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Art and altruism..

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Sustainable Practice: Reconciling Art and Effective Altruism | Kev Nemelka | TEDxBerkleeValencia

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A project in San Francisco using recycled materials

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San Francisco Artists Make Art From Trash

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The environmental artist discussing his work.

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Rivers and Tides. Full length film about this inspirational environmental artist.

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Creating a sustainable art practice, a conversation

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Creating a sustainable art practice, a conversation

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Creating a Sustainable Art Practice: Julie Schenkelberg and Paul Amenta

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Manufactured Landscapes and Green education

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Edward Burtynsky: My wish: Manufactured landscapes and green education

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Accepting his 2005 TED Prize, photographer Edward Burtynsky makes a wish: that his images -- stunning landscapes that document humanity's impact on the world -- help persuade millions to join a global conversation on sustainability.

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What does culture have to do with climate change? Everything.

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Who We Are

Cape Farewell uses art, music and culture to engage the wider public about climate change and environmental challenges. We work with artists/creatives who can translate the often complex world of science into a cultural narrative, communicating the facts and the reasoning behind the research. Cape Farewell operates from it's HQ at the WaterShed in Dorset, a low carbon office and artist's residency studio built on the site of an old trout farm in Sydling St Nicholas.
+ Meet the team

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Home - Cape Farewell - The cultural response to climate change

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Cape Farewell uses art, music and culture to engage the wider public about climate change and environmental challenges. We work with artists/creatives who can translate the often complex world of science into a cultural narrative, communicating the facts and the reasoning behind the research.

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Invisible Dust works with leading artists and scientists to produce unique and exciting works of contemporary art and new scientific ideas exploring our environment and climate change

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The technique of ‘Merz’ – a method of rearranging collected objects such as papers, timber, wire, text snippets and paint

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Six designers tackle sustainability from food, waste and even death

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Six designers tackle sustainability from food, waste and even death

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Think about the average day and the activities within it. Chances are you're using materials that are harmful to the earth, consuming products made from resources that are under strain, or purchasing more products that repeat the cycle.

While the reality is grim, these issues have inspired designers to step up to the challenge of innovating so that the future is actually something we'll get to experience.

Clothing industry

The UN has described fashion as an environmental and fashion emergency. The industry is responsible for ten per cent of global carbon emissions, a proportion so big it exceeds the combined emissions of international flights and maritime shipping. Add to that the increased pace of production alongside the decline in use-per-garment, fashion is not a good look for the environment right now.

In response to this, Kye Shimizu is harnessing machine learning to produce zero-waste couture. Using 3D CAD software and algorithms, the technology enables mass customisation of garments without creating surplus.

They're customised using digitally captured body data, then assembled via a digital fabrication process that produces no waste.

Plastic waste

With only ten per cent of the world's single-use plastic being recycled and the rest filling landfills and oceans, it's become one of the most pressing environmental issues.

Bottled beverages contribute massively to environmental waste. The production of a 500ml bottle requires 3 - 4 litres of water. This highlights the waste generated at both the beginning and end of use.

Rodrigro Garcia Gonzalez has devised packaging that is both biodegradable and edible.

Made of seaweed, the Ooho! Capsule is a membrane-like alternative to the conventional water bottle. Gonzalez chose seaweed because of its abundance and the ease of access. Growing six metres per week and with no need for farm land, water or fertilisation, it presented itself as the perfect material for this purpose.

While Gonzalez is aiming to eliminate plastic, Dave Hakkens is finding new uses for that proportion that does get recycled. His Precious Projects initiative makes it possible for recycling to take place at a small scale through the use of specifically designed machines that enable injection, extrusion, shredding, compressing and moulding.

An open-source blueprint is available so the idea can be replicated anywhere in the world. In addition, the project includes an online marketplace, where the products created with these machines are sold.

E-waste

Just like the fashion industry is churning out garments faster than consumers can keep up with, so too is the electronics industry constantly releasing new models. As consumers upgrade, a mass of e-waste is accumulated, which is often shipped to dumps across Africa and Asia.

Hakkens' first foray into waste reduction started with the e-waste problem. In response he designed PhoneBloks, a modular mobile phone that made it possible to replace faulty parts of the device, rather than the entire device.

In a radically unconventional approach to how we consume technology, cyborg artist Neil Harbisson has merged his body with it. Born colourblind, he had an antenna implanted into his skull, so is able to identify colours via audio vibrations. He says his brain is part software, and his software part brain.

He also experimented with a bluetooth-enabled tooth with friend and fellow cyborg Moon Ribas, which enabled the pair to communicate in code via tooth clicks.

While tech-infused humans is an entirely new concept to grasp, their experiments open up the discussion on the value of artificial human senses vs. the constant need to impact the planet for the sake of humans.

"I think the more we design ourselves the less we'll have to design the planet and the less we'll have to change it," says Harbisson.

Food of the future

Alongside redesigning ourselves as a species, comes the question of re-assessing what we put into our bodies too - less for our health and more for the health of the planet. The natural resources required to farm livestock like land and water are growing increasingly scarce globally. Wild and forest land have been cleared to accommodate for agriculture in many parts of the world.

Couple this with the greenhouse gas emissions as a result of livestock farming, and all of a sudden that steak doesn't sound so appealing anymore. The Guardian reports that beef results in up to 105kg of greenhouse gases per 100g of meat.

Aware of food's ever-evolving nature, designer and researcher Carolien Niebling is exploring ways to reducing meat consumption without making the industry completely obsolete. She is working with traditional meat butchers to create the 'Sausage of the Future,' comprised mainly of plant-based and insect elements.

