on converting a spruce plantation into a forest & other projects that inspire, by Cathy Fitzgerald
From the category archives:
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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‘Almost anything you do will seem insignificant,
but it is very important that you do it‘ M. Ghandi
It’s funny how things can come together so quickly. Last weekend I was looking at all the people across the globe coming together to mark the 350 global day of climate change awareness and still thinking, I should be [...]
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The first ‘forest to fuel’ meeting organised by the Transition Town group FutureProof Kilkenny and Glas last week turned out to be a good event with much local interest. Contributions were made from Glas on German woodburners and gasifiers. I made a short presentation about how my art project is documenting our transformation of our [...]
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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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our new baby Ash forest is coming up!, originally uploaded by CathyArt.
Our forest floor is now covered with tiny green seedlings, our free future forest. We are finding it hard to walk now and not squash any but they’ll keep coming up next year too.
From all the seedlings appearing, we know it’s going to be [...]
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Hi all,
Just found out that my film that I made for Biodiversity week 2008 Burning Bright, has been selected for the Carlow 2009 Eigse Film programme. Yay!!! I know some of you watched this film as it was selected earlier this year for the Green Party’s youtube film festival and asked me how it go [...]
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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
