I went up to him later to thank him for this poem and his reading and he was delighted to hear about Ireland – he’s been here in the past and was so taken back by the respect shown to poets in Ireland. Mind you, I think if Ireland really did respect poetry more it wouldn’t have got so caught up in the Celtic tiger’s uncontrolled building / banking crisis. Cecil’s ‘If Politicians were Trees’ (oh what a bonus it would be, if we, their constituents could hack them down each time they became a nuisance – if only politicians were trees!), ‘On Not Being Able to Write a Poem Celebrating the Erection of Another Multi-storyed Complex’ should be on the school poetry reading lists around the world, don’t you think. He later gave another short reading and I feel so lucky to have 2 of his books now Rags & Ragas and Dove on Fire: poems on peace, justice and ecology, as I often find good ecological poetry, particularly on forests, so hard to come by.

He has also read some beautiful rhymes he had created for his daughter, and which the child in all of us enjoyed. They are based on old nursery rhymes- instead of ‘London Bridge is falling down‘ he created ‘ All the trees are falling down, falling down…’., instead of Jack and Jill going up the hill, to get some water, his lines were ‘when they got to the hill ‘they found it bare and stripped of all vegetation… the last line was deliciously funny too ‘with no protection, from the sun’s radiation, Jack contracted skin cancer and Jill followed soon after’.

On reflecting on all that was not achieved for so many poor and vulnerable nations at Cop15, it was heartening to think afterwards how valuable Cecil’s voice has been in offering an alternative vision amongst the unrelenting social, justice and ecological crisis in his homeland. His poetry is universal too, as to a greater and lesser extent, the same crisis are happening throughout the world. And I was reminded too, of the power of art to prick and irritate the consciousness of those in power. I later discovered that when his poem Requiem for a Rainforest was published in the early 1990s, his passport was impounded due to his ‘anti-logging’ stance but after an international campaign it was later returned to him.

Cecil ‘s works have been published widely by WWF, UNESCO, Oxfam, Unicef, BBC, National Geographic and he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. As a London trained lawyer he returned to his homeland and started Malaysia’s first rural legal aid centre for farmers, fishermen and factory workers.

He also read this work: No Celebratory Song… I’ve quoted a few lines below from this poem, they resonate with how I, and I expect many of us feel at the moment, if we understand what wasn’t achieved in Copenhagen.

‘I shall sing no celebratory song

so long
as our rivers and streams
our oceans and trees
our birds, our fish
our butterflies and bees
are strangled, stifled
polluted, poisoned
crushed, condemned…
by lop-sided development’

Thank you Cecil and I hope Poetry Ireland will invite him back soon!

ate, I was the only representative from Ireland! At the next UN summit there is already a clear intent that this symposium will be centered in the main plenary sessions. Also don’t be

New UK Music Industry eco label

surprised in the near future that funding for your art project may require you to submit an eco statement (Julie’s Bicycle – an initiative to cut emissions across the UK Music creative industry is moving very fast to change many aspects of its energy consumption and its policies and initiatives (you’ll see it IG, Industry Green label on eco CD labelling and at future music festivals very soon) are being examined by other agencies right now).

All who are interested in Culture (the way we live in society); be it the arts as practitioners or cultural leading institutes, sports, faith groups, local authorities, are encouraged to join the now spiral level of activity that Culture | Futures is trying to promote at www.culturefutures.ning.com

I came back from Copenhagen to find my Martin trying to organise the only 350 Climate change vigil in the republic of Ireland, on Mt Leinster,  for the global day of solidarity during the Cop15 talks last Sat. We had about 30 attend, it was cold but clear and the stars and shooting stars (meteor shower that night) were a real bonus and a lot of us walked to the top of Mt Leinster to show support for nations already affected by climate chaos. We even managed to send some large paper lanterns into the night sky – surprising since Mt Leinster can often be so wet and windy. The poor turnout shows that most in Ireland have little interest or understanding of climate justice, or know that there is only a 10 year window in which we must act to reduce global carbon emissions and prevent run away climate chaos. In fact, I think a highlight for me was in the key note presentation for Future | Cultures that a photograph of Bangledesh floods was shown next to a photograph of Ireland’s recent floods. I wish I could show Ireland how it now been seen overseas as a nation affected by climate change. As a country, I think we can be nowhere near  80%  of our population understanding what climate change means – as in Sweden.  In Ireland, we have so loved to hate the green sustainable message in our past decade of relentless economic growth.

