Friend and collaborator with Joya: arte + ecología, Gill Nicol of lightsgoingon (former Head of Interaction at Arnolfini Gallery; Director of Spike Print Studio in Bristol and numerous other things) has kindly offered to help us ameliorate our arts award, AGUAZERO.                      Joya: arte + ecología is inviting submissions for a competition which has an environmental agenda.

This is the second week Gill Nicol, as an independent arts consultant specialising in contemporary art, has  looked at an artist who has engaged with environmental issues through their work. These ‘posts’ are designed to be ‘inspirational prompts’ for those considering applying for the award. She will be posting on her web site, lightsgoingon, and here on our blog as well as on the Joya: arte + ecología Facebook Page.

Art and Ecology – Tue Greenfort

Tue Greenfort was born in Denmark in 1973,  and now lives and works in Berlin and New York. His work is a mix of both conceptualism and direct action drawing our attention to environmental concerns. His approach can be both practical and impractical, but his aim is to raise awareness of the issues, even if the idea doesn’t quite work.

For Munster, Germany, in 2007, his piece Diffuse Eintrage (translated as Diffuse Deposits) was a manure-spreading lorry that pumped a chemical solution – iron (III) chloride – into the picturesque, artificial Lake Aasee in the heart of the city. This work reflected on the way toxic algae had infected the lake, created by intensive meat farming in the area. The chemical additive created the ecological equilibrium back to the lake by binding with the polluting phosphates making them sink. However, this itself gave off a powerful smell, highlighting how man and his interventions disrupts the fragile but formally balanced ecosystems.

He recently had a show at South London Gallery, responding to the gallery’s location and history, and with a focus on ecological issues. Conservation, 2011, consisted of a dead tree trunk, placed inside a glass case, gradually decomposing over the time of the exhibition.  Sawdust gradually appeared at the bottom of the case, made possible by the bugs and wood beetles still active within.

In Oyster Mushroom Production (Mycorrhiza), edible mushrooms were cultivated by the artist inside straw coffee bags and on coffee grounds used by the gallery café. At the end of the show these were picked, cooked and served to visitors.

Another work, Supermarket Shelving System, 2011, both focused on the way the big supermarkets manipulate the decisions about what we eat, along with a connection to the museum vitrine. He also included a number of books and pamphlets, such as Limits to Growth (1972), a key work that impacted on many environmentalists and policy makers.

He is currently planning a new work for Bristol, involving sand martins – see here for more details. Finally, in his own words:

‘Art has the ability to elaborate and open up discourses without being labelled and categorized as this or that political faction. It can draw on a more complex system of references and the interdisciplinary than a purely politically defined activity.’

This blog is the second in a series, looking at artists and ecology, as part of an invitation by Los Gazquez and their opportunity/residency award AGUAZERO/Joya: arte + ecología

This is a relatively new Creative Course from Cortijada Los Gázquez with a unique perspective designed to put Fine Art and genuine creativity into your photography.

This is also the opportunity to capture the epic landscapes of the high sierras of untouched Spain, the high planes and lost locations. Experience from within the semi-wilderness, the alpine desert. Possess the sun and feel it’s warmth on your face. With 300 days of sunshine a year we can guarantee the drama of shadow and light…

You can participate in part or all of this weeks course. Contact Simon for further details.

Friend and collaborator with Joya: arte + ecología, Gill Nicol of lightsgoingon (former Head of Interaction at Arnolfini Gallery; Director of Spike Print Studio in Bristol and numerous other things) has  kindly offered to help us ameliorate our arts award, AGUAZERO. Joya: arte + ecología is inviting submissions for a competition which has an environmental agenda.

Each week Gill Nicol, as an independent arts consultant specialising in contemporary art, will be looking at artists from the past (1960′s onwards) who have engaged environmental issues through their work. These ‘posts’ are designed to be ‘inspirational prompts’ for those considering applying for the award. She will be posting on her web site, lightsgoingon, and here on our blog as well as on the Joya: arte + ecología Facebook Page.

‘I have been invited by Simon and Donna Beckmann – founders of Joya: arte + ecología, an artists residency/opportunity programme based at Los Gázquez, a beautiful artist’s eco-retreat in Southern Spain – to be a guest blogger for the next three months. The theme is around artists and ecology and supports a new award for artists entitled AGUAZERO; an amazing opportunity to work in this beautiful place.  More info here – but a quick  summary:

AGUAZERO is looking for artists working in water-based medium on or with paper. The competition has an environmental agenda requesting submissions to reference the contrary character of climate change. For example, increased desertification and the escalating effects of weather events such as flooding and soil erosion. The work should be based on observation, experience and invention. It must be as involved with the process and materials of painting/drawing etc as with the response to climate change.