Using design as the medium to bridge science and food, Niebling suggests that the move away from meat be a gradual one and as a result her initial sausages are completely meat-based, but their proportion of meat has been significantly reduced.

Water wastage

The conversation about sustainability is really a conversation about deluge too. There is just too much of everything. One example is the overwhelming amount of choice in something as mundane as the detergents isle at your local supermarket. With loud branding screaming for attention, the competition is fierce.

Beyond the rampant impact of its plastic packaging, this got product designer Mirjam de Bruijn thinking around the environmental effects of the whole system, beginning with the detergents' ingredients. With most of these products made up of 80% water, de Bruijn questioned why that proportion couldn't be added in the home, rather than transporting all that water from distribution to supermarket to consumer.

The result is a range of products called Twenty, which reduces the product down to its simplest state in capsule form without the water element. The concept could signal a massive change in the industry and the way things are done in a resource-starved future.

Death

Not even death can stop us from harming the Earth as individuals. When one considers the harmful materials used to make coffins and the lifetime of toxins contained in the human body, it gives a depressing sense of what goes back into the earth at death.

With an innovation so telling of our times - that we need to think around sustainability in our death - Shaina Garfield designed Leaves, a coffin and burial method that helps the body to decompose naturally. The ritual involves wrapping the body in cloth, with the traditional coffin replaced by a fungus-infused rope, which is what aids the decomposition, but also feeds the surrounding soil.

"Once a body is buried, fungus grows to speed up decomposition. It also eats our toxin, so only our nutrients like oxygen and nitrogen going into the soil. At death we can use fungus to humble our species for the good of the earth," says Garfield.

It's a beautiful exploration of how individuals can contribute to life on Earth beyond living, and is particularly pertinent given how much damage one will have - albeit inadvertently - caused over a lifetime of merely existing.

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Six designers tackle sustainability from food, waste and even death | Design Indaba

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Think about the average day and the activities within it. Chances are you're using materials that are harmful to the earth, consuming products made from resources that are under strain, or purchasing more products that repeat the cycle.

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Upcycling and collaboration in fashion design

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Upcycling and collaboration in fashion design

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Fashion and textile designer, Ditiro Mashigo was born in the Limpopo town of Lebowakgomo before relocated to Pretoria in 1994.

The Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) graduate has always believed that young people in the fashion, art and design sector have a role to play in the development of South Africa.

Not one to just talk and not act, she did not let an early retrenchment lead her away from her dream of becoming a fashion designer.

She says: "After getting retrenched from my first job I decided to rather establish my own company".

She joined the Design Indaba Emerging Creatives programme in 2017 with her third year textile project at TUT called Maadingwa (above). She created the collection by upcycling clothing and reimagining it at wearable art inspired by her Sepedi tradition.

She says the source of her inspiration varies depending on which product she is working on: "The core of it all is culture. But how I flow throughout that space of culture into creating modern or contemporary products is mostly through the process."

One of her most recent collaboration under her Serati Ltd label is one with Something Good Studio, a collaborative design studio in Johannesburg.

Mashigo was one of the artists who produced a range of blankets (below) as part of the studio's No End Art Gallery Range.

The studio was also commissioned by Design Indaba to produce the blankets that served as gifts for this year's conference speakers. Design Indaba caught up with Mashigo at this year's 100% Design South Africa event where she was exhibiting alongside other local designers.

She showcased a range of cushions and other product.

Of her experience as part of the Design Indaba Emerging Creatives in 2017 she says she found the participants to be a very dynamic group of people: "I first of all came away with friends. I was able to create networks, really good networks that have served me since 2017 to date."

She adds that a very important lesson of her experience was to create products that speak to her essence.

"One has to create products that not only speak to the market per se, but more to your essence."

Watch the rest of the interview with Mashigo below:

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Ditiro Mashigo on creating products that speak to her essence | Design Indaba

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Fashion and textile designer, Ditiro Mashigo was born in the Limpopo town of Lebowakgomo before relocated to Pretoria in 1994. The Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) graduate has always believed that young people in the fashion, art and design sector have a role to play in the development of South Africa.

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How can we define and understand a sustainable art and culture?

How does art address the sustainability of culture?

How can art practice itself be sustained?

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By Christiane Paul

Sustainability has become the new "social networking"-at least it seems to have superseded the latter as the catchword du jour. An increasing number of conferences, think tanks, art exhibitions and publications have been devoted to the subject over the past few years and have reached critical mass. Sustainability has moved from its original, mostly ecological context to a larger cultural one. One might argue that a focus on sustainability is the next logical step after the rise of social networking enabled by the user-generated content of Web 2.0 sites-such as blogs, Wikis, MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr: networking itself is intrinsic to digital technologies, which allow for multiple forms of connectivity, while sustaining networks (of culture, productivity etc.) presents more of a challenge.

Sustainability can be defined in various ways, but it is commonly understood as a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely or as relating to the length in which human (ecological) systems can be expected to be usefully productive. Whether it is desirable to continuously maintain a process at a certain level remains questionable, since it might imply stasis or lead to entropy. The Brundtland Commission (the World Commission on Environment and Development, named after the former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland) put a more flexible, future-oriented spin on the concept by defining sustainable development as "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." (Report of the World Commission).

Addressing the subject of sustainability in the context of art invites a range of questions, among them:

How can we define and understand a sustainable art and culture?

How does art address the sustainability of culture?

How can art practice itself be sustained?

