lowwintersun’s business cards feature in a new book, Nice To Meet You Too. More images from the book can be found here. Big thanks, as always, go to Loz from Because Studio, on all his hard work on that job.
An interesting talk at TED by Catherine Mohr who walks through all the geeky decisions she made when building a green new house — looking at real energy numbers, not hype. What choices matter most? Not the ones you think.
Together Works is the social enterprise for Greater Manchester. I’ve been involved in creating a series of video case studies profiling the breadth and diversity of the members. What struck me about visiting these videos was the inspirational stories of the individuals involved in these enterprises, all of them share the concept of trading to benefit society but carry out that in such different and innovative ways.
Many thanks to Sarah Irving for carrying out the interviews, Dave Gee for photography and Damien Mahoney and Helen Lagoe for carrying out the video production.
Jonathan Atkinson of Urban Research Collective has been invited to take part in the first phase of MAKING OUR FUTURES: THE ART OF SUSTAINABLE LIVING, a research project between MIRIAD and Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA), devised by David Haley and Dr. Tongyu Zhou. The project builds on MIRIAD’s links with CAFA, and is looking to develop a research network pulling in support from local partners including Manchester City Council’s Head of Environmental Strategy, Richard Sharland and Urban Research Collective. This mirrors similar collaborations being set up in Beijing.
The project begins with a lecture by Professor Lu Shengzhong, Director of the Experimental Arts Department, CAFA, Beijing, at MMU on Wednesday 27 January 2010.
The project has already been quoted as an example of good practice at the ‘First ASEFUAN Dialogue on Climate Change‘ in Madrid last week and will be next week at the ‘Culture | Futures‘ conference, contributing to COP 15 in Copenhagen. The project, also, prompted ASEF to commission David Haley and an Indian theatre artist to write a discussion document, ‘The Art of Sustainable Living‘ as the catalyst for twelve notable thinkers, practitioners and activists from Europe and Asian in the Creative and Cultural Industries to consider the social and environmental challenges of the 21st Century.
We’re full up at OpenSpace so with the help of the Co-operative Fund we’re installing a mezzanine floor. We’re working with Loop Systems architects and Ecorenovation builders and we’ll gain extra floor space and a meeting room. It should all be ready for mid-December 2009 and you can chart progress below.
I’ve just returned from two days at the Black Country Creative Advantage seminar run by Monika Vykoukal of the University of Wolverhampton. The project, based in West Bromwich, probes the murky waters of arts and culture-led regeneration and the seminar brought together around 30 experts in the field including artists, activists, researchers, academics and architects. It was an amazing couple of days and I just want to share a few links to the work featured in the seminar.
The seminar started rather appropriately in the controversial Public with a talk by author Anna Minton. Her book, Ground Control, Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City is what I call the Penguin Guide to the Neo-liberal City. It outlines the wholesale sell off of our cities into the hands of private companies and illustrates how changes made in the name of cleanliness and safety have actually made people more fearful and less happy.
Here are some photos from nef’s (the new economics foundation) Bigger Picture: Festival of Interdependence that I worked at on Saturday. There are some pictures of Ration Me Up from the Ministry of Trying to Do Something About It which I developed with nef and artist Clare Patey and project managed.
I’m on the advisory board for ‘Black Country Creative Advantage’ a 2-year project of the Centre for Art, Design, Research and Experimentation at the University of Wolverhampton and Longhouse/Multistory in West Bromwich.
In the future if you filled up your car with petrol once during a month that would be it, that would be your ration, no heat, no light, no cooking for the rest of the month.
In a just world where we, as global citizens, have equal access to the world’s resources, how can we distribute resources fairly for a sustainable future, improve our relationships with one another and address the urgent issue of climate change?
Premiering at the Bigger Picture’s Festival of Interdependence, Ration Me Up is a new environmental art installation and performance piece that creates a picture of what this might look like through the production of a contemporary ration book.
Continue reading ‘Ration Me Up - Premiering Sat 24 Oct 2009 at The Bigger Picture’