I found the following UK published book (found in the Barcelona modern art museum) a real insight to the growing numbers of art & ecology projects that are hap
pening around the world. There are too few books that investigate this area in any depth, so a real find! Highly recommended.
Land, Art: a Cultural Ecology Handbook presents a compendium of texts, dialogues and collaborations by and among ecologists, economists, cultural theorists, activists and art writers that extend from the notions of land, cultural production and the emergencies of 21st century. Reproductions of existing artworks by and original contributions from international practitioners – as well as artists on-the-page ‘studio visits’, for example – will explore art’s varied modes of response – from detached crisis commentaries to engaged activist solutions.
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Tagged as: art and ecology, environmental artists, land, theory
- Giant Kelp Spiral -land art by Alan Price (2009)
‘I am neither an artist or an ecologist but I have imagination and am interested in how things are linked in natural systems. The attached photo might sum it up!! Giant kelp washed up on a beach in Northern California – I just moved it around a bit! The kelp beds are under threat due to increasing sea temperatures. The people I met in the States recently did not seem too concerned or even aware of the problem. We just don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone - as Jonie says’ - Alan Price, Co. Carlow
I’ve joined/created groups on several online art/ecology/culture networks. Mostly I find these networks great for news and upcoming exhibitions /events. They are also handy after an event, as most people post a profile image on their page so its a good reminder of who’s who and what people are interested in/or what work they are doing.
I was at the first meeting of the Transition Town Ireland subgroup for their social online network last year. I’m a co-administrator on the site, not that I’m that active in the administration at the moment. However, over a year ago I started a group on Art & Ecology and another one on Close to Nature Forestry. The Art & Ecology subgroup of the TransitionTown Ireland site is the biggest on the network, with the Forest group running not too far behind.
On the Art & Ecology group I’ve brought in info (an RSS feed) from the UK RSA Art & Ecology programme blog that is updated frequently by excellent cultural journalist/writer, Will Shaw, and I post news there from time to time. I wouldn’t say there is huge amounts of activity yet but a nice thing is starting to happen. People are starting to post images of their work to share across this new cyber community, and I’m hoping this post might encourage others to do the same.
First up was a contribution from my friend Alan, who is more interested in environmental politics than art. He surprised me by putting up this great photo of a work he created at the beach – he’s really drawing with kelp!
The next image above is by Fergus Cronin from Co Clare. I met Fergus over lunch at the said TransitionTownIreland meeting in Dublin last year. After chatting about the joys of setting up local groups and all the hard work that it can be, I asked Fergus what he was interested in. Admist of lot of other activities he admitted had quite a background in performance art. He then went onto describe a land art project that meant a lot to him and I encouraged him months ago to post it up on the site. He just sent me a note on the group last week with a photo of this work and I think its quite profound. Like Alan, Fergus ‘drew’ with natural materials, this time though, with manure! ‘Home‘ is a great piece, particularly in light of how we all need reminding that earth is our only home! This work also shows an artist with great sensitivity to his local place while also considering just the use of natural materials and process to make the work; an example of deep ecology perhaps?
- ‘Home’ by Fergus Cronin
I wrote the word ‘home’ in my field using manure. The letters are about 30 feet long and this photo was taken by climbing a telegraph pole on the road by the field. I made the work in December 04, and took this photo two and a half years later in May 07.
So what about you? Its free and easy to submit your favorite image to the Art & Ecology group at TransitionTown (TT)Ireland – Sign Up on the home page here. TT is now global movement giving people knowledge and skills to thrive locally and resourcefully in these times of peak oil and climate change and culture is a very important part of how we will encourage our communities to envision/respond to new ideas. Membership is free. If this group doesn’t suit, see the other Art/Culture & Ecology networks on my Links (on the right hand side of my home page). All these sites are easy to use social media sites like Facebook, so you can also post films, events, articles and re-tweet interesting things that you find! Looking forward to seeing your latest efforts soon.
