Projects

15.05.2013

Call for participants: “Field_Notes – Deep Time”, 15th – 24th September 2013, Kilpisjärvi Biological Station, Lapland/Finland

“Field_Notes – Deep Time” is a week long art&science field laboratory organized by the Finnish Society of Bioart at the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station in Lapland/Finland. Five working groups, hosted by Oron Catts, Antero Kare, Leena Valkeapaa, Tere Vaden, Elisabeth Ellsworth and Jamie Kruse, together with a team of five, will develop, test and evaluate specific interdisciplinary approaches in relation to the “Deep Time” theme.

“Field_Notes – Deep Time” is in search of artistic and scientific responses to the dichotomy between human time-perception and comprehension, and the time of biological, environmental, and geological processes in which we are embedded. The local sub-Arctic nature, ecology, and geology, as well as the scientific environment and infrastructure of the Kilpisjärvi Biological Station will act as a catalyst for the work carried out.

Dates and places:

15th – 22nd September 2013, field laboratory at the Kilpisjärvi
Biological Station
23rd, 24th of September 2013, conference in Helsinki Read more »

By Sacha Kagan

14.05.2013

Moveable micro-city to innovate culture of sustainablity

Paint 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 launched 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 experiment blending arts, architecture 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.

Reposted from Culture|Futures – read more at http://www.artepi.dk

By Sacha Kagan

09.05.2013

This is not a video camera

TEDx talk by Chris Lunch (founder of InsightShare) about “participatory video”, which is an interesting way to do participatory action research (and which he discusses in the context of development projects):

Find out more about his work at http://www.insightshare.org/

By Sacha Kagan

27.04.2013

Amazon Our Land

The launch of the CD Amazon Our Land by the young artists from the band Backyard Drums, from the project Rivers of Meeting, will be taking place today (this Saturday) from 7pm onwards (timezone: UTC -3), in the Afro-Indigenous community of Cabelo Seco (in Brazil), between the Amazonian Rivers Tocantins and Itacaiúnas.

Anyone can participate from a distance, downloading and sharing the 12 songs from the CD which will be posted on YouTube the same night. The complete CD (with a booklet in Portuguese, Spanish and English), will also be available on the following site from Saturday, April 27th: riosdeencontro.wordpress.com

Messages of solidarity for these young musicians who refuse to step onto any stage funded by the multinational mining company Vale, presently devastating the Amazon, are welcome and will strengthen the movement for a living and sustainable Amazon.

launch cd Amazon Our land

By Sacha Kagan

14.11.2012

The Psychology of Climate

A broader view on the connection between the climate – the very air we breathe – and psychology

On the 28th September 2012, a seminar on The Psychology of Climate took place in Oslo, organized by BI Norwegian Business School. Some presentations were recorded and are now available on Youtube.

Read more »

By Nikolai Huckle

12.11.2012

eBook: Promoting natural materials

This free eBook, edited by Päivi Simi and Outi Toumela, is the main publication of the long term project of the same title, taking place in Southern Finland and Estonia from 2009 to 2012.

The focus of the project lies in raising awareness and spreading knowledge on the use of healthier materials as well as on the environmental importance of using local materials.

From the back-cover:

What are natural materials? Basically, every material is originally natural. Even humans are composed of pure natural materials. We need better definitions like ecological materials, local materials, renewable resources, organic materials, and so on. We also need recyclability as well as a free flow of information. Everything we do or consume locally also affects globally. We must not forget that we have options.

Click here for the full eBook

By Nikolai Huckle

11.11.2012

Multispecies Intra-Actions: A Round Table with Karen Barad

On the 17th November from 10:45AM to 12:30 PM (PST) at the SOMArts centre in San Francisco the public is invited to participate in a roundtable discussion with Karen Barad, currently Professor of Feminist Studies, Philosophy, and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a diverse panel of researchers ranging from ethnographers to artist.

Barad’s seminal 1996 essay, where she coined the term “intra-action,” will serve as a theoretical charter for the roundtable.

“Boundaries do not sit still, it is through specific intra-actions that a differential sense of being is enacted in the ongoing ebb and flow of agency…Agential intra-actions are specific causal material enactments that may or may not involve ‘humans.’ Indeed, it is through such practices that the differential boundaries between “humans” and ‘nonhumans,’ ‘culture’ and ‘nature,’ the ‘social’ and the ‘scientific’ are constituted”

Members of the roundtable will each give short “provocations” (3-5 minutes), bringing Barad into conversation with empirical matters and concepts from their own assorted texts on the table. Audience members are also invited to participate in the discussion and become provocateurs.

Following the roundtable, Karin Bolender of the Rural Alchemy Workshop will be performing “Gut Sounds Lullaby” at 2:00PM in the same space.

For more information: http://www.somarts.org/multispecies/

By Nikolai Huckle

09.11.2012

Portrait project: This Earth in my Bones

This Earth in my Bones is a collection of 25 individual portraits by Canadian eco-artist Jeane Fabb.
In 2009 and 2010 she interviewed and photographed different women throughout the Laurentian region of Québec to explore  women´s connection with the natural environment.

From the website:

The overall project (exhibitions, conferences, web site) aims to make visible, and to honour, the diversity and vibrancy of women’s involvement in the cultural narrative of the Laurentians. It is a portrait series of people and territory that offers a perspective outside of the mainstream perception of “land” as an arena of male activity: i.e. hunters, fishermen, loggers, developers, adventurers, miners, forestry engineers, politicians etc. This earth in my bones portrays how various women see, understand, live, use, protect and respond to this region.

