Arts & ecology: the legacy

Following five successful years the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre, a partnership with Arts Council England, has come to a close in its current form. Drawing from what we have learnt in that time, the RSA is developing an arts programme specifically concerned with sustainability, place making and the contribution of the arts to public life. Find out about what comes next

Climate has provided art with a new narrative. In a major essay commissioned by the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre, Madeleine Bunting examines whether art can now shoulder the expectations placed upon it. Read her essay

Pictured: Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook, published in 2006 by the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre

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News

Apr 9 | Marjolijn Dijkman residency at Clare Cottage

The Dutch artist becomes the first artist selected for an international residency at Clare Cottage as part of the RSA's Citizen Power Peterborough programme

Julie's Bicycle | The carbon impacts of recorded music products in a time of transition

A new report by Julie's Bicycle looks into research on carbon impact of downloading and streaming recorded music and argues that we still don't know enough about what the real impacts of this new virtualised arts industry are.

COP 15 | Culture|Futures

Culture|Futures is an international collaboration between organisations and individuals concerned with shaping a cultural agenda to support the transition towards an Ecological Age. We are one of them. And we're pleased to announce the launch sympsosium taking place in Copenhagen this December, in the run up to COP15.

July 14 | The Dalston Mill

EXYZT's The Dalston Mill, part of Radical Nature, opens to the public on July 15 alongside a new installation of Agnes Denes' Wheatfield, A Confrontation

July 13 | Rock's "Industry Green" tools unveiled

As the summer festival season kicks off, music industry green team Julie's Bicycle unveil a new set of tools for rock festivals to audit and improve their carbon emissions.

May 07 | Age of Stupid at the RSA

To launch the nationwide release of The Age Of Stupid the RSA holds a special screening on May 22, with a discussion by George Monbiot, director Franny Armstrong and Dr Richard Betts of the Met Office's Climate Impacts research team. Plus a video link from Dr. Mohammed Waheed Hassan, Vice-President of the Maldives.

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Magazine

Madeleine Bunting: art and climate

Can art carry the weight of expectations that are being placed upon it? Has art discovered a new sense of purpose in tackling climate? In this major new essay commissioned by the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre, writer and commentator Madeleine Bunting visits three major exhibitions to examine what changes when art takes on environment.

The highlights of 2009

Film, drama, visual arts, writing, activism. When it came to art that encounters themes around environmentalism, 2009 was a peak year for artists from all disciplines. We've picked our highlights. What are yours?

William Cobbing | Bamiyan Mirror Series

In 2001 the Taliban destroyed the centuries-old Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. When artist William Cobbing went there to explore how the iconography of conflict can be an absence of imagery, he found himself making a piece of work rooted in the ideas of Arte Povera and the Land Art movement.

Josie Appleton | Towards human species consciousness

'Man is a producer and not just a consumer of nature; part of his productive nature is to make nature," writes Josie Appleton. Environmentalism pits man against nature. Is it time to abandon its restrictive worldview in favour of accepting humanity's transformative role in creating the world around us? Artists have already imagined how we make new worlds; isn't it time for us to synthesize our "human species consciousness"?

Emma Ridgway | RETHINK

In a new essay written to accompany the exhibition RETHINK, Emma Ridgway, Curator at the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre, argues that to create the ecological future we need, requires a profound shift in thinking – away from the negative scorning of industrialisation towards a positive conception of human capacity. .

Michaela Crimmin | Rethinking ecologies

The new challenges we face mean we're going to have to rethink our connections to the planet and to each other. When it comes to creating a new space for building new relationships, the arts are uniquely powerful says Michaela Crimmin, Head of the RSA Arts & Ecology Centre.

Making the bat house

After winning the 2004 Turner Prize, Jeremy Deller announced his intention to build a bat house in the UK. The RSA Arts & Ecology Centre joined a partnership that, five years later, was to make this a reality. Caleb Klaces reports on the building of the Berkeley Bat House.

CIWEM Environmental Photography Award | Slideshow

See the winners of this year's CIWEM Environmental Photographer of the year competition.

The march of the twitterati

Something fundamental is going on in the media world. It's big, scary, only half understood and it's going to change the way the arts goes about its business. William Shaw suggests that the arts need to approach social media in a new spirit of generosity if they're going to build the networks they need to survive in a cold climate.

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