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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Ever wondered what it might be like to live in a city that encourages people to reach their fullest creative potential? What would such a city look like? How would it feel to live in such a city? David Engwicht, artist, clown, writer and street philosopher, unpacks what [...]
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I am creating an archive of movement portraits of 10,000 plants and animals. This research lies at the intersection of embodied cognition, phenomenology, natural history, and performance. The Somatic Natural History Archive is a work of conceptual art and experiential geography research. Following direct physical encounters with plants and animals, I [...]
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A Hard Rains Gonna Fall -’It was a song of desperation. What could we do? Could we control the men who were on the verge of wiping us out. The words came fast – very fast. It was a song of terror. Line after line, trying to capture the feeling of nothingness.’ Bob Dylan. (Image [...]
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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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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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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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As I’ve mentioned previously, I follow Al Gore on twitter (this is the web service where people can send short text-length messages across the web to anyone who wishes to subscribe). Their short messages (tweets) come into my gmail, so I was working away late last week when I noticed a message come in from [...]
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Just thought I would post this as it’s happening in my work place next week. Mary (Kilkenny Arts Officer) and Jean (Education Curator, Butler Gallery, Kilkenny) have been working hard on the 2nd Moot event on Art and the Environment; the first event a year ago had some very useful info, particularly Gavin Harte letting [...]
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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