By Nikolai Huckle

30.10.2012

The Yes Men Are Revolting

Picture taken from the Kickstarter Page

The Yes Men, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonnano, known for their satirical interventions at business events, on the internet, television, and in the streets, and famous for their award-winning documentaries “The Yes Men”(2004) and “The Yes Men Fix the World”(2009) are in the process of directing a new movie  “The Yes Men Are Revolting” to complete the trilogy.

In an effort to mobilize viewers, they are also developing an “Action Switchboard”, a human-staffed platform that will inform the public about movement-building projects and issues.

They are currently raising funds for both projects on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter:

When our first movie came out, studios and television networks were paying pretty well—but then the the market for indie films went into freefall.

Today, we’re really in a pinch. Corporate sponsorship, of course, is right out. (Duh.) So we’re turning to you. The money we raise will go towards paying for a few more shoots and a couple more actions around the globe. We also need money to pay for editors, equipment, archival footage, legal counsel, and all the technical work it takes to get a movie finished and into the world. Finally, we’ll need funds for “outreach,” mainly the creation and staffing of the Action Switchboard, a way to plug inspired viewers into ongoing projects and help generate new ones. It’ll come out at the same time as the film.

The rewards for pledging range from the new activist handbook “Beautiful Trouble” to the unique Halliburton Survivaball.

For more Information on the project and the Kickstarter campaign, click here.

By Nikolai Huckle

05.10.2012

Occupy the Seed

FORTNIGHT OF ACTIONS FOR SEED FREEDOM 2nd – 16th October 2012

The Global Alliance for Seed Freedom is planing a phase of action to raise global public awareness regarding Seed Freedom.

Dr. Vandana Shiva, environmental activist and seed defender, spearheading the movement, was interviewed by the International Permaculture Day, speaking of “the importance of seed sovereignty as the basis for permanent (sustainable) agriculture and about the grave and growing threat of patented seeds to life, diversity and freedom.”

For more information about the movement and on how to participate:

http://seedfreedom.in/seed-freedom-fortnight/

By Nikolai Huckle

01.10.2012

iLand’s 2012 iLAB Resident Update – Follow the Water Walks

Follow The Water Walks will host members of the Bronx community (NY, USA) in an interactive walk from the top of the watershed in East Tremont to the Bronx River. During the week of October 15, along the way they will explore water flow, game-play and the body as an instrument for mapping and measurement.

For more information about participating in this event, write to info [at] ilandart [dot] org and visit http://followthewaterwalks.wordpress.com

By Sacha Kagan

20.09.2012

launch of ADRIFT – a new project by Cape Farewell

Tom Chivers – Cape Farewell’s Climate Poet-in-Residence

Art and climate change organisation Cape Farewell is launching ADRIFT – an interrogation of climate as culture, devised by Cape Farewell’s poet in residence, Tom Chivers (in London, UK). They invite the public for a drink, performance and short film, as Tom Chivers maps the natural territories written into urban space. Free admission. Read more »

By Sacha Kagan

19.09.2012

Cartographies Of Hope: Change Narratives

Gallery DOX – Prague – Nov. 2012 to Feb. 2013

“In the last few years we have witnessed how the corrosion of the three main modes of social imaginary that defined modernity – the market economy, the public sphere, and the self-government of citizens – has reached a critical point. As a result, the increasing number of people in different fields, social scientists, artists, public intellectuals, and activists are calling for rethinking and reinventing social change. Such voices, however, are too often fragmented in their respective boundaries, and, consequently, they have not yet been able to articulate a compelling alternative metanarrative that the public would identify with and which would thus result in a major positive change.

The project Cartographies of Hope: Change Narratives was born out of the sense of urgency and the effort to address this situation. It seeks to bring attention to this condition and to call for joint effort to identify alternatives we can agree. The premise of the project is that narratives of social imaginary play a key role in generating positive changes. Social change is always seen as a certain story, which then becomes an important driver of the change itself. This double function of reflection and agency constitutes a methodological core of the project.”

More information on the project webpage

By Sacha Kagan

18.09.2012

iLand’s 2012 iLAB Resident Update – Higher E.D.

On Sunday September 23 from 11 am – 5 pm, the public can join Higher E+D  (Ecology and Dance) to gather aerial data with kites/balloons and field data through dancing bodies.
Meet Lailye Weidman, Jess Einhorn and Liz Barry at Governor’s Island and travel to Lower Manhattan (NY, USA) with Higher E+D for a day of kite-mapping and dance based weather observation.  Wear clothes for moving (and possibly getting dirty), bring plenty of water, a notebook and pack a picnic lunch. Contact HigherED12 [at] gmail [dot] com for more information.    
The ferry to Governor’s Island runs every half hour from Brooklyn and Manhattan. http://govisland.com
More information at http://higher-e-d.tumblr.com
By Sacha Kagan

13.09.2012

Sideways – Moving On

Upon arrival after a four week journey, the Moving On symposium investigates wayfaring as an artistic and spatial practice.

14-15 September 2012 – De Lieteberg, Zuurbroekstraat 16, 3690 Zutendaal, Belgium

Sideways is a translocal, experimental festival for contemporary art and cultural research, exploring non-motorized paths and trails folded into the spaces of everyday life. This first-time event unfolds ‘in the open’ and ‘on the go’. The backbone of the festival is a 4 week expedition on foot through Belgium, from West to East, between August 17th and September 17th 2012. In resonance with the artistic program, the Moving On symposium provides a collaborative meeting ground at the crossroads of contemporary art, the study of mobilities and sustainability, experimental geography, spatial praxis and urban or rural activism. Read more »

By Sacha Kagan