Ecologically sustainable development is a stated aim of our national and state governments. Unless we can stimulate a higher and more sustained level of discussion on what this means, our progressis likely to remain fitful and unfocussed. Hopefully this article will stimulate the debate!
In Tasmania particularly it can be difficult to be vocal about political issues. Here is a chance to be uncompromising, a chance to take risks, a chance to raise community cultural awarenes. And who says art needs to be permanent? Heres a chance to make something and then release it, to allow visual art to metamorphose into performance art. Intrigued? then follow up the article!
Written with Andrew Bryan The increasing urgency for us to achieve a harmonious relationship with the environment is stimulating artists in many media and designers in a range of disciplines to work in new ways with one another and community groups who share this concern.
Our town planners, our architects and we ourselves need to rethink the city. If downtown spaces, internal and external, are to become inhabitable, there needs to be a dramatic shift away from narrowly architectural conception of them and their functions towards an acoustic analysis.
Change, and how it effects the evironment and the quality of life, is a recurring theme and metaphor in the work of artist Jeannie Baker. While celebrating the beauty and fragility of the environment she delivers a provocative and powerful message about our responsibilities towards the natural world.
Affecting one's city, state or country requires wit, wisdom opportunity and a sense of fun. Robert McNulty, President of the extraordinarily successful Washington based 'Partners for Livable Places' gives a thumb-nail sketch of the last 15 years of the organisation and some of the tools they have used as operational forces for action.