Monday, October 29, 2007
Sustainability or Survival?
Monday, October 22, 2007
Take Nothing for Granted
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
Friday, October 19, 2007
So much happening in Salt Lake
Thursday, October 11, 2007
How did The Legend of Hidden Hollow demonstrate the principle of sustainability? Part 2
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
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
How did The Legend of Hidden Hollow demonstrate the principle of sustainability? Part 1
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.
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.
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)
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.