on converting a spruce plantation into a forest & other projects that inspire, by Cathy Fitzgerald
From the category archives:
Some of you may have heard my news? I will be continuing my experiments in film-making about Close to Nature permanent forestry on a different level. I will be starting a PhD in film practice and theory on ecology at NCAD (National College of Art & Design, Ireland) this September!
Just to recap, I started working [...]
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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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Above: 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 [...]
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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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‘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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Do you look at posters when you are in a new place? I do and I happened across this great poster in Ljubljana recently. Don’t you agree that the strongest message can sometimes be said with the simplest of materials.
I wasn’t surprised at all that this poster by Gaja Mežnarič Osole of Slovenia, gained a [...]
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I thought you might like to see the work of someone who wrote to me on my blog; these are his recent August sketches. Jones is an artist, poet, thinker, organic gardener, composter, father– and interested in looking deeply into the nature of his local environment and in earlier work, urban surroundings. I don’t [...]
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“The only thing that can save the world is the reclaiming of the awareness of the world. That’s what poetry does.” – Allen Ginsberg
I’ve been caught up lately doing too much work but in odd moments I slip the words ‘art and ecology’ into search engines for other art forms to get a bit [...]
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Sometimes I still am taken surprise by the power of art. Quite a few of you will know that I work quite intensively on a 5 county programme supporting artists of all stripes, www.artlinks.ie – it doesn’t leave much time to consider my own practice, let alone time to experience the work of others. I [...]
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Hi everyone,
As you know we had our small spruce wood thinned in January – over 200 trees were felled and that created large piles of branches all around our site. I’m talking piles of organic material about 5 feet high in places! Obviously you can leave some to decay naturally, as seen in my previous [...]
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follow me on twitter/ecoartnotes
My art & ecology notebook documents a SLOW ART project. It's an ongoing diary in images, short films; conversations between myself, foresters, our local community & beyond, detailing an example of how we are turning our small monoculture spruce plantation into an ecologically & economically, permanent real FOREST.
I am also interested in using film to convey personal stories of small backyard environmental actions in response to global ecological concerns. I am developing a personal, poetic narrative film-making style, that while documentary in certain aspects, allows a larger range of ideas and emotions to be presented, in contrast to standard nature documentaries.
My project 'the Holly Wood Diaries'has allowed me to create two experimental film sketches, 'burning bright' (08) and 'once i counted birds' (09) and builds on previous stories with beginner foresters and their young trees/new woodlands in the more traditionally styled documentary film 'the local project revisited', 2006
I also write about other eco-art works that inspire me & which may be inspire others.
rsa art & ecology blog Nils L. Elliot: Mediating Nature
