Water Levels

A Climate Change in the Art World?

This post comes to you from Cultura21

An interesting article on www.artnews.com, written by Robin Cembalast, gives insight about the impact of Hurricane Sandy on the art community in New York and shows that Sandy could have been the wake-up call for the community to realize that action against climate change is required on their part.

Barry Bergdoll, MoMA’s Chief Curator of Architecture and Design is thinking about reshaping New York in a collective movement of architects, designer, officials and others:

“I don’t want to have yet another panel discussion, I want something that takes it to yet another level of effectiveness. I’m trying to figure out what that is.”

A more radical art project concerned with Global Warming is the Greenhouse Britain by theHarrisons, as it addresses resettlement as the final consequence of climate change and shows how artists can work with architects and urban planners to redesign cities and neighborhoods. Of course this proposes a more drastic approach to the reaction to climate change and arts’s role in it, as it asumes that rising water levels are inevitable and that the then displaced population will need a differently designed civilization. But maybe adaption to climate change will require this kind of transformation?

For the whole article at artnews.com, 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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Hauled Out

This post comes to you from Shrimp Boat Projects

We are happy to report that our boat was successfully hauled out of Dickinson Bayou, is sitting comfortably on blocks and appears poised for a new paint job. After working on the boat in the water for a month and half, we knew the time was close to pull it out of the water when a few small holes opened up in the hull earlier in the week (picture small geisers!). We plugged those temporarily and will soon patch them with new steel plate as part of the full bottom job on the boat.

But the haul-out was also being timed with the highest water levels on Dickinson Bayou, so as to help push the boat out of the water. We’re not at a typical boatyard, so we knew the haul-out would not be the typical procedure using a rolling boat lift. Instead, the boat was pulled out with a backhoe and a bulldozer (and the guidance of John, Anita and Gary) when the tide was in and the winds were blowing up the bayou from the southeast. If this doesn’t make any sense, maybe this video will help:

We’re excited to see all of our boat!

 

Shrimp Boat Projects is a creative research project that explores the regional culture of the Houston area. The primary site of the investigation is a working shrimp boat on Galveston Bay which serves as a catalyst for labor, discussion and artistic production. Shrimp Boat Projects is co-created by Eric Leshinsky and Zach Moser, artists-in-residence at the University of Houston Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts.

Go to Shrimp Boat Projects