There are no quick and easy answers to these questions and the following will provide only a sketch of how the issue of sustainability in contemporary art could be approached. In terms of the art market, the art object can be understood as a commodity in a global information society. Contemporary artists have addressed this new economic status of the art object, as well as ecological aspects of sustainability in their projects. Art that uses digital technologies as a medium, in particular, has engaged with the forms of "immaterial labor" that produces the informational and cultural content of art objects, and will be the focus of this text.
SUSTAINABILITY IN CONTEMPORARY ART AND CULTURE
Sustainability can only be understood as it relates to a specific cultural, economic and socio-political context; meaning, the term obviously has different meanings on different continents and in different societies. On a more general level, however, one could argue that concepts of sustainability are shaped by the globalized effects of the current information society, which emerged in the second half of the twentieth century as the economy moved from material goods to information goods. In the digitally networked information economy, information feeds into the production process of commodities, provides the basis for the control of the market, and is materialized and sold as a commodity. Terms such as outsourcing, off-shore banking and maquiladora have become catchwords of the new globalized information economy.

Information systems and communications networks produce "immaterial commodities" consisting of informational or cultural content. At the same time, these virtual assets connect to and feed into the physical world. Virtual worlds have created their own economics that intersect with those of the real world. Items from online games are traded for real currency. Sweatshops in China engage in the business of "gold farming," wherein players of online games pay "farmers" (players who repeat mundane actions in a game in order to collect points) to gather in-game rewards for them that they then can use to play the game at a higher level. According to Wikipedia, around 400,000 people in China were employed as goldfarmers as of late 2008. Anshe Chung, the avatar that entrepreneur Ailin Graef created for herself in the virtual world Second Life 1 (SL) made headlines for building an online business in SL-devoted to development, brokerage and arbitrage of virtual land, items and currencies-that made her a real world millionaire. It was the avatar Anshe Chung (rather than Graef, the person) who was featured on the cover of Businessweek ² signifying the definitive arrival of the simulacra as commodity.

The sustainability of art as a cultural force has to be considered in this context of a global information society, which both impacts the conditions for art production and practice and provides art with a subject and source for critical reflection.
ART ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY: ECOLOGIES, ACTIVISM, AND ECONOMICS
Artists are addressing sustainability from a variety of angles, among them the ecological, activist and economic ones. The environment and ecology are the most common context for issues of sustainability today-with a focus on global warming and shrinking natural resources. While issues of environmental and sociological sustainability seem a step removed from those of cultural sustainability, they nevertheless shape the cultural climate to which art responds. Environmental art has a long history, but digital technologies have provided new forms of engagement in this field. Artists such as Natalie Jeremijenko, Preemptive Media (Beatriz da Costa, Heidi Kumao, Jamie Schulte and Brooke Singer), or Eric Paulos and his colleagues from the Urban Atmospheres group at the Intel Research Lab have created projects that nurture what is occasionally referred to as "citizen science." ³ Their various projects transform mobile devices from mere communication tools into networked mobile measurement instruments that monitor environmental factors such as air quality or contamination. By authoring, sharing, and remixing new or existing technologies, these works strive to raise awareness and give citizens more agency in contributing to decision-making about their environment.

The same mobile technologies that ideally provide new platforms for communication and networking also potentially allow for users to be monitored and tracked. Many artists and media practitioners are critically exploring the issues surrounding privacy and identity that emerge from tracking and surveillance capabilities. For art, to address the sustainability of culture also means to probe into the sustainability of resistance. Art activism frequently makes use of mobile technologies to critique their implications or enhance the public's social and political agency. One strategy employed by activist projects is to turn technologies against themselves, for example, by making mobile technologies' capacities for monitoring available to the public. The Antiterror Line by the Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT), for example, collects live audio data on civil liberty infringements from phone-in participants and thereby transforms phones (mobiles and landlines) into networked microphones. Users may record incidents while they arc unfolding or leave spoken reports, and the recordings are directly uploaded into an online database. In an age of increased security measures designed to keep citizens safe from harm and terrorist attacks, the project suggests the public's need for protecting itself at the point where official procedures begin to corrode the very liberties they are designed to preserve. Artists have also addressed the sustainability of culture by adopting and/or subverting the economic models of corporations and market capitalism in the information society. The artist group etoy, for example, has carried out acts designed to heighten its public profile and hence increase its value as a cultural entity; in other words, branding. The work of these artists reveals identity as a cultural construct that is dependent upon the maintenance of a profile in the public, which is widely accepted as an entity established through communication. The value or impact of a given profile is reliant upon its circulation via various media, from print to the Internet. As etoy themselves state, "The firm represents the core and code of the corporate sculpture, and controls, protects, promotes and exploits the cultural substance (intellectual property) and the etoy.ARTCOLLECTION. Etoy intends to reinvest all financial earnings in art-the final link in the value chain."(etoy).
SUSTAINABLE ART PRACTICES, WEB 2.0, AND IMMATERIAL LABOR
Art obviously will only be able to explore and speak to the sustainability of culture if it finds ways to sustain itself, and etoy's model nicely reflects on both of these aspects, representing the state of corporate culture and using it for sustenance.

