Sustainability or Survival?

Steinman, Urban Apple Orchard

A conversation with my friend Lori at the peace rally Saturday in Salt Lake City is typical of comments I'm hearing from people more and more: climate change is inevitable and it is too late to do anything about it. This soon leads to despair as we contemplate what a world with climate chaos and insufficient resources for our growing population will be like. How can we have hope?

It is pointless to give up. It is pointless to imagine a world of sheer terror and deprivation, a world without joy. Yes, we are starting too late to avert global warming, but if we can keep focused on the longer view and we begin making the necessary changes, there is still hope. We can also start preparing for a world that will certainly be very different from the one we know today. In terms of material consumption, "the party's over," as Richard Heinberg said. And we are long overdue in reducing our over-consumptive lifestyle, which has cost the poor of the world so dearly already.

So maybe the name of the game is survival rather than sustainability. We in the developed world are living a lifestyle than cannot be sustained. The world simply does not have enough resources: not fossil fuels, not food, not water. If we are smart, we will all start learning how to live on less, how to lower our material (not social, emotional or spiritual) expectations. An economy like the U.S. economy built overwhelmingly (66%) on consumerism, is not sustainable. We need to go back to living within our means. Whenever human societies tried to live beyond their means, the result was always the same: collapse. If we are smart, we will start building communities where people work together, cooperatively, for the common good rather than competing for individual advantage. If we are smart, we will try to strengthen our local infrastructure, from local farms and urban gardens to local energy production. Thinking in these terms, the future seems less dire. There is the prospect of more satisfying relationships, of healthier food, of more time for socializing or spiritual growth rather than the time-consuming and stress-inducing rat race created by hyper-consumerism.

So how does all this relate to art? Does art have a role to play in helping to create this new society? I can think of a couple of ways, but suspect I will later think of many more. Artists who create art from used materials set a model for thinking creatively about how to fulfill our needs without depleting nature's supply of resources. Artists who work with communities, like Suzanne Lacy, Vijali Hamilton, Lily Yeh, Betsy Damon, Susan Leibovitz Steinman, and many others, teach us how we can work together for a common purpose.

Steinman's Urban Apple Orchard, a public art project next to San Francisco's Market Street, was created with the help of local residents, students, and homeless person. The result was a temporary orchard. At the end of the project, the trees were given to local schools and to a neighborhood organized park. For more on Steinman, see http://www.steinmanstudio.com/.

Take Nothing for Granted

Bioneers 2007 is just over. I love Bioneers because it makes me feel hopeful. Why should I feel hopeful in a world that seems to be falling apart? Because bioneers show imaginative ways to change the future and because they demonstrate by their own accomplishments that positive change has already happened and is happening. My other lesson from this year's Bioneers is to take nothing for granted. In this globalized economy, following the links from product to consumer to waste stream can reveal some pretty startling realities. This week investigative reporter Loretta Tofani is publishing a series on the effects of our low cost goods and off-shoring on Chinese workers' health. I guess I should have thought more about this as more and more toxic products arrived in the U. S. Chinese workers are exposed to these very toxins every day. "Their lungs shut down, their kidneys fail, they lose fingers, limbs, all so Americans are guaranteed an unfettered flow of cut-rate merchandise," writes Tofani. For more of this horrifying story see http://www.sltrib.com//ci_7239727?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com.

I don't want to feel guilty, I don't want to feel I am responsible for every evil in the world, but I do want to live more consciously and I don't want to take things for granted. We fall into habitual ways of doing things and don't even think about their consequences. An artist who makes this reality visual for me is California artist Kathryn Miller because she speaks to the kind of irrational habitual behavior I see everyday, living as I do in a desert environment. Early settlers in Salt Lake City mentally brought the Midwest and Northeast with them. In their minds, a proper house should have a nice, green lawn. Many, even most, still feel this way despite repeated droughts. That makes sense in climates that get lots of rain, but we get only 16 inches a year. (I should add this is not unique to Salt Lake City. Settlers in other desert towns and cities across the Southwest have done the same.) Miller's Lawns in the Desert brings the absurdity of this practice into focus. Photographs of her 1994 work show two persons in surgical garb trying to keep alive a length of sod placed on a gurney. An IV is hooked up to the sod to assist the "surgeons." It's funny in a dark, self-critical way. It immediately conveys the reality that behavior like this is unsustainable. So here is another way art can address issues of sustainability: by pointing to examples of unsustainable behavior.
For a photo of Miller's work go to http://greenmuseum.org/content/wif_detail_view/img_id-16__prev_size-1__artist_id-3__work_id-6.html.
Copyright 2007 Patricia Sanders