Here’s some images from Mt Leinster and a new 350 video showing people from around the world gathering last Sat 12 Dec 2009; my sister helped organise a Vigil at Durham Uni, UK  and I heard today from another friend of a small Vigil in the centre of Ljubljana. Tomorrow, Wed 16, is the planned day of non-violent protest in Copenhagen.

People ascend Mt Leinster with their torches

people gather to release paper lanterns

Martin lighting one of the lanterns

I’m going to attend the cultural side of Copenhagen summit - the first international symposium focussed on thinking of policy ideas to provide a framework to increase cultural engagement with ecological issues, see www.culturefutures.org (follow on Facebook, twitter if you are interested, the programme is also there). Many have questioned why the cultural sector has been slow to connect with such issues. I know I have been always been very surprised how few in fine art circles until very recently have engaged with these concerns. Is it a major fault in our cultural education institutions or perhaps as leading eco artist Agnes Denes has said, it’s more the the dangerous result that dividing our knowledge into specialist areas has created.  I know for instance that having worked in science has been  important in my art as  it allowed me to engage with ecological issues so much more confidently. However,  I think it can be also too easy to overlook all the online cultural activity that has helped engage thousands in grass roots climate change initiatives. Bill McKibben, initiator of the global climate change 350 movement was always very aware of the role of cultural producers, or as the Danish are calling us ‘cultural agents’, see one of his early 350 articles http://www.grist.org/article/mckibben-imagine/. McKibben’s own writing has been hugely influential; I recently picked up a copy of Walden and McKibben’s introduction was probably the best thing I’ve read in ages. Rob Hopkins, an former artist and founder of the hugely influential TransitionTowns movement, is also very aware that cultural reponses are part of how society will engage and imagine a new future. Actually, I think the Transition movement is a case study in point for the Culture Futures programme – I will be reporting back.

There were a few things that inspired me over the last week, I saw the movie Home at FutureProofKilkenny Green Screen film series programme (Kilkenny, Ireland’s Transition Group), art again. I had seen clips of Home on youtube and I thought it might be just stunning images  (as I had known of Yann Bertrand’s work previously, he has in the past taken amazing still images of the world, all from the air) set to a nice orchestral score but it was breathtaking in its scope and perspective about how our very recent industrial age has in just 150 years created so much devastation leading to climate chaos. Sitting in an audience in Ireland with the worst floods in living memory affecting so many in the last few weeks and more predicted, it was hard not to feel that Ireland is facing up to the fact it is now part of this story too. It is a long film but I haven’t seen a film that encompasses such a world view at one time – note, I like slow films and if you don’t check out the equally excellent, Age of Stupid. Best of all I thought, was that I was sitting next to an Art manager and she instantly bought a copy. Why isn’t this film on TV, all the time??

Here’s a link to home and to some dance . Along with film-making, it’s another thing I do too rarely these days.

PS my Martin is organising the as yet only 350 vigil for climate change in the republic of Ireland on the top of Mt Leinster on Sat 12 Dec. All are welcome but bring that wet weather gear! Click here for more details http://www.350.org/node/12982

The competition had been going since early 2009 so in the end I think 170 films were submitted from around the world. Why I’m really delighted is my favourite was also the judges favourite – My Paper Boat made by Indian film-maker, Arun Bose. In fact, I had written a couple of times to Arun over the last weeks of the competition, saying how fitting I thought his piece might be for Copenhagen- it has no dialogue. ‘Your film, particularly as it conveys its message without words and incorporates the people and lands who will be most affected in such an imaginative, poetic way is really great and I think it’s a great strategy for the international audience who will not have to have the work translated. I think myself that slow, poetic means can be a rather subversive act in these days of so much images and noise’.

Anyway, it was brilliant that the judges also agreed so here it is for you to enjoy.

