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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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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Aren’t things all a bit late this year?
Still Spring at any time is pretty marvellous – I finally got a new camera, something similar in size to a camera I borrowed some years ago. So last Easter Saturday, straight out of the box, I went outside and had a little Wordsworth minute. Hope you like [...]
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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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Another Place’ (2007)- ‘there is a strong connection between the desire for survival and the art of a people and a time. We have a task in hand. Culture in the developed western world has always positioned itself in distinction to nature: now we have to discover our nature within nature.’
‘But it is also my [...]
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Above: Key cultural organisations present at the inaugural Culture|Futures Conference at COP15: National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, 2009
Update: new 2010 British Council Document on Art & Climate Change : includes Cultural Policy & Regulatory Guidelines, see end of post
Finally completed this article on my visit to the first international culture and climate change [...]
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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’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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‘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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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