Before the recent world-wide financial crisis the art market had seen another boom. Artworks sold at record prices at auction and yielded returns that made them serious investment opportunities, attracting investors that do not fit the usual profile of the art collector and connoisseur. Art fairs, with their unapologetic trade show flair, have become a focal point of the art world and have supposedly replaced institutional exhibitions of contemporary art as the authority taking the pulse of the time (at least if one trusts the hype). This state of the art world raises questions regarding the most successful formats for art production and exhibition. Curator Sarah Cook has asked whether a one-day, tradeshow-like presentation, with artists in attendance, might create a deeper engagement and more rewarding experience of new media art, which requires time-based investment and ongoing maintenance. (Cook)

The festival SOS 4.8, ⁴ which took place in Murcia, Spain, in 2008 and featured artworks that were produced onsite in 24 hours and then exhibited for another day, was an interesting response to this question. The process-oriented format of creation and exhibition established by an event such as SOS 4.8 provides opportunities for immediacy, flexibility, and engagement with the audience and local community. At the same time, the ephemeral and performative nature of the works created within the framework of this type of event is not easily marketable. This particular tension characterizes a major portion of art that uses digital technologies and their inherent characteristics, often involving network processes and interactive, performative engagement. New media art does not necessarily result in a sellable object, and it does not come as a surprise that the art is not on the radar of the current market.

New media art created in and for the networked commons faces a particular set of challenges with regard to sustainability-challenges that have been outlined by Tiziana Terranova in her essay "Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy." ⁵ Terranova draws upon Maurizio Lazzarato's concept of "immaterial labor," which he defines as the labor that produces the informational and cultural content of a commodity. ⁶ Terranova argues that free labor on the Net-which includes activities such as building websites, modifying software packages, reading and participating in mailing lists, and building virtual spaces-is simultaneously voluntarily given and unwaged, enjoyed and exploited. This applies to the practices of Web 2.0, a term coined by O'Reilly Media in 2004, in particular. As a corporate concept Web 2.0 provides contextual "warehouses" that allow for the filtering and networking of content provided by users, whether photos (Flickr), videos (YouTube) or personal profiles (MySpace). One of the most problematic aspects of these social networking sites is the fact that users effectively grant extensive rights to the content they contribute, which raises interesting questions about authorship. Terranova suggests that the new "NetSlaves" are not simply a typical form of labor on the Internet but also embody a complex relationship to labor that has become widespread in late capitalist societies.

She sees free labor, an important element of the digital economy, as based in an experimental compromise between the historically rooted cultural desire for creative production (and self-realization) and the current capitalist emphasis on knowledge as the main source of value-added. This is not meant to say that new media art and art in the networked commons are ultimately not sustainable, since their participatory aspects involve free labor that in turn sustains the latest capitalist model. Depending on its concept and intent, some networked art has to involve free labor contributions but will not gain any profits (except for the long-term ones generated by sharing). Other art projects, such as etoy's corporate structure, intentionally play with the capitalist model of the digital economy. Yet others generate sellable art objects as by-products of their process. No matter which strategies will prove to be self-sustaining, art in the networked commons (and contemporary art in general) cannot avoid addressing the Iarger context of the sustainability of cultural production in information societies.
NOTES
³ Natalie Jeremijenko. Feral Robots, http://www.nyu.edu/projects/xdesign/feralrobots/; Preemptive Media, < http://www.preemptivemedia.net >; Urban Atmospheres, http://www.urbanáatmosphcres.net; Bureau of Inverse Technologies http://bureauit.org

⁵ See, Tiziana Terranova, "Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy," Electronic Book Review,<http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/technocapitalism/voluntary>

⁶ See, Maurizio Lazzarato, "Immaterial Labour," < http://www.generation-online.org/c/fcimmateriallabour3.htm>
WORKS CITED
United Nations General Assembly, "Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development," A/RES/42/187, December 11 1987, <http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/42/ares42-187.htm>

etoy, <http://www.etoy.com/fundamentals/>

Sarah Cook, "Immateriality and its Discontents, An Overview of Main Models and Issues for Curating New Media" in New MedIa in the white Cube and Beyond, e d. Christiane Paul (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008)
Christiane Paul is the director of the Media Studies Graduate Programs and associate professor of Media Studies at The New School, NY, and adjunct curator of New Media Arts at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her edited anthology New Media in the White Cube and Beyond - Curatorial Models for Digital Art was published by UC Press in December, 2008.

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Sustainable Art Practices / Producing Art in the 21st Century

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By Christiane Paul Sustainability has become the new "social networking"-at least it seems to have superseded the latter as the catchword du jour. An increasing number of conferences, think tanks, art exhibitions and publications have been devoted to the subject over the past few years and have reached critical mass.

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A range of TED talks on sustainable design practice

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Humans are builders and creators-but how can we build thoughtfully, without waste? These talks explore sustainable design-both past and present-and its beautiful, inspiring results.

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Humans are builders and creators-but how can we build thoughtfully, without waste? These talks explore sustainable design-both past and present-and its beautiful, inspiring results.

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Sustainability through arts and culture

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There was a building that used to matter. Soaring above its neighbors, the monumental granite and terra cotta structure represented so much more than the commercial activity within its walls. In its vibrant heyday, it was a radical symbol of self-determination for a people historically disenfranchised. The building was theirs, a space created for and by them, the purpose it served greater than the purpose for which it was intended.

And then things changed, as things do. Time passed. The building was abandoned. The pieces that made up its body - its walls, its ceiling, its floor - decayed and crumbled. Its paint peeled. Its fixtures collapsed. This building that used to matter rusted into a beloved cultural memory for the people who could no longer sustain it, and became a monstrous eyesore for the people who did not care to.

And then the unthinkable happened. This building escaped the wrecking ball. Its ceiling was repaired, its walls reinforced, and its floor strengthened. It was restored - to a point. There are blemishes here and there, distinguished scars intentionally preserved to bridge the past and present. This old, storied building was made ready for a new life.

And then the doors were reopened. People returned, and it filled up with culture and history, artists and scholars, curators and collectors. With the strength of vision and the power of art, the support of old friends and the contributions of new ones, this building that once mattered, mattered once again.

And then...