I’ve also added the runner-up, which was my Martin’s favourite, Bear in Mind and I expect it’s a favourite with many others. Then, there is the Talking Cat video - Cat’s Against Climate Change- I couldn’t for the life of me understand why it was short-listed but apparently it was being viewed as a good example of a viral video. I’ve since found out that  it has already been viewed by 108,756 viewers on YouTube!! Silly me, I had forgotten, when I first started looking at YouTube, how it is littered with funny cat video’s – so the maker cleverly played on this strategy to engage internet audience on climate change and I have to agree, it is a very nice looking cat. There are other winners, do see the 1minutetosavetheworld site and do share your favourites along your networks before the Climate summit.

Anyway, I hope to see some of these films in Copenhagen, as I now find myself in the very fortunate position of being able to attend an international 3 day Art and Ecology policy symposium Cultures/Futures*, held during the climate talks. Culture, as well as politics, will be important in bringing about awareness of climate change issues across the world. I will be reporting back in between snacking on Danish pastries and looking as much art as I can.

* Culture | Futures: The aim of the is to address the strategic role of culture in delivering an Ecological Age. This will be explored through engaging with new ideas and concepts; sharing lessons learned, best practices and policies; and exploring visions for innovative collaborations, action research and development.

Culture|Futures will provide the global platform for communication and dialogue between cultural actors. It will also encourage cooperation between leading cities on ways to develop comprehensive cultural actions as our world population becomes increasingly more and more urbanized. Finally, Culture|Futures will engender a collaboration between research centres and networks supporting the creation of an evidence base of best practice to support the work of cultural practitioners.

Often it is hard to gauge the effect that the creative area can bring to important issues and that charge is now being laid more frequently in front of individual artists and the wider arts community in regards to climate change and many other connected issues such as consumerism.

Find a new use for your credit card today!

Single artists/artworks can have profound effects across our culture, it’s hard not to think of the late German Joseph Beuys for e.g., a giant in the contemporary fine art world but who was also a founding member of the first Green Party, now the most quickly growing political party in Europe.

But Art is not like other areas of human activity that we can define or measure and creators march to a myriad of ideas and expressions. Their artworks connection with their audience, at a particular time, can not be easily calculated or predicted and nor it should they be – art’s greatest asset is it’s mystery, surprise and its power to connect and inspire. The only thing we must do is ensure support for our artists’ development so our cultural responses will be strong, rich and imaginative enough to respond to today’s challenges.

PS Apple has its one day sale today in Ireland, just the day before the Europe 2009 Buy Nothing Day -  phew, I bet it was relieved  it hadn’t coincided with Buy Nothing Day.

* excerpt from Wikipedia: The first Buy Nothing Day was organized in Vancouver in September 1992 “as a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption.”^[2] In 1997, it was moved to the Friday after American Thanksgiving, also called “Black Friday”, which is one of the 10 busiest shopping days in the United States. Outside North America and Israel, Buy Nothing Day is the following Saturday. Adbusters faced censorship from major television networks and CNN was the only one to air their ads.^[3] Soon, campaigns started appearing in United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Austria, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, the Netherlands, France, and Norway. Participation now includes more than 65 nations.^[2]

Probably the most visually striking  and poignant work would have to be Angela Palmer’s Ghost Forest that appeared in London’s Trafalgar Square today and which will later be moved to  form a centrepiece exhibit during the Copenhagen Climate Summit. It’s stunning to think that an artwork is being used and inserted into the heart of a capital – often, it’s hard to judge how effective art can be in effecting change but this work is already hitting newspapers and the internet sites around the world.

Ghost Forest by Angela Palmer

Like all art, Ghost Forest can be appreciated or interpreted in many ways and on many levels – no response is right or wrong. Many observers will see the stumps as beautiful sculptural objects; others will perhaps see the installation as a scene of devastation – perhaps evoking Paul Nash’s rendering of the stark landscape of the First World War where only the splintered tree stumps remain in the devastated land. Others may see the tree stumps posited in the no-man’s land between the past and the future – the past representing the life and growth of these trees, their potential, and what they provided biologically for the planet; while the future may signal, for some, an imperilled world, as the consequences of deforestation continues apace – another ‘New World’. For others the installation may represent an overt piece of political activism – a call to arms. I am equally comfortable with all responses. Many thinkers maintain that all art is political; politics touches all aspects of our lives. Life is about politics. And art is about communication, often transmitting unpalatable truths. As one artist commented: ‘I don’t think artists can avoid being political. Artists are the proverbial canaries in the coal mine. When we stop singing, it’s a sure sign of repressive times ahead – Angela Palmer

 

I won’t be seeing Ghost Forest in Trafalgar but in Copenhagen!!!! I’ve decided to attend the Culture/Futures 3 day symposium of Art/Ecology and Policy from now to 2050. Though I thought at the beginning of the year I would love to be a witness to the Climate Change Summit, I didn’t think I had a good reason to travel. Never thought there would be a an indepth discussion on art and ecology so I am glad to be going to take part. Will be reporting back, so.