Tagged as: art and ecology, land art, online networks, social media
Listening to a talk at MOOT V (a series of Art talks, t![]()
his one on Art & the Environment – hosted by the Kilkenny Arts Office and the Butler Gallery, in Dec 07), I was impressed by a talk by Irish environmental communication consultant, Gavin Harte.
Sitting in the audience I listened as he described how the effect of badly communicating enviromental ideas has meant societyas a whole been dangerously slow to react to environmental concerns ( he had a great clip in his talk from the Simpsons, to illustrate his ideas; it shows Homer going through all the stages of reacting, denying, accepting and acting on bad news – Homer had been told he had cancer). Generally in regards to environmental ‘bad news’, most of society seems to be stuck in the denial stage.
Gavin had done some work for the UK agency Futerra, the chief Environmental Communications advisors to the UK government. They have come up with a clear and simple set of RULES for conveying environmental ideas.
As an someone who has worked on an an art – ecology project, many of the rules seemed critical not only in effectively engaging people for the need for change in general, but to keep in mind if one is attempting an art & ecology project – in which you wish to ultimately engage an audience (and maybe even inspire change). While listening, I was mentally checking and assessing my own project, ‘the local project’. Hooray, I seemed to have touched on a lot of these rules already, thank god for gut instinct and trial and error. But sometimes its easy to forget what has worked before so I decided to write to Gavin afterwards and get a copy (they look good in pink too!).
The RULES are actually free to download from Futerra, so do pass them on.
Tagged as: art and ecology, Eco Art Rules, environmental artists, Environmental Communication
Dr Paul O’Brien, Lecturers at National College of Art, Dublin, has reviewed the current climate of art, ecology and politics in the latest issue of CIRCA, Ireland’s visual culture magazine.
Paul summarises a number of artists working in this area, among them the Newton-Harrisons and Ukeles, people I read about some time ago. Great article and timely for the project I am involved with.
Will add more later, but great surprise to see my work in this area listed! Read circa article
still from the ‘local project’ community film by C.Fitzgerald in Circa 08Tagged as: art & ecology, art and ecology artists, art and ecology theory, politics, sociology
A big hooray for all those that have been wondering when attention on ecological problems like climate change would seriously be examined in the Arts . The long established UK organisation, the Royal Society of Arts, has been making sterling efforts to both profile the few and encourage more arts practitioners to start looking at these issues and has launched its web and artists hub-site today. For me, its also exciting to see they are embracing all the web 2.0 innovations they can, so I expect to shortly be able to connect and interact with other artists from around the world through their portal site. I can say I have benefitted in my own work by listing my endeavours on blogs and youtube etc. Its funny, perhaps its not having the time with the day job, but these days I’m more interested in connecting with my online audience than exhibiting in white gallery spaces.
In fact, when my work was picked up on youtube earlier this year, by two curators who’d seen my films on community forestry and who were organising the first youtube film festival in London, I afterwards plucked up the courage to knock on the RSA’s door as I very excited by their new publication in this area. 
Their excellent book overviewing artists working on art and ecology projects from all over the world I talked about earlier in the year on this blog. To recap, since 1999, when I was researching art & ecology projects for my college thesis, works in this area has been surprisingly amiss. In fact I had got used to bookshops and libraries having very few books on art and the environment, if you were lucky you’d see dusty 1970s books on ‘land art’, often depicting very destructive interventions into the environment like that awful but widely acclaimed ’spiral jetty’. Where have artists heads been all that time?
Anyway, some of you might like to sign up for their enews, subscribe to their blog feeds etc, they are starting to post opportunities and projects for all arts practitioners working in this area.
Look at all of this below, you can imagine I’ll be in like flynn, if the day job spins (I’d also like to thank my NCAD professor, John Turpin, who years ago had talked about the RSA, the lovely buildings house some great irish paintings by James Barry, but as luck would have it, I arrived on a day when they didn’t have tours)
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Tagged as: Arts & Ecology, RSA
