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Presentation by Cathy Fitzgerald at Sustainability and Modern Society seminar series on art, philosophy and sustainability, University College Cork, Ireland, 16 Oct 2012.
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deep sustainability: the art, ecology & politics of forestscathy fitzgerald, national college of art & design16 oct 2012
‘we have at best 10-15 years’ to get humanity to live more sustainably on this one finite earth
John Foster (2008)The Sustainability Mirage
Martin Salinas Save the humans (2010) Flickr - creative commons
The 9 planetary boundaries, many exeeeded, recently adopted by the UN 2012
‘The Great Acceleration’ (last 50 years) in “Welcome to the Anthropocene’ viral video (2012)
CULTURAL ROOTS / characteristics of the Anthropocene? The hero’, King Gilgamesh’s affect 4500 years ago in ancient Iraq
‘We nearly always ask the wrong question—”What can I get from this?”....’
“What can I learn from this forest community that will teach me better how to serve it?”
Derrick Jensen, A Language Older than Words
Managed forests outside medieval Nuremberg
‘Sustainability’ and ‘sustainable development’ have roots in medieval forest management
deep sustainabilityThe early stages of sustainability were concerned mostly with making changes on the margin of the existing system (industrial civilization) to “make it sustainable”; that is, reforming our current agricultural, transportation, and energy systems by increasing efficiency and substituting non-sustainable materials and energy with more sustainable alternatives....
deep sustainabilityThe early stages of sustainability were concerned mostly with making changes on the margin of the existing system (industrial civilization) to “make it sustainable”; that is, reforming our current agricultural, transportation, and energy systems by increasing efficiency and substituting non-sustainable materials and energy with more sustainable alternatives....
A deeper sustainability often shows that the existing system (industrial civilization) is inherently exploitative of people and nature, and that no amount of tinkering (efficiency or substitution) will make that system sustainable. Maharishi University, Sustainable living
sustainverb - to support; keep alive; uphold the validity of
Middle English: from Old French soustenir, from Latin sustinere, from sub- 'from below' + tenere 'hold'
Oxford English dictionary
mirage of sustainability: ‘the politics of never getting there’
John Foster, 2008
potential of art - its role in sustainability?
Sacha Kagan and Volker Kirchberg (eds) 2008
joseph beuys’ 7000 oaks project (1986)
newton and helen harrison: greenhouse britain: losing ground, gaining wisdom
early drawing from 1995
see youtube.com/cathnarnia
transforming my conifer plantation to a forest slow art residency of 40 years - native ash tree seedlings coming up in thinned conifer plantation
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creating backyard filmic
narratives connecting my
local eco stories/actions to
planetary concerns
still from burning bright 2008
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the ecocidal eye: beyond the anthropocentric to a relational gaze in cinema
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‘probably no substantial dimension of film history that is so widely admired by a public audience... has also been so thoroughly ignored by film critics, historians and theorists, as the nature (wildlife) film’
(Upclose and political - three ruminations on nature film, MacDonald 2006, in Adventures in Perception, Cinema as Exploration, 2009)
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Scott MacDonald believes
experimental cinema has potential in
‘retraining perception’....allowing an examination of the conventions of media-
spectatorship (and production) that
largely ignores the earth’
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Leading ecocritical thinkers are turning back to consider uncivilised worldviews where the word and concept of ‘nature’ didn’t exist Tim Morton’s ‘Dark Ecology’
Jensen reminds us over and over that indigenous people from many parts of the world never, ever, see the world as a metaphor, the way it has become in the west.
... artists should move towards ‘an ecological sympathy’
... in ‘lawyer-speak’, Polly Higgins suggests for peace and for the survival of all species that ‘that we must urgently extend our duty of care to all life’
I have been interested in the moments in my films where I stop speaking and allow space for other non-human presences
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I’m learning with my neighbours and local green cllr about close to nature, non clearfell forestry
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With ProSilva Europe (Latin: for forests) the EU wide close to nature forest group I have studied mixed species, permanent forests in Netherlands, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia and Ireland
see residency in this forest as a continuing dialogue - my relational films & forest learning becoming an audiovisual diary that I share with other humans online, an e.g of deep sustainability
ecoartfilm.com
looking/listening with my camera and mic is certainly making me much more aware of the vast complexity of the dynamics of the living communities & elements - my neighbours that I need to relate to
‘Tending’ Anderson writes suggests a healthy tension, a specific application of wisdom, of culture practices that fosters active relations
A tiny forest in-the-making, in rural ireland, may have something to teach us about
one of our most important living communities on the planet on which so many of us depend, as well as teaching us a thing or two about the wisdom of
employing more kincentric perspectives in our cultural activities”
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further reading
www.ecoartfilm.com www.prosilvaireland.org
see also www.greenparty.ie/policy
see also www.culturefuture.org for leading int. policy on sustainability, art and cities
read more: issuu.com/cathyartfollow see more: ecoartfilm.comemail: [email protected]
Questions - So what does the new art look like?how does it sound? what senses does it
engage?
has ecoart found its time and place only to become the mainstream?
is there a need for fashion and novelty?
does art need to join up with science and other disciplines?
how did suburbia become the aesthetic driver of global economies?
and can life continue to support suburbia in a climate changed world?
from david haley: sustainability - a new frontier for arts and cultures (2008)
Something else to do but hang around in suburbia series : Kirsty O’Keefe 2010
contact: cathy fitzgerald national college of art & design, dublin
email: [email protected]
see more: www.ecoartfilm.com