This is where the celebrated reports about transformation in America's most disinvested neighborhoods tend to stop - with beautifully restored and reactivated buildings serving as new cultural stages. A feel-good urban story briefly interrupting the narrative of penury, destruction, mayhem. The logical next chapter is often glossed over or ignored because it tends to bring down the room. Having surmounted almost insurmountable odds just to get it done in the first place, nobody wants to be the killjoy asking how spaces reimagined by arts and culture can be sustainable.
Yet if transformation is not sustainable, what is there to celebrate?
In 1983, the United Nations enlisted former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland to investigate the question of why industrialization had failed to universally raise living standards. The Brundtland Commission, in its final report Our Common Future, defined sustainability as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The report consolidated decades of research, ultimately showing that economic production must go hand-in-hand with ecological health and social equity if sustainable development was to be achieved.

Sustainability is the cornerstone of Chicago's Reimagining the Civic Commons demonstration, the Chicago Arts + Industry Commons (CAIC). The CAIC will give new life to a collection of buildings and lots on the city's disinvested south and west sides. The vision of the CAIC is a system of well-coordinated assets that employ the transformative power of arts and culture to achieve not merely temporary activation, but the economic, environmental, and social sustainability that defines high quality of life.

The core of Chicago's civic commons network is the Cultural Reinvestment Model, a cyclical system of development that transforms underutilized assets into economic engines capable of generating new development and new capital for reinvestment. In the simplest terms, the Cultural Reinvestment Model is an initial investment in people and place that spurs additional investment in people and place. The revitalization of underutilized properties through adaptive reuse - pedagogy, training, shared tools and resources, job creation and incubation - activates spaces and draw in people, which in turn attracts commerce. Commercial, residential, retail, and manufacturing enterprises now have consumers to serve, and are willing to make investments that support the presence and delivery of amenities. This powerful for-profit and nonprofit engine creates asset stability and ignites economic sustainability.

While the Cultural Reinvestment Model is focused on driving and sustaining economic growth, the CAIC employs a supporting four-mode framework to redress environmental and social degradation afflicting Chicago's south and west side communities These four modes - education, resources, wellness, and mobility - remove barriers to access and equity; eschew demolition in favor of preservation and adaptive reuse; integrate neighbors into development efforts and thus promote pride and commitment to place; and teach stewardship for maintenance and longevity of assets. These four modes of investment in both people and place create a healthy urban ecology in which economy, environment, and social sustainability engender and maintain long-lasting prosperity.

By creating a body of civic vitality powered by the heart of arts and culture, the CAIC advances a model of sustainability that underscores the relationship between process, people, and place. Through artist-led transformation, CAIC creates a platform for creative and diverse communities. The Stony Island Arts Bank, the flagship CAIC asset and the reactivated building of the opening story, is just such a platform.

An investment was made in a once-dilapidated bank, and then this created a space where people congregated to immerse themselves in culture and community, and then this brought positive activity to a struggling neighborhood, and then this amplified pride and commitment to place, and then this paved the way for a better model of urban transformation, and then this strengthened the belief that people and place are worthy investments.

And therefore an equitable, sustainable future can be built.
Theaster Gates is the convener of Chicago's Reimagining the Civic Commons demonstration, the Chicago Arts + Industry Commons. Reimagining the Civic Commons is a collaboration between The JPB Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation and local partners.

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And then? Sustainability Through Arts + Culture

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There was a building that used to matter. Soaring above its neighbors, the monumental granite and terra cotta structure represented so much more than the commercial activity within its walls. In its vibrant heyday, it was a radical symbol of self-determination for a people historically disenfranchised.

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Are you feeling increasingly aware of the environmental impact of art, design or film that you encounter? 

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Are you feeling increasingly aware of the environmental impact of art, design or film that you encounter? 

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Art and the environment - are they intangibly entwined?

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By Claire Dunn - 07 Mar 2012 14:27:38 GMT Artist with a paintbrush; Credit: Shutterstock Does your knowledge of the environment or engineering influence your opinion of art? Just as we are all becoming more aware of the environmental impact of our purchase power - some more aware than others of course - are you feeling increasingly aware of the environmental impact of art, design or film that you encounter?

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Art students regularly ask themselves, ‘What is my art for? Why am I making art? 

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Art students regularly ask themselves, ‘What is my art for? Why am I making art? 

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"Sustainable" is the new green. In a world where there is sustainable agriculture (farming that is adjusted to the local ecosystem), sustainable architecture (minimizing environmental impacts of new building) and even sustainable banking (socially responsible investments), we now have sustainable art, or art dealing with environmental issues.

In case that is a new term to you, you are already a couple of steps behind, because "sustainability" has already been institutionalized into an elective concentration (a type of minor) for Bachelor of Fine Arts students at both Otis College of Art and Design and the Maryland Institute College of Art starting this fall. Called "Sustainability and Social Practice Concentration," the MICA program (according to the school's website) "prepares students to engage their creative practice with the social and ecological issues facing the world today, earning the knowledge, language, and skills necessary to excel in this emerging field."

Hugh Pocock, a sculpture and video professor at the college, who is the founder and coordinator of this new concentration, stated that "fine art is one of the last fields to be engaged in social responsibility and ecological awareness," as students traditionally have been taught to express themselves without regard to the larger societal context in which their work exists. "Art students regularly ask themselves, 'What is my art for? Why am I making art? Is it simply to have my art follow a trajectory from studio to art gallery to buyer?' In this program, we are looking to raise the bar and bring into the conversation issues of social, political and ecological justice."