So much happening in Salt Lake

There are so many events relevant to art and sustainability that I'm having trouble processing and blogging on them all. The Utah Fine Arts Museum previewed the new Art 21 episode, Ecology last week. More on that later. Then this week, as part of the Taiwan cultural exchange here, I was able to see Ke Chin-Yuan's The Squid Daddy's Labor Room, a fascinating documentary about building nesting sites for the oval squid. I want to think about whether this should be considered art; it's definitely about sustainability. Today, Salt Lake Bioneer's satellite began at Westminster College, with an inspiring, broadcast talk by muralist Judy Baca, who reminded me how important viable communities are to sustainability. Tonight, Mary Dickson's Exposed, a play about her own story of the lethal effects of exposure to radiation disseminated by nuclear testing in Nevada, opened. It's nearly sold out already. I'll see it in two weeks. This is accompanied by an art exhibition, also titled Exposed, which opened last Friday. This show includes art about the health and environmental damage caused by nuclear testing. I need to go back and spend more time with this in order to formulated my thoughts about it. Tonight I was watching Taiwanese puppet theater and listening to a Taiwanese pan flute performance, so I missed the opening of two exhibitions of art made from recycled materials at the Salt Lake Art Center. I'll also blog on these later. Tomorrow will be more Bioneers, with local painter Jean Arnold speaking about peak oil and southern Utah artist, Vijali Hamilton, speaking about her work with communities in the Southern Hemisphere. More food for future blogs.

How did The Legend of Hidden Hollow demonstrate the principle of sustainability? Part 2

Yesterday I suggested two ways that art could respond to the second part of the sustainability principle: by drawing attention to the environment, and so creating greater sensitivity to it, and by using recycled or natural materials rather than new ones. After discussing a few pieces in Brolly Arts’ Legend of Hidden Hollow (Salt Lake City, September 22, 2007) that demonstrated the first way, I’ll now go on to discuss some examples that demonstrate the second way.

Yesterday I mentioned Marie Mortensen’s take on Wright’s poem, using sticks to spell out the words. Other artists in the program recycled materials. A striking example is the work of Mary Bayard White, who constructed functional bird baths from recycled glass and recycled metal. The solar panels used to circulate the water with a pump unfortunately were not activated because of the overcast, but one bird bath was powered by a battery which had been charged by a solar panel. If the sun had been out, all three bird baths would have demonstrated sustainability in yet another way: using our most abundant and nonpolluting source of renewable energy, the sun. (Photo by Laurie Bray)

Other imaginative used of recycled materials were the Fish out of Water sculptures created by the students in Susan Simpson’s Design and Composition class at Westminster College. They employed various used materials to fashion fantastical fish that hung in the trees or sat on the ground, truly “fish out of water,” yet a fitting tribute to the life of the Creek below. A striking example is a fish sculpture made from recycled aluminum cans, which created the impression of oversized scales. (Photo by Ashley Haines) None of the artists I’ve discussed blasted the audience with environmental messages. They did not sacrifice beauty or pleasure for the sake of message, but, rather, implied a sensitivity to sustainability by enhancing our awareness of the natural environment or demonstrating a conserving attitude towards natural resources. In other words, they satisfied my reformulation of the Brundtland definition of “sustainability” by meeting the needs of the present without sacrificing the needs of future generations.

Copyright 2007 Patricia Sanders

How did The Legend of Hidden Hollow demonstrate the principle of sustainability? Part 1

As I begin this blog, it is a sunny fall day in Salt Lake City, but two-and-a-half weeks ago, the Saturday when Brolly Arts (http://www.brollyarts.org/) presented The Legend of Hidden Hollow in Sugar House, it was raining hard. Amy McDonald Sanyer and I had been watching the weather reports each day—predictions of sun and low 80s a week before--yeah!-- then a thunderstorm just days in advance. We hoped the report would change again, but, no, Saturday the weatherman predicted rain in the late afternoon and he (or she) was right. At just a little after three, when our multi-arts event began, first it drizzled, then poured. Would the performers run for cover? Would the artists take their installations and go home? Would the audience leave? We expected the worst, but got the best. I guess Utahns are not easily deterred: the performances went on, the art stayed in place, and the audience continued to enjoy the many offerings until the very end. I can’t find the words to say how grateful we were and how magically the artists transformed Hidden Hollow Natural Area—beyond our imaginings. (Photo by Laurie Bray below)

My purpose in beginning this blog, however, is not to extoll Brolly Arts events, but to explore how the much-discussed idea of sustainability might apply to the various arts today. Since I helped produce The Legend of Hidden Hollow, I thought a reflecton on a few of the art works and performances that were included would be a good way to begin thinking about this. I should preface this by saying that the event focused on a place—Hidden Hollow—in

both its ecological and historical aspects, so some of the works were inspired by the natural environment and some by historical events. So I won't be talking about the historically-oriented work, just some of the many works with some immediate connection to nature.