Thanks to all who wrote in and saw my film; it didn’t get short-listed but it brought me a lot of comments and ideas for future endeavours. It never really had a chance as its so hard to compete with films made or featuring children or cats? see the short list here. However, it seems they will be showing some films that didn’t make the short-list, so I’ll let you know if I see it on a street corner in Copenhagen.

RD Frisbie, ‘Island of Desire – the story of a South Seas Trader, 1944

Readers,

I have been overwhlemed by the response to my new film ‘once i counted birds’ for the UK Guardian’s 1minutetosavetheworld Climate Change Film Festival. Thank you all so very much for the great comments and emails. Here is some background to the film and this special place.

Below is a drawing I made from my art notebook that I took with me  on the trip in 2000. You can see that the atoll is literally made up of islets of coral, ever growing upwards, to literally form a great ‘circle in the sea’.

We visited and counted the birds on all the islets;  Suwarrow is an atoll in the Northern Group of the Cook Islands, about 800km NW of Rarotonga (the Cook Islands are in the middle of the south pacific, not that far from the equator, look above NZ on the map). The atoll is approx. 80 km in circumference,and 10km across (we took a small inflatable dinghy, which I nick-named ‘the Dawn Treader’ (after my love of the Narnia books) to carry out the survey work, on the yacht we hitched a lift on). We rarely crossed the lagoon however, after many warnings about seas suddenly becoming high and dangerous, not to mention its healthy shark population). In the drawing, you can see us crossing the lagoon, but in a much larger dinghy that a passing yacthing couple took us on. You can also see how we sailed up and around to get to Anchorage isle, our homebase isle for the trip).

This trip all came about because my New Zealand friend Rhys, a scientist who I had worked alongside at the agricultural research institute in the 1990′s, told me lots over the years about this unique atoll. Rhys had first become fascinated with Suwarrow after reading about the modern day NZ Robinson Crusoe, Tom Neale, who stayed alone on this unpeopled but bird/wildlife rich atoll for many years (An Island to Oneself, Tom Neale, 1966) but we never realised that one day that we would both visit and catalogue its bird population.

Here Rhys describes the rich history of the place in an article after our visit, that he wrote for the NZ Forest and Bird Journal, in 2001.

‘Described by Robert Louis Stevenson’s wife as ‘the most romantic island in the world,’ the motu (islets) that make up Suwarrow are small but have a history rich beyond their size. From ghosts of Spanish soldiers, through murder and mayhem, to a hide-out for German raiders during WWI, Suwarrow has for centuries provided the stuff of romance and an idyllic breeding ground for seabirds and turtles.  However, these days (in 2000) all is not well in this tropical paradise and a battle is looming…’    At that time neither Rhys and I were thinking of global warming and rising sea levels (though I did notice pamphlets in the local telecom office about it but it wasn’t on my radar, coming as I did from a country which is not under the same threat as pacific nations). Instead our survey was conducted against the very real threat at that time, that Suwarrow’s rich wildlife, including rare species, was going to be severly disturbed by commercial pearl farming in the lagoon.

We did the bird survey in 2000,  a repeat of a similar study that had been done 5 years previously; basically to highlight the rich and unique migratory seabird populations, that breed so successfully in Suwarrow since they are little disturbed by human interference.

Rhys later published our bird survey findings ‘The status of seabird colonies on the Cook Islands atoll of Suwarrow, R. Jones, Bird Conservation Int. (2001) 11:309-338 and I produced a very rough, 10 min un-narrated film that was later screened on Cook Island TV. Some years later, thankfully, and after much work by local activists, Suwarrow atoll was the statue of a Cook Island National Park.

The birds you see in my new film are ghost/fairy terns, brown boobies, red footed boobies, frigate birds, the long sea distance travelling red tail tropic bird and the rare and enormous Masked Booby (in fact we thought no Masked Boobies were breeding on the atoll. It wasn’t until the last week, just as we were finishing counting on one the motu, that we looked across and saw a large white object on the last motu left to study. More rubbish we thought, maybe it’s a large lump of polystyrene? Unfortunately a vast amount of rubbish drifts across the pacific and gets swept across the atoll in the hurricane seasons. Yet in fact, on coming closer, we discovered it was a pair of Masked Boobies and their chick -the chick was about 3 ft high!!. These enormous birds, with a huge wingspan had the motu to themselves and needed a good long runway of a beach just to takeoff – the parents were incredible fliers to watch. It was a thrill to discover them on our last counting day (we had been there for almost 2 months at that stage -  and we were getting a bit tired of the last remaining dried food we had brought with us in the four barrels of supplies we had).

I’ll just finish by saying what are my strongest memories of the visit were:

how small and unremarkable the islets looked, until you turned a corner and saw thousands of terns and frigate birds nesting (I had a the job of counting the ‘big’ birds, Rhys took the larger job of counting the smaller ones, it was working out perfectly until one day we found a motu covered with thousands of frigates, Rhys laughed for ages); coming right up to birds and having the amazing experience of being with animals that had no fear of humans; the constant scream of the terns crying ‘wideawake’; seeing all the wonderful sealife, turtles, parrot and puffer fish and some other, unidentified enormous fish-thing? that scared me  and Rhys right out of the water, still not sure what it was; always looking over my shoulder to check the junior sharks that hung around the edge of the lagoon weren’t coming up too close behind me; being so near the equator with the full moon so bright that it seemed we were in a black and white movie; seeing on the night of full moon, the sun set on one side of the lagoon and a few minutes later the moon rising; remembering the heat and humidity that killed any enthusiam of doing anything energetic in the middle of the day, like bird counting; going to bed at night, uneasily hearing the roar of the ocean against the reef, knowing full well that hurricanes, when they do strike can bring the ocean right over the islets as happened to the author Robert Frisbee and his children in the 1940′s – they survived as he tied his children to trees so they wouldn’t be swept away; eating my lunch and watching the numerous species of crabs crawl along about their business; trying not to think about how we were going to get off the island after our very lucky escape on our yacht voyage to Suwarrow – our yacht was hit by a freak wave and 50knot winds!! Our captain wrote later it was one of the worst passages he ever had – ‘sitting, sleeping, and living in the salty, spongey, rolling wetness – it sucked. But being new to sailling, Rhys and Cathy were superstars (they literally strapped me in so I wouldn’t get knocked about – don’t think I spoke much for 3 days after), and had the optimistic “at least we’re not dead attitude of veteran sailors’; and remembering on the last night, looking up at our wonderful Southern Cross, and the crabs in a line coming down to the beach and promising one day, to return again…

Notes:

Probably one of the most lyrical writers of this area and communities little touched by modern life was US born Robert Dean Frisbie but his books are rare and hard to find. The South Pacific has always attracted artists, writers and other searchers; I happened across a fantastically illustrated book recently on my last visit to NZ, ‘In Search of Paradise – artists and writers in the colonial south pacific’ by Graeme Lay, Godwit, 2008. You’ll find Frisbee, RL Stevenson, Gauguin and other well and lesser known artists, illustrators and writers who came to the South Pacific and NZ. A big retrospective of Gauguin work is coming to the Tate in London next year too (30 Sept 2010  –  16 Jan 2011).

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You can still vote for the film before 5pm on 6 Nov here (roll over the yellow stars below the film to vote). Please leave a comment if you like it too.

You can share it with your facebook friends here, and on twitter here

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 doing something.

Then a friend told me of the UK Guardian’s 1minutetosavetheworldfilm competition and I thought, right, this is something I could have a stab at. And hadn’t I for the last month been working on a micro-script for a new film piece and hadn’t I been digging out old Hi 8 footage and reading Mark Lynas book High Tide particularly the chapter where he describes the havoc rising seas are already having in some pacific regions. Still, it was a bit of an effort: I hadn’t made any work for a year and half, my editing skills, none too proficient in the first place, were pretty rusty and I only had 3/4 of the script done before bringing some of the footage into my pc and I had to the day job to contend with too. Still, the funny thing is, I sorta knew that the starting is the key and the ending would appear, if I EVER started.