Still don't get what this art looks like? (One hint: It is less a style than a message.) Let's look at what some professional artists already in this field have been doing, starting with Eve Mosher's most recent project, "Seeding the City," which involves placing 4-feet-by-4-feet trays of growing (native) plants on 1,000 rooftops on buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Each of the participating building owners would agree to contact three other building owners about having a plant box sited on their roofs, and all of these building would be identified by a flag on both the roof and at street level flag. The concept behind the project is that plants consume carbon dioxide, resulting in a cleaner and cooler environment, but it is not Mosher's assumption that 1,000 plant trays actually will alter New York City's climate. Rather, it is the participation of the building owners and the visibility of the flags that will spark awareness among passers-by of the urban environment and how it could be changed.

Another example of eco-art, but one that does not involve growing plants, is Mary Miss' 2007 project in Boulder, Colo., "Connect the Dots," which involved the placement of 600 large blue metal dots affixed to trees and municipal buildings throughout the city that identify the high-water marks of floods that have inundated the city in 1894, 1914, 1919, 1921, 1938 and 1969. The intent of the art project to remind residents of the need for preparation. "Because of its location, the nature of the steep slopes and long approach upstream the city is highly susceptible to flooding," the artist said. "The city is considered to be a high hazard zone where the question is not if there will be a flood but when will it happen."

Perhaps the brightest star of this field of art is Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who creates what she calls "maintenance art" (combining art and everyday activities, such as cooking and cleaning) and has been since 1977 the unsalaried artist-in-residence of the New York City Department of Sanitation. Among her artworks was a choreographed ballet of backhoes titled "Romeo and Juliet" and her "Touch Sanitation" that involved shaking hands with all 8,500 workers in the sanitation department while saying "thank you."

These projects don't solve an environmental problem but point up potential solutions and raise awareness. Pocock noted "a growing segment of the population that wanted to address social change and ecology and were searching for the skills and language that would help them apply their art making to these areas."

Like "green" and "all-natural," the definition of "sustainability" is a moving target, and its application to works of art varies widely. Art that focuses on issues of sustainability doesn't have a certain look, in the way that abstract expressionism or Pop Art is easily and quickly recognized, but rather reflects a series of ideas about the role of art in the environment and in society. ("What I think you can say is that it won't look like things sold in galleries," Mary Miss said.) Too, the type of artwork created may be of any style or subject matter -- it could be of a monolithic icon sort -- but is called sustainable because the materials used were locally sourced (limiting the carbon-burning transportation costs), water-based or biodegradable. In general, the art project itself reflects in some way on a social or ecological issue.

Environmental sustainability as a focus of an artist's work tends to upend the customary business model for fine artists -- many of them don't create objects that can be sold in an art gallery to a collector. "I've never made any money from selling something," Eve Mosher said, and Newton Harrison, who works with his wife Helen to create art projects that highlight the effects of climate change and poor land management practices, noted that their income is "a mix of money for talks, grants, projects and teaching." This class of artists is sustained on project grants and other forms of funding. Mary Miss noted that "I've sold a drawing once in a while," but her principal sources of income have been the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Rockefeller Brothers Cultural Innovation Fund.

Artists in this field, according to Mosher, "need a different skill set," such as the ability to write grants, negotiate, network, create partnerships and do a lot of research. (Mosher's "Seeding the City" project, for instance, was sponsored by the Greater New York Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and overseen by the Brooklyn Arts Council.)

Pocock stated that art schools don't teach students how to make a living but, rather, give them the conceptual and technical tools in order to pursue their interests. "Art-making has been questioning its relationship to the commercial market for 60 years," he said, "much of this questioning work has been what has defined contemporary art. The place of education is to allow a conversation based on ideas and esthetics that is free of market concerns from four to six years in order to strengthen the cores values and concepts."

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"Sustainability" Has Become a Growing Focus of Artists' (and Art Schools') Attention

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"Sustainable" is the new green. In a world where there is sustainable agriculture (farming that is adjusted to the local ecosystem), sustainable architecture (minimizing environmental impacts of new building) and even sustainable banking (socially responsible investments), we now have sustainable art, or art dealing with environmental issues.

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The Arts as a Catalyst for Sustainability  - link to the PDF report

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Art exhibition about the global sand crisis, I bet you didn't know there was one?

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'Harena Now' is an upcoming exhibition by Josie Purcell featuring her alternative and often camera-less photography practice investigating the global sand crisis.

With an MA in Photography from Falmouth University, Josie has exhibited internationally and also delivers photographic workshops through her enterprise, ShutterPod. With a love for the natural world, much of her work responds to the impact we have on the Earth, whether on a local or global scale; her images are created with alternative processes to omit certain chemicals and lessen her photographic footprint.

Some experts predict that, due to the booming demand for sand in industries such as construction and beach re-nourishment, sand may run out. Already seemingly impossible, this crisis has also led to a growth in sand mafias and the loss of homes, livelihoods and lives.

Deliberately not choosing to create documentary photographs, Josie aims to spark conversations through the aesthetics of her images melding various sources of inspiration; and will be hosting a talk about her work and the sand crisis here at Devonport Guildhall on Saturday 14th of September at 1pm.

Join us for this thought-provoking exhibition from 14th to 26th September.

Opening hours:

9am - 3pm Monday to Friday
9am - 1pm Saturdays

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Harena Now | Exhibition by Josie Purcell - Devonport Guildhall

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'Harena Now' is an upcoming exhibition by Josie Purcell featuring her alternative and often camera-less photography practice investigating the global sand crisis. With an MA in Photography from Falmouth University, Josie has exhibited internationally and also delivers photographic workshops through her enterprise, ShutterPod. With a love for the natural world, much of her work responds ...