The word "sustainability" has been used so much lately, that first I need to think about what this word means. For now I'll accept the definition of the Brundtland Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” Sort of the Golden Rule applied across generations. The Brundtland Report was referring to development, but doesn't this ethical principal apply to all human activity today? If so, then it must apply to art. But how? For now, I'd like to see if I can adapt the Brundtland language to the arts: to satisfy the established social and psychological roles of art (to uplift, rejuvenate, express beauty and feeling, etc.), but to do this in a way that is mindful of the needs of future generations (for example, to have adequate resources and a healthy environment).

How might such goals translate into sustainable art? This will be a matter for many discussions—by you and by me—but for now I can mention a few. The roles of art have been discussed at length for centuries, so I won't worry about those. Rather I'll consider a few ways that the arts can be mindful of the needs of future generations and then see if any of these can be applied to the works on display at The Legend of Hidden Hollow. One way art corresponds to the sustainability principle is to draw attention to the features of a specific ecology so that we know it better and are motivated to preserve it. Another way is when artists employ used or natural materials, rather than adding to the waste stream with new materials. Were either of these two ways evident in the art works or performances in The Legend of Hidden Hollow? I think they were and so I'll discuss a few of these, bearing in mind that the principle of sustainability may NOT have been the artists’ intention, although often I think it was.

Some of the artworks definitely drew attention to the ecology of Hidden Hollow in a way that might inspire reverence or appreciation. An evident example is Doug Wright’s long poem, “The Hymn of Hidden Hollow,” recited by 17 members of the Westminster College Theater Club in unison as they stood on a bridge over Parley’s Creek (getting drenched by the rain, I might add). The poem paid tribute to the Creek that runs through the Hollow and all the wildlife it supports. A few lines will make the point and give the flavor of the poem: “Here earth/water and air/converse and coalesce,/becoming a place where breath/surges and reaches/through living things/beckoned and sustained/by the grace of the stream.” (Photo by Ashley Haines below)

Near the bridge with the poem reciters, Marie Mortenson recreated a line from Wright’s poem in an art installation, appropriately made of twigs and hemp twine suspended between trees. This work fits both of my tests of sustainable art. (Photo by Ashley Haines below)

I don’t usually think of dance as having a sustainability or environmental focus, but as I watched In the Ivy, choreographed by Natosha Washington and Nicholas Cendese and performed beautifully by RawMoves, I felt a heightened awareness of the specific features of one, little segment of Hidden Hollow. As the nine dancers--like the reciters wet to the skin--moved gracefully through the space, they drew my attention to the far side, then the Creek, then to the sloping rise and trees, an ancient fallen log, and even the poison ivy, which gave rashes to several dancers. (Photo by Laurie Brary below)

In another location, it was music which made me experience the natural setting more intensely. For her Musical Meditation, Cassie Olson sat with her cello on a makeshift platform in the middle of the Creek, improvising music that seemed to echo the flowing water and the serenity of the setting. Climbing down into the Hollow close to her, the encompassing banks of the river created the perfect acoustics for her performance, a reminder that nature is known and appreciated with all our senses. (Photo by Neal Olson on right)

Several art installations also drew attention to the natural features of Hidden Hollow: Trent Thursby Alvey’s Water Meditation, whose tiny floating raft responded to the rising waters of the Creek as the storm progressed (no photo). Shawn Porter’s Impermanence of Containment reminded me of nature's (and art’s) fragility, with plaster balls held within the hollow of a tree by slender branches. (Photo by Laurie Brary below)

Sandy Brunvand’s Hidden Conversations: Stones for Bevan (no photo) offered a brilliant way to make child and adult alike connect to the environment in an intimate and unexpected manner. It’s not the stones with special words painted in gold that was so cool, but the fact that people were asked to take these (or ones they'd inscribed with their own words) and hide them out of sight for someone else, who explored Hidden Hollow really, really closely, to find.

In my next blog, I'll talk about a few works that manifest concern for future generations.

Copyright 2007 Patricia Sanders

For more information see: Maja and Reuben Fowkes, The Principles of Sustainability in Contemporary Art at http://greenmuseum.org/generic_content.php?ct_id=265 and “Environmental Art” in Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_art