Projects

Below we present a showcase of recent initiatives
of connecting to nature through art.
We welcome your suggestions.

Netherlands

The Willowman

Will Beckers, alias The Willowman, creates willow sculptures in which he lives. The hamlet of willow sculptures in Venlo, Netherlands is a tangible lesson in cradle to cradle living where people visit, particularly children, to help build the hamlet and write messages about their wishes for nature.

http://naturalhomes.org/timeline/willowman.htm

Norway & Finland

Eyes as Big as Plates – Riitta Ikonen (Finland) and Karoline Hjorth (Norway).

Eyes as Big as Plates started out as a play on characters and protagonists from Norwegian folklore with the Norwegian photographer Karoline Hjorth. The series has since moved on to exploring the mental landscape of the neighborly and pragmatic Finns. In June 2012 Finnish senior citizens modelled in the wilderness of south and eastern Finland.

A selection of the series was exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki this summer (15th June –7th October 2012).

Riitta and Karoline met during an artist residency in Sandnes, Norway in May 2011, where the first part of Eyes as Big as Plates was produced in collaboration with local senior heroes, sailors, retired agronomes and 90-year old parachuters.

http://eyesasbigasplates.wordpress.com/

www.riittaikonen.com/projects/eyes-as-big-as-plates---finland/

Tessa Farmer and David Rothenberg Magicicada Dublin

An art installation by Tessa Farmer and David Rothenberg at the Science Gallery, Dublin, part of their OSCILLATOR show, opened February 2013. The audience walks around the installation and hears this soundtrack on headphones. http://sciencegallery.com/oscillator

Driftwood & Sand Beach Sculpture Festival

Driftwood & Sand is a summer celebration of art on the Hokitika beach. Held annually in late January, participants are invited to express themselves using any materials found on the beach.

Hokitika beach provides a constantly changing environment and never-ending supply of raw materials. All you need to bring is some imagination. So come along and create something beautiful for others to enjoy.

Location/venue: Hokitika beach, West Coast. Date: 21- 27 Jan 2013.
Turn up at Hokitika beach, make your sculpture and then register your masterpiece

www.thebigidea.co.nz/connect/events/2013/jan/125337-driftwood-sand-beach-sculpture-festival

New Zealand / Aotearoa

In the Early World

On of the earliest examples of arts-based environmental education we could find. Elwyn Richardson's work in New Zealand, in the 1950's, with Maori and white children is documented in the little book "In the Early World." Margaret MacDonald wrote an very interesting doctoral thesis on it which can be downloaded here.

United Kingdom

Rolling Stone

Watwick Bay, Pembrokeshire, December 2012

During a recent visit to Dale in Pembrokeshire Pete Ward rolled a conveniently located large disc-shaped stone across a sandy beach drawing a line. 180 images of the process were taken by Francesca Owen, which were then edited to create this short film.

The quote by Joan Miro that closes the film is one of Ward's favourites:

“If you lack the materials to work with, go to the beach and draw with a stick in the sand, draw on the dry earth with a line of piss, make a drawing of the song of the birds in the emptiness of space, the noise of the water and of the wheel of a cart, and the song of the insects. All of this may be swept away by the wind and the water, but have the conviction that all these pure realizations of my spirit will influence, by magic and miracle, the spirit of other men.” Joan Miro, 1940

More at: http://intim8ecology.wordpress.com

New Zealand

The Sand dancer

As the morning tide recedes at a beach near Christchurch, New Zealand, Peter Donnelly arrives to go to work. Peter the Sand Dancer, with a simple stick and a rake (and a not-so-simple gift of vision), paints elaborate works of art in the sand while hundreds watch in awe and appreciation.

Siberia

Ice drummers

A group of Siberian percussionists drumming on ice on frozen Lake Baikal. In minus 20C, they found by pure chance that the one metre thick ice has a distinctive and haunting rhythm all of its own, reported the Siberian Times.'I felt like we were playing on the drums that Nature has left out for us, alone under the sun on the frozen waters of the world's most magnificent lake,' said Irkutsk architect Natalya Vlasevskaya, 31, a mother-of-one and organiser of Etnobit percussion group.

Read more

United States

High Water Line

HighWaterLine from eve mosher on Vimeo.

www.highwaterline.org
www.evemosher.com

United States

Weather Channelled : Live Drawing and Sound performance

The performance took place on Oct 20th 2012 at Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY, USA. Jaanika Peerna, artist, and David Rothenberg, musician, respond to each moment's breezes, moisture, sounds and many other offerings from Mother Nature through movement, drawing, and sound. 15 min performance, 20 oct 2012 as part of the exhibition Dear Mother Nature curated by Linda Weintraub, Oct 2012.

"Jaanika's drawings emerged out of impulses that originated somewhere deep within the core of her being, rippled throughout her torso, and culminated in the fingers that grasped dozens of pencils and toes that held charcoal as they swirled across the paper that lay flat upon the floor. David Rothenberg's musical improvisations collapsed impulse and response."
-- Linda Weintraub.