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Environmental artist

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Website with details about Tim Pugh environmental artist, Details about workshops, residencies and exhibitions

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The Top 10 Most Pioneering Art/Sustainability Initiatives in the UK

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The Top 10 Most Pioneering Art/Sustainability Initiatives in the UK

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Back in the days when I was still working for Cape Farewell in London, the appetite for artistic engagement with climate change seemed to be everywhere, including in the big cultural venues: from Ten Billion, the shocking science-lecture-performance at the Royal Court, to programs at the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum. The prevailing attitude focused on raising awareness about global climate change, and asking questions about what was happening in our own backyards. How much insight did we have into the carbon footprint of these grand buildings? Ambitious productions, touring and attending conferences and Biennale all over the world - greening our own practice was just as (or even more) important as raising awareness about melting glaciers. And here the amazing ladies (mostly ladies) of Julie's Bicycle jumped to help.

Since 2012, all cultural organizations that receive regular funding from Arts Council England are required to report on their environmental impact, using Julie's Bicycle Creative IG tools - advanced carbon calculators designed specifically for the cultural sector. This has made Arts Council England, closely followed by Creative Scotland, the first arts funding body to recognize the environmental role that the cultural field can play. Museums, theatres, festivals, tours, galleries and productions started to reduce their carbon emissions (as well as water use and waste) as it was made fun and clear how to do so. See below a Top 10 list of my favorite art organizations talking the talk and walking the walk - with several gems from Scotland!

1. Open Jar Collective

The collective of socially engaged artists and designers that form Open Jar Collective operates mostly out of Scotland and actively share food, ideas and possibilities for change. Always involving the local community in their workshops, dinners and debates, they are re-thinking and re-shaping Scotland's food future. Make sure to check out their project Soilcity, where the collective offered explorations of soil culture through the alchemy of composting, growing, foraging, fermenting, brewing and cooking.

We use food as a vehicle for bringing people together, as a common language to understand the global economic system, and as a tool for exploring people's fundamental relationship to the land.
-Open Jar Collective

2. Invisible Dust

Reporting every day on the level of air pollution in London, Invisible Dust aims to making the invisible visible - particularly environmental challenges that don't necessarily register to the naked eye. This awareness is brought through artists' commissions, events, education and community activities. One of their exciting new projects, Under her Eye, features the amazing Margaret Atwood (amongst other ubercool ladies) in a summit on Women and Climate Change at the British Library this summer.

I love working with Invisible Dust - it's a fantastic platform for collaborations between artists and scientists who are natural collaborators; both are explorers and storytellers, seeking out new ways of understanding, communicating (and indeed, changing) the world around them. So when it comes to the dry (and let's face it, often frankly terrifying) language of climate change, the marriage of the two can be particularly effective. Artists can respond to environmental data in work that provokes real engagement - and scientists in turn can consider more creative and impactful ways of sharing (or indeed conducting!) their research. By communicating these urgent issues in lateral, innovative ways, by using humor and humanity, these sorts of works can reach us on a more animal, cellular, level - and therefore, hopefully, demand our response.
-Lucy Wood

3. Creative Carbon Scotland

Inspired by the ladies at Julie's Bicycle, Creative Carbon Scotland supports Scottish arts organizations with training in carbon measurement, reporting and reduction. Though their work involves a lot of strategy and policymaking, the direct involvement of artists remains key. Projects such as The Green Tease, but also various themed residencies, allow for a good relationship with the local community and places artists in both arts- and non-arts organizations.

"Creative Carbon Scotland believes that achieving the transformational change from where society is now to a prosperous, sustainable future will require a substantial change in the way people live their lives, our culture in its broadest sense. This culture is expressed, reflected and influenced by Culture in a narrower sense: the arts, screen and creative industries so we work to ensure that this sector is playing a full and active role."
-Creative Carbon Scotland

4. Grizedale Arts

Tucked away in the beautiful English Lake District, Grizedale Arts is a self-proclaimed "curatorial project in a continuous state of development." The site, called Lawson Park, is a productive farm (which includes livestock), where artists can't be afraid to get their hands dirty. The program, consisting of events, projects, residencies and community activities, engages with the complexities of the rural environment. Grizedale is the type of place where process is valued over product, and the boundaries of what an art institution can be (or ought to be) go wildly beyond the established structures and the idea of the white cube. Bring your wellies.

I want to broaden the idea of what art is and how it works; it is fundamentally the connective tissue that energizes all of our activities. It is an action, not a product, and everyone uses it. I help artists and communities make better use of one another, opening creative processes for both parties, helping both parties escape the confines of what can be a horribly narrow mindset. I aim for a way of living that is connected, a level body of resources built around fundamental elements, a real world of growth, cycles and change.
-Adam Sutherland

5. Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World

Now part of a family of art and ecology organizations, which includes art.earth at Dartington Hall in Devon, CCANW is an educational charity which brings together curators, artists and researchers (myself included!) to give people a deeper understanding of their responsibilities within nature. Its Soil Culture project (2013-16), organized collaboratively with Falmouth University and RANE, was comprised of a research phase, an artist residency and a touring exhibition, and aimed at deepening public understanding of the importance of soil. It became the UK's most substantial contribution to the United Nations International Year of Soils.

