The Ten Commandments (2007) ‘What is new about this? I say; nothing really, except underlining that environment is a question of morality. Humanity in our time, should be expressed in our relationship with nature and our environment. Concerning the survival of mankind, it is the most acute moral battle we must go through’ Tea Mäkipää
Just thinking about the 40th anniversary of Earth Day today. Its encouraging to see it coincide with the colourful and alternative World People’s Conference on Climate Change (see the blog here http://pwccc.wordpress.com/ being held in Cochabamba, Bolivia this week. This conference of 15 000 people, led by well known environmentalists such as Bill McKibben of www.350.org campaign, leading climate scientists such as Jim Hansen, hundreds of NGO’s, Holly Wood stars and of course Bolivia’s indigenous leader Evo Morales, who are all aiming to capture the voices of indigenous people’s, third world countries, their concerns about their diminishing or abused natural resources, biodiversity and cultural loss and the climate effects they are and will increasingly have to deal with, even though they have been little responsible for these issues. So many of these voices asking for climate justice were not heard at Copenhagen. It seems that later in the year that is also a growing worldwide grassroots effort to show politicians that the world is taking actions, on 10/10/2010, that is 10:10:10 (see more at www.350.org). I asked the other half if he was going to do another cande-lit vigil…. I know I’m already thinking of some ideas
It can be hard though to relate to global concerns so far away. In my own art practice, my interest in permanent close to nature forestry in my backyard, is my small action towards acknowledging global concerns. Yet, sometimes one feels one needs to consider more – to become more aware of the daily choices one makes in one’s art practice and life, which are all connected. Recently many cultural organisations overseas (not in Ireland as far as I’m aware) have been talking about creating space for the creative community to start to think about climate change but there is much debate that that one cannot or should not instruct how the cultural sector works. However, I met an Finnish, German based artist Tea Mäkipää, in Copenhagen though who hasn’t any hesitancy in dealing directly with this in her own work. Her 10 commandments project (2007) above, translated into many different languages I think should be pinned upon all studio walls, don’t you think! I’m going to try to keep the commandments as best I can by pinning it to my studio door`for this the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. (Do also checkout Tea’s latest work, many of her other projects are really interesting such as her new Eden project http://tea-makipaa.eu)
and here’s Green Peace’s film for Earth Day 2010 – I’ll dedicate it to Karine and Trish, dance/body artist friends – doesn’t the use of the body connect us in a way that is often overlooked.
And for all of you not interested in any of the above, there is one small action that you might like to consider. Try a green search engine like Ecosia – where every search goes towards a small contribution to a WWF (World Wide Fund For Nature) project and you get to see personally how many square metre of rainforest you are helping protect. I’m up to about 500m squared, I can see this at the bottom of my screen and it grows every day. ‘Ecosia is an eco-friendly Internet search engine backed by Yahoo, Bing and the WWF. It basically works like any other search engine but, unlike others, Ecosia gives at least 80% of its advertising revenue to a rainforest protection program run by the WWF’. Every new Ecosia user saves about 2,000m² (2,392yd²) each year.
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