Above all, they are interested in works that invite close scrutiny and, like environmental events in the world around us, reveal themselves gradually and steadily over time, prompting reaction and renewed contemplation of the ecological challenges the world faces.

Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring written way back in 1962 brought people’s attention to the way we are using and abusing our planet and its effect on the natural resources around us. During the 1960’s, an increasing collective urgency, along with a turning away from the commodification of art, led artists to begin to make statements about our relationship with the earth we live on.

Over the next thirteen weeks I will blog once a week, looking at thirteen artists who work with these issues of climate change, ecology and Nature, with the aim of highlighting how artists and art can communicate and impact on how we might feel or respond to literally saving the planet.’

Gill Nicol

NOTES:

‘Every day we have engaged each other in a group discussion about our individual observations and working practices. They have amalgamated and become an unified expression of the experience of both the internal journeys and the exterior landscape.

Tuesday 13th September

• It is a form of engagement
• A competition chopping wood
• Hierarchy
• What I’ll do when I come back
• Stripping things down and getting closer to my practice
• It is because I’ve access to a mountain
• As broad as humankind
• I am not interested in myself
• Quite a premeditated project
• Order and chaos

Wednesday 14th September

• It is a form of archiving
• Presenting it as a new discovery
• I’m scanning everywhere
• Always a process that relies on observation
• It may be the wrong thing to come here and start whole new projects
• You are in it and that is when things turn back in on itself
• I am trying to manifest the invisible
• They are little cathartic gestures
• You are asserting yourself quite aggressively on the viewer
• It is so immediate
• It is a completely different culture of making

Thursday 15th September

• Different modes of capturing
• Archiving in a museum like way
• There may need to be a curatorial construct
• It has been abstracted away from the domestic
• It becomes about the process of research
• Alluding to it without all this aesthetic
• Perceptions of masculinity in cinema
• I think I’ve spoken too much
• I lost control
• I need another outlet
• Filmmaker and mother amalgamated
• From an idea of me and the universal
• There is a balance between technology and the idea

We have been reading…

“The Myth of Sisyphus” Albert Camus

“Technology, Art, Fairground and Theatre” ?

“The Ecological Thought” Timothy Morton

“The Concept of Nature” Alfred North Whithead

“Chroma” Derek Jarman

“The Poetics of Space” Gaston Batchelard

“Key Writings” Henri Bergson’

The FAM Collective. Six Ma students from the Slade School of Fine Art, London

Competition Joya: arte + ecología

AGUAZERO aguacero Esp. (downpour) aguazero (no water)

Theme:

We are inviting submissions in water-based medium on or with paper.

The competition has an environmental agenda requesting submissions to reference the contrary character of climate change. For example, increased desertification and the escalating effects of weather events such as flooding and soil erosion.

The work should be based on observation, experience and invention. It must be as involved with the process and materials of painting/drawing etc. as with the response to climate change.

We are interested in works that invite close scrutiny and, like environmental events in the world around us, reveal themselves gradually and steadily over time, prompting reaction and renewed contemplation of the ecological challenges the world faces.

Prize:

A two week residency at Cortijada Los Gázquez / Joya: arte + ecología, Andalucía, Spain including travel costs within Europe (not accommodation while in transit). Winners from outside of Europe can have their travel expenses paid once they are within the EU.

The winners will have sole use of a thirty square meter studio and 20 hectares of land for the period. Accommodation and meals are included as is collection and return to the nearest public transport system. Resident artists will be featured on theJoya: arte + ecología web page, which will include biographical information and images. The work undertaken during the residency will also be documented and entered into our archive.

Selectors:

Ana García López (Vice Dean for Institutional Relations and Professor at the Drawing Department. Faculty of Fine Arts. University of Granada. Spain)

Rebecca Fortnum (Artist, Reader in Fine Art, University of the Arts, London. UK)

Louise Short (Artist. Bristol. UK)

David Crawforth (Artist. Director at Beaconsfield. London. UK)

Molly Hogg (Collector. London. UK)

Melissa Marks (Artist. NYC. USA)

Angie Lewin (Artist. Norfolk and Scotland. UK)

Simon Lewin (Proprietor St Jude’s. Norfolk.UK)

Gonzaga Gómez-Cortázar Romero (Communications co-ordinator for Joya: arte + ecología. Spain)

Simon and Donna Beckmann (Founders of Joya: arte + ecología. Spain)

More information can be found HERE

with the support from…