In the coming years, we hope to encourage a new generation of artists and curators to engage more people with the urgent ecological challenges we face globally. We believe that the arts can effect change in ways that complement the work of conventional education and science.
-Clive Adams

6. ONCA

ONCA, a gallery and performance space in Brighton, has an interesting founding story. It has to do with ONCA founder Laura Coleman meeting a puma in Bolivia. She connected with the puma, who had been a pet until it came to the refuge where Coleman met it when it was ten months-old. The puma, called Wayra, was terrified of the jungle. Over the years, Laura developed a friendship with Wayra, learning more from this cat about trust, patience and love. In 2011, Laura came back to the UK wanting to find a way to tell Wayra's story, intertwined with the stories of all the other animals (human and non-human) she met in the jungle. ONCA is therefore an art space dedicated to performance and storytelling about issues that affect animals.

We work really hard at ONCA to provide a space, and a support network, for artists, young people and the general public to explore, question and creatively reimagine the world. We ask ourselves, how do we "stay with" social and environmental justice, in all their entanglements? How can art, and art spaces, contribute towards better nows, and better futures, for all?
-Laura Coleman

7. Deveron Projects

"The town is the venue" describes the framework of Deveron Projects' work, as they inhabit, explore, map and activate the place through artist-driven projects. These projects may cover a variety of topics from employment to health, from ecology to architecture, from history to spirituality, and from migration to being local. They bring together people from all walks of life through public gatherings, symposium, forums, workshops, farmers markets, seasonal cafés, music events, street festivals, slow marathons, gardening sessions, traditional ceilidhs, internet conferences and Friday lunches. The 50/50 principle is their guideline for a socially engaged work practice: balancing artistic endeavor with everyday life.

Our town, like many rural places is facing the signs of globalization with shops, banks, services closing. We need to join forces and think of responses for creative regeneration.
-Claudia Zeiske

8. The morning boat

The Morning Boat (J ersey, Channel Islands, UK) is a program of public art projects, exploring and reflecting on agricultural and fishing practices in Jersey and the impact these have on people's lives. At the centre of the program is an international artist residency, inviting artists from around the world to collaborate with local farmers, fishermen, politicians, chefs, retailers and consumers, to encourage public discourse on complex critical issues that are central to the island's economy, social fabric and way of life. Projects aim to be catalysts for positive change and cultural shifts, promoting best practice and creating new infrastructures. They negotiate social, political and environmental challenges, to encourage a more responsible and sustainable way of living and consuming.

On a small compact island, in which the urban, suburban and rural, merge, overlap and rub together, the production processes behind our consumption (and comparative wealth) are strikingly evident and immediate. Within this revealing landscape, the local and global are entwined together, as local industries facilitate, influence and respond to international developments. Despite this microcosm, or perhaps because of it, there seems to be a lack of sustained public debate regarding the practices and accountability of island industries and a defensive attitude towards critical voices that interrogate the status quo. The local phrase, "if you don't like it, there's a boat in the morning," encapsulates this attitude, a mindset that holds back progress and the ability to creatively reimagine the way we do things.
-Kaspar Wimberley

9. Scottish Sculpture Workshop

Located in the foothills of the Grampian Mountains, in the rural village of Lumsden, Scottish Sculpture Workshop promotes a dialogue that considers the place of this rural locale within a globalized society. They are an active bunch, organizing residencies, Reading Groups, talks and lots of courses, including woodworking and ceramics. Make sure to check out their latest open call with DIY, an opportunity for artists working in Live Art to conceive and run unusual training and professional development projects for other artists.

Environment is deeply rooted across all our thinking, work and partnerships. We approach this not as a single issue but as part of the complex web of ecological, social, historical, economic, and political phenomena. Through networks such as Frontiers In Retreat we aim to be part of the global cultural shift that moves away from exploitative and extractive relationships with nature and instead work with artists to imagine, inspire and ignite new ways of being in the world.
-Sam Trotman

10. Arts Catalyst

Through its continuous work with artists, scientists, communities and interest groups, Arts Catalyst commissions and produces large-scale projects, artworks, and exhibitions that connect with other fields of knowledge, expanding artistic practice into domains commonly associated with science and specialist research. They also commission research and are great advocates for cross-disciplinary thinking and working. They have worked with some of the biggest names out there (think Tomas Saraceno or Jan Fabre) and their list of collaborators is as extensive as it is impressive.

Arts Catalyst promotes new artistic practices, ideas, and ways of inquiring into the world. We work with artists, scientists, and people from myriad backgrounds and perspectives to create imaginative, inspiring, engaging projects addressing important issues of our time, from extractive capitalism and climate change, to histories and representations of race and migration'.
-Nicola Triscott, CEO/Artistic Director

(Top image: Michael Pinsky (2012). Commissioned and produced by Plunge by Artsadmin and LIFT as part of Imagine 2020. The string of LED's wrapped around London's main columns marked a future in which sea level rise has changed the landscape beyond recognition. Photo by Kristian Buus.)
This article is part of the Top Tens series.
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Curator Yasmine Ostendorf (MA) has worked extensively on international cultural mobility programs and on the topic of art and environment for expert organizations such as Julie's Bicycle (UK), Bamboo Curtain Studio (TW) Cape Farewell (UK) and Trans Artists (NL). She founded the Green Art Lab Alliance, a network of 35 cultural organizations in Europe and Asia that addresses our social and environmental responsibility, and is the author of the series of guides "Creative Responses to Sustainability." She is the Head of Nature Research at the Van Eyck Academy (NL), a lab that enables artists to consider nature in relation to ecological and landscape development issues and the initiator of the Van Eyck Food Lab.

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The Top 10 Most Pioneering Art/Sustainability Initiatives in the UK

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Back in the days when I was still working for Cape Farewell in London, the appetite for artistic engagement with climate change seemed to be everywhere, including in the big cultural venues: from Ten Billion, the shocking science-lecture-performance at the Royal Court, to programs at the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum.