on converting a spruce plantation into a forest & other projects that inspire, by Cathy Fitzgerald
From the category archives:
Part of my interest in creating films with an ecological theme is also observing how such films can travel, online and across the world. Film festivals dedicated solely to ecological concerns are a recent enough phenomena and its interesting that many are mimicking the short online film and social networked formats that you see used [...]
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My work attempts to blur the already ambiguous boundaries between environmental art and ecological research. When initiating a project I often solicit technological or theoretical information from field biologists, or zoological organizations. In other cases, I have collaborated with scientists to create a work. As an artist involved in wildlife preservation, global [...]
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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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‘The aim of the drawing is to move the discussion of sustainability from a very general and abstract opinion, to more direct prisms of interaction between people. In that, the experiment is in watching the move from problem calling to solutions, creations, or expressions. The main element is the “flower of [...]
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One of the biggest problems in trying to engage people about climate change is that it’s a very abstract idea. Apart from all the controversy at the moment that is distracting attention and understanding from the very worrying facts gathered by thousands of the world’s leading scientists, it still remains very far removed from people’s [...]
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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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Please, pour yourself a cup of tea and join us . . .
We are out in the streets promoting peace, justice, social and economic equality through song and humour
Just a little something for International Women’s day later this week (8 March), a bit of music from the Canada-led 15 year plus phenomenon, the now International [...]
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24 Feb 10: Update, here’s my story on creative climate
I was fortunate to meet Dr. Joe Smith and one of his post graduate students at Copenhagen. They work for the Open University in the UK and Joe has created a 10 year project to collect all our stories about working to help the environment, to [...]
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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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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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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
