Giant Kelp Spiral -land art by Alan Price (2009)
alan price ‘I am neither an artist or an ecologist but I have imagination and am interested in how things are linked in natural systems. The attached photo might sum it up!! Giant kelp washed up on a beach in Northern   California – I just moved it around a bit! The kelp beds are under threat due to increasing sea temperatures. The people I met in the States recently did not seem too concerned or even aware of the problem. We just don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone - as Jonie says’ -  Alan Price, Co. Carlow

I’ve joined/created groups on several online art/ecology/culture networks. Mostly I find these networks great for news and upcoming exhibitions /events. They are also handy after an event, as most people post a profile image on their page so its a good reminder of who’s who and what people are interested in/or what work they are doing.

I was at the first meeting of the Transition Town Ireland subgroup for their social online network last year. I’m a co-administrator on the site, not that I’m that active in the administration at the moment. However, over a year ago I started a group on Art & Ecology and another one on Close to Nature Forestry. The Art & Ecology subgroup of the TransitionTown Ireland site is the biggest on the network, with the Forest group running not too far behind.

On the Art & Ecology group I’ve brought in info (an RSS feed) from the UK RSA Art & Ecology programme blog that is updated frequently by excellent cultural journalist/writer, Will Shaw, and I post news there from time to time. I wouldn’t say there is huge amounts of activity yet but a nice thing is starting to happen. People are starting to post images of their work to share across this new cyber community, and I’m hoping this post might encourage others to do the same.

First up was a contribution from my friend Alan, who is more interested in environmental politics than art. He surprised me by putting up this great photo of a work he created at the beach – he’s really drawing with kelp!

The next image above is by Fergus Cronin from Co Clare. I met Fergus over lunch at the said TransitionTownIreland meeting in Dublin last year. After chatting about the joys of setting up local groups and all the hard work that it can be, I asked Fergus what he was interested in. Admist of lot of other activities he admitted had  quite a background in performance art. He then went onto describe a land art project that meant a lot to him and I encouraged him months ago to post it up on the site. He just sent me a note on the group last week with a photo of this work and I think its quite profound.  Like Alan, Fergus ‘drew’ with natural materials, this time though, with manure! ‘Home‘ is a great piece, particularly in light of how we all need reminding that earth is our only home! This work also shows an artist with great sensitivity to his local place while also considering just the use of natural materials and process to make the work; an example of deep ecology perhaps?

Home land art by Fergus Cronin
‘Home’ by Fergus Cronin

I wrote the word ‘home’ in my field using manure. The letters are about 30 feet long and this photo was taken by climbing a telegraph pole on the road by the field. I made the work in December 04, and took this photo two and a half years later in May 07.

So what about you? Its free and easy to submit your favorite image to the Art & Ecology group at TransitionTown (TT)Ireland – Sign Up on the home page here. TT is now global movement giving people knowledge and skills to thrive locally and resourcefully in these times of peak oil and climate change and culture is a very important part of how we will encourage our communities to envision/respond to new ideas.  Membership is free. If this group doesn’t suit, see the other Art/Culture & Ecology networks on my Links (on the right hand side of my home page). All these sites are easy to use social media sites like Facebook, so you can also post films, events, articles and re-tweet interesting things that you find! Looking forward to seeing your latest efforts soon.

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Best green films, Avatar and more

January 19, 2010
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Try to imagine a major Hollywood blockbuster in which a U.S. Army pilot hijacks a Marine Corps Blackhawk helicopter to shoot down fellow U.S. choppers in order to protect indigenous people fighting to save their rain forest from U.S. oil interests. Don’t think that could happen? Think again. It just did, says Harold Linde, Environmentalist and [...]

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Converting a spruce plantation into a forest, year 2 (2009)

January 16, 2010
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Things have been busy in our woodland over the last year and the year ended in a dramatic fashion with a storm from the east that saw 10 of trees come down (four more have to come down as they are leaning precariously – if you are coming to visit don’t dawdle on the driveway!).
Over [...]

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'i hear of press conferences of petitions, of signatures of campaigns & lobbying but no words will come'

December 21, 2009
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Cecil Rangendra reading at Culture | Futures 2009

The lines in the heading are a quote from an amazingly heartfelt poem Requiem for a Rainforest by celebrated Malaysian poet/lawyer, Cecil Rajendra. Cecil read it during the keynote presentations at the first Culture |Futures Symposium at the UN Climate summit, Cop15.
I went up to him later to [...]

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Vigil for Climate Justice on Mt Leinster joins others across the world

December 15, 2009

I’ve been back a few days from Copenhagen and the Cultures | Futures symposium. It was a great experience to be in one place with so many different perspectives on how the cultural communities / practitioners / arts councils and international arts bodies from around the world are joining together to discuss cultural responses to [...]

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Dancing to our Cultures-Futures today

December 6, 2009

I’m heading off to Copenhagen today – I am excited but also have mixed feelings as I see Copenhagen as only a beginning of serious debate and awareness about Climate Change. I was reading the editorial in the Guardian this morning, who sums it up better than I and the disapointing distraction that has arisen [...]

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My Paper Boat, Polar Bear and Talking Cat films head to Copenhagen

November 27, 2009

I was really delighted to hear this week, the winners of the 1minutetosavetheworld Climate Change Film competition and congratulations to all the organisers behind the scenes – the works are now spreading across the internet. I had only entered in the last week so didn’t expect to be placed but more importantly it gave me [...]

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Buy Nothing Day and the value of Art?

November 27, 2009

Several years ago, a comic artist/social activist, Ted Dave in Vancouver started the now global ‘Buy Nothing Day*’ which is today , November 27 in the US and November 28 Internationally.
Often it is hard to gauge the effect that the creative area can bring to important issues and that charge is now being laid more [...]

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Ghost Forest in London's Trafalgar Sqaure?

November 16, 2009

There is a growing list of cultural activities planned for the Copenhagen Climate Change summit in December, not so much in Ireland but more in the UK and Europe. See the RSA Arts for COP15 site for more info – you can join this site if you are creating work/exhibitions or just interested.
Probably the most [...]

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Suwarrow 'atoll is a living island'- Behind the scenes of 'once i counted birds' film

November 5, 2009

‘I have been aware of the sea as an enclosing presence, both sheltering and dangerous. But most important, I have noticed that the atoll (Suwarrow) belongs to the organic world; it is a living island’
RD Frisbie, ‘Island of Desire – the story of a South Seas Trader, 1944

Readers,
I have been overwhlemed by the response to [...]

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