The Ecodrama Playwrights Festival and Symposium on Ecology and Performance calls for proposals for the symposium, May 21-31, 2009, in Eugene, Oregon. The events, sponsored by Earth Matters on Stage, a program of the Department of Theatre Arts of the University of Oregon, will be dedicated to nurturing "ecodrama": theatrical works that not only "take environmental issues as their topic, hoping to raise consciousness or press for change, but also work that explores the relation of a 'sense of place' to identity and community." January 1, 2009, is the deadline for proposals for workshops, round-tables, panels, working sessions, installations or participatory community gatherings that "explore, examine, challenge, articulate or nourish the possibilities of theatrical and performative responses to the environmental crisis in particular, and our ecological situatedness in general." [LINK]

In 2009-2010, Exit Art’s subterranean venue, Exit Underground, will present five exhibitions for its new initiative SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics). SEA’s central mission is "to provide a vehicle through which the public can be made aware of socially and environmentally engaged work, and to provide a forum for collaboration between artists, scientists, activists, scholars and the public" through exhibitions, performances, panels and a permanent archive. SEA uses a curatorial model called ConceptPlus, which begins with a theme or concept that is then publicized through a call for proposals. The exhibitions and their entry due dates are: "Vertical Gardens" (January 15, 2009), "End of Oil" and "America for Sale" (both February 15, 2009) and "Consume" and "Contemporary Slavery" (both March 15, 2009). Exit Art is a 25-year-old cultural center in New York City founded by Directors Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo. [LINK]

The Beehive Collective is preparing a graphics campaign to increase public outrage against the coal industry's latest method of coal extraction, "mountaintop removal." The Hive is a volunteer-driven nonprofit political organization based in Machias, Maine, that uses graphical media as educational tools to communicate "stories of resistance to corporate globalization." Of the Coal Campiagn, the Hive says, "Understanding the devastation of Mountaintop Removal is perhaps primarily a visual undertaking - the vastness of the altered landscape cannot be conveyed with words alone." The Web site shows samples from their work on a storyboard learning tool capturing "the human and ecological scale of totalitarian resource extraction while reinforcing and participating in the rich storytelling tradition of Appalachia." The Bees have been working with communities in Appalachia, trading ideas and getting feedback. (Thanks, BrushFire.) [LINK]

Local historians will speak on the agricultural/ environmental history of the Philadelphia region September 25, 2008, to accompany an exhibition of environmental art installations. "Ghosts and Shadows" shows at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education in Philadelphia, September 6, 2008 - January 2, 2009, presented with The Center for Emerging Visual Artists. Artists Jennifer Chapman, Keiko Miyamori, Kara Rennert and Marisha Simons were chosen by curator Warren Angle for their "poetic sense of place" and unique views of human impact on the natural environment. The installations, located at the Schuylkill Center's Second Site, a historic, abandoned farmhouse and barn, examine the farmhouse as a human habitat, juxtapose it with 50 birdhouses, reanimate the barn and awaken a "ghost forest" of endangered and extinct plants and trees. There will be several opportunities to tour the installations with the artists. [LINK]

Three artists will stage a public event in New York's Dead Horse Bay, August 16, 2008, during the convergence of sunset, moonrise and high tide. The event is part of an iLAND collaborative residency by choreographer Sarah White, architect Angel Ayón and visual artist Gerald Marks. The project explores the dynamic of man’s interactions with the natural environment over time and as it applies to this area of coastline, once home to horse-processing and fish-oil plants. Nature has reclaimed much of the bay, now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area. "Through these public events [August 16, September 14, October 12]," say the artists,"we would like to call attention to a multidimensional experience of this particular coastal landscape … spatially, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually." iLAND (interdisciplinary Laboratory for Art Nature and Dance) is directed by choreographer Jennifer Monson. [LINK]

The Future Is on the Table is "a river of art projects with sources in India, England, South Africa, Nigeria, France and the U.S." The "river" comes together September 13-October 26, 2008, in Charleston, S.C., with art installations, performances, dialogues and gift exchanges. Initiated by Charleston artists Gwylene Gallimard and Jean-Marie Mauclet, the event is the culmination of a community art collaboration that began in 2003 when Gallimard and Mauclet sent 56 handmade three-legged stools as gifts to artists around the world. The seats of the stools were cut from a single sheet of marine plywood painted with a map of the world. They were sent with a proposal to use the arts to generate conversation about water and shelter as basic human rights. The contributions and their creators meet this fall. Join the ongoing conversation on the Web. [LINK]

August 1, 2008, is the deadline for session proposals for the 2009 Americans for the Arts convention, themed "Renewable Resources: The Arts in Sustainable Communities." The convention, set for Seattle, Wash., June 17-20, will explore how creative communities grow and prosper in concert with technology, the economy and the environment. The convention is organized into nine concurrent program tracks: Arts Education, Civic Engagement, Economic Development, Leadership, Career 360, Preserving Diverse Cultures, Private Sector, Public Advocacy and Public Art. More than 75 sessions will be presented over the course of of three days during the convention. Sessions that fit in more than one track are welcome and may be presented jointly to a larger audience. Each session should respond both to the program track in which it is presented, as well as the 2009 theme of renewable resources. [LINK]

British artist Nick Crowe's public artwork in the Whitstable Biennale depicts "The Drowning of Tuvalu," modeling a group of South Pacific islands, the first landmass that is destined to be entirely lost to the sea. From June 21 to July 6, 2008, on "The Street," a long tidal spit at Tankerton Slopes in Whitstable, Kent, the tides will alternately reveal, then "drown" Crowe's large, shallow lime-concrete sculptures shaped like the nine islands of Tuvalu, population 10,000, a group of low-lying reef atolls and coral islands that are disappearing due to global warming and rising seas. Whitstable itself is a low-lying town with a history of flooding, and also likely to feel the effects of climate change. Other Biennale events include films imagined by audience members with a hypnotist and a symphony played by a fleet of ice-cream vans. [LINK]

"Water Ambassadors" from around the Great Lakes will bring water from their communities to add to the water celebration that ends Luminato, Toronto's annual festival. The festival finale, June 15, 2008, "Luminat'