Author: news
Collaboration As a Means, Not an End
June 13, 2013By Amy Lipton, Curator and SCEE advisory panel member, 2012-2013
In my work with ecoartspace over the past 12 years focusing on ecological artists and their projects, the term collaboration has been frequently evoked. The intention behind much of this work is to restore, remediate or transform damaged landscapes and also to educate the public about specific environmental problems or challenges. Artists taking on this imperative seek to inspire modification of human behaviors that have negatively impacted the earth’s ecological systems. Their work embodies what German artist Joseph Beuys coined as “social sculpture” over 50 years ago to illustrate art's potential…
Post Normal Art
March 13, 2013by Frances Whitehead
"All that was ‘normal’ has now evaporated; we have entered postnormal times, the in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have not yet emerged, and nothing really makes sense… We will have to imagine ourselves out of postnormal times—with an ethical compass and a broad spectrum of imaginations from the rich diversity of human cultures."
- Ziauddin Sadar, Welcome to Postnormal Times, 2009
So prevalent are the terms “post” and “post-normal” as signifiers for the shifting ground of contemporary thought, that we must ask: “What is post-normal art?”
Thomas Kuhn’s term “paradigm shift” has entered…
March 1, 2013
Below is the information about our upcoming conference, a large part of this planning project. Online registration is available here!
Beyond the Surface: Environmental Art in Action
Hosted by the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education
May 31, 2013
[caption id="attachment_803" align="alignleft" width="260"] Stacy Levy, Pier 53[/caption]
Join us for a day of ideas and innovative thinking, investigating relationships between art and nature.
Conference Description
How can environmental art engage the environment and the individual, activate awareness, and integrate perspectives that result in unexpected and innovative approaches to environmental literacy?
While the natural world has captured the imagination of artists for…
On Valentine’s Day, a Dive into the Weird World of Animal Sex
February 13, 2013By Mike Weilbacher, Executive Director
It's Valentine's Day, and while we're canceling our scheduled evening program, I thought I'd share the strange tales of amorous animals. Nature is incredibly wonderful, but also incredibly weird.
Take the clownfish, for example, so famously depicted in Finding Nemo, that sweet name abducted by last week’s horrific storm. All clownfish are born male—not a girl in the bunch. They live in and around anemones, stinging relatives of corals and jellyfish; plantlike but actually animals, anemones are unable to move anywhere. So clownfish don’t go very far either. (And sadly, rarely go on any adventures of any kind.) …
Time Frames
February 11, 2013by Sam Bower 2013
Standing in the woods near the pond at the Schuylkill Center, we can look out and see a range of time scales. The brown and golden leaves under our feet from the Fall- the leftovers of a year's work by the trees above us. Perhaps there's snow still on the ground from a recent storm, itself the result of the vast cycles of evaporation off the ground and from lakes and oceans into the atmosphere and clouds and back down again. Some of the trees around us are decades, maybe hundreds of years old. Frogs and…
Ecological Design Thinking
January 25, 2013by Jenny Sabin
Figure 1 - Sabin's myThread Pavilion for NYC Nike FlyKnit Collective; featuring a responsive Whole Garment knitted structure; image courtesy of Nike Inc.
Sustainable building practices should not simply be technical endeavors. They should include the transformation of existing built fabric into sustainable models that inspire both positive socio-cultural change and innovation in design, science, art and technology. Professor and architect, Michael Hensel at a recent symposium hosted by the Department of Architecture at Cornell University titled Sustaining Sustainability, underscored this notion (see full review by Sabin in The Architectural Review Issue #1381, March 2012). The symposium…
Making Room for Rain – Stacy Levy
January 22, 2013
The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education is working to investigate the intersection of nature and the city. The role of rain in the landscape is being actively explored in programs and planning around its buildings. As a nature center, SCEE is at the forefront of solving site issues through art based intervention. On May 31, 2013 a conference on New Environmental Art will be held at SCEE to look at ways that art and science can collaborate to solve ecological problems in urban nature, and enlighten citizens to find new solutions in their own lives.
Rain is usually given a…
Making Room for Rain
December 27, 2012By Stacy Levy
The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education is working to investigate the intersection of nature and the city. The role of rain in the landscape is being actively explored in programs and planning around its buildings. As a nature center, SCEE is at the forefront of solving site issues through art based intervention. On May 31, 2013 a conference on New Environmental Art will be held at SCEE to look at ways that art and science can collaborate to solve ecological problems in urban nature, and enlighten citizens to find new solutions in their own lives.
Rain is…
Restoring childhood play… and Philly’s first nature preschool
December 6, 2012Gail Farmer, Director of Education
I was born in 1975, part of Generation X, probably the last generation whose parents felt comfortable sending their kids out into the neighborhood after school. “Go outside and be back by dinner,” was a common directive from my mother. My street ran along the bottom of an undeveloped hill, and “The Hill” was where my sisters and I went when my mom sent us outdoors. My childhood was also filled with Girl Scouts, dance classes and community soccer, but my best memories and my most formative experiences come from the times my mother wanted…
Art/ist Roles
December 3, 2012By Eve Mosher
October 29th, Hurricane Sandy made landfall. The eye of the storm passed over New Jersey but the hurricane winds, and worse, a massive storm surge hit New York City. The storm surge, combined with high tides and sea level rise created a superstorm that sent waters rushing into the coastal areas of New York.
As images of the floods began to circulate, I got a sense of eerie familiarity. The debris line near the 14th street power station (where an explosion knocked out power for lower Manhattan for almost a week), the flooded Battery Tunnel entrance in…