The new work is all old footage, recycled even, from a rather special trip I did in 2000 to a very remote place. It conveys probably a lot of ideas that continually circle in my head and ideas that come and go when I’m in my own wood. Incidentally our spruce forest is amazing in a storm, if you close your eyes you could be in the midst of a crashing, angry ocean – when we lived in our old mobile home, it often used to shudder and shake like a boat too.

Here it is.

If you like it, do feel free to give it a vote here , if you have done so already, thank you! Voting continues until this Fri 6 November.

If you want to share it on Facebook so your friends can see it too, click here

The top 15 films (selected by both the public and the panel -who coincidentally consist of the aforementioned Mark Lynas and all out superhero Director of the Age of Stupid, Franny Armstrong, amongst others) get shown across the UK before the run up to the Copenhagen Climate Change summit in December and then taken to Copenhagen to be presented there (cor!). Mind you, I didn’t really realise this until well into making it, as I just got it in before the deadline. It’s also fantastic to see the wealth of ideas from all over the globe who have entered the competition.

The big win for me already was something I had forgotten, that deadlines are in fact ‘lifelines’ for creative work. It was also a bit odd to make something so new, then hit a button and have so many see something that I thought people might not understand. I am already a bit bewildered by the many positive comments and how people seem to connect with the beauty and ideas that I was trying to juggle. Perhaps my mum is right, the poetic can connect more than you think, she put it like this, ‘you will catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a barrel of vinegar’ and I think she is right aboukt this too, ‘you should be making lots more films!’ Thanks Mum xxx.

photo courtesty of www.350.org

Great to see my fellow Kiwis up and about so early – see www.350.org for the biggest international effort to wake up the world to the need to push for strong policy action ahead of the UN Copenhagen Climate talks in Dec. Huge amount of creative ideas by people’s across the globe now – are you involved?

I love this one by OxfamNZ, I’ve been thinking a lot about the south pacific recently – I was once fortunate to visit the Cook islands, one of the many, many island nations under threat of rising sea levels

Mr. Tony Killeen TD, Irish Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food with responsibility for forestry, presented the 2009 RDS/Forest Service Irish Forestry Awards, with Jan Alexander

I was fortunate in recent weeks to be sent as a delegate to the 20th anniversary celebration and conference on Pro Silva Europe in Slovenia. Pro Silva foresters methods are still viewed as radical by mainstream forestry but the long term and wide ranging benefits in regards to biodiversity, climate change as well as steadily increasing forests economic value with sustained employment opportunities, now see Pro Silva organisations reaching across 27 European countries. On its 20th anniversary all Pro Silva foresters from these countries were challenged to push their knowledge and practice of ecologically and economically sustainable forestry to the wider public, to their countries’ political process and to realise that this type of forestry will become an important and significant part of the sustainable ‘green infrastructure’  needed now in all countries. Jan has always easily reached across to both to the general public and professional foresters to show by practical example (Pro Silva organises forest open days around Ireland with visiting european Pro Silva experts)  a new vision of forestry.   I know she was delighted that perhaps this award will bring more attention to this type of forestry management across Ireland.

It was great to see other Pro Silva members in attendance at the RDS Awards. Journalist, forestry advocate and past RDS forestry award winner, Joe Barry and a member from Mayo, Eugene McCartan – we saw slides of Eugene’s forest and I can see it will be visited by Pro Silva members in the future.

Just a final comment – it was great to see the diversity of work behind the people winning awards- there are 2 main categories, one for successful Farm Forestry and one for excellence in creating forests for Biodiversity.  Among the winners was a person involved with a new mushroom industry in his forest who was working with researchers in Limerick University. It was also great to see for the first time an award going to a Local Authority (Kerry) for managing a forest so well. Also, recent head of the Forest Service, Diarmuid McAree was presented with a special award for his long contribution to the industry. Read more in the Irish Examiner  here on the award winners.

The long running RDS Forestry Awards are a measure of the excellence of forestry practiced in the country and those of you with trees should all enter in the future!