering activities and inspiration, through working with a range of partners. It will give Londoners a chance to explore slow music and arts, to try meditation and yoga, to sample slow food and crafts, to discover ’slow travel’ in our own city, to debate ideas about time and pace, and to find our own ways to challenge the cult of speed and to appreciate the world around us. You can view the full event programme here: slow-down-london-events-programme

 * I heard this Marx quote again yesterday, when my iPod shuffled to an old version of the BBCs In Our Time (2005) featuring Karl Marx as winning the ‘greatest philosopher’ vote, here’s the link.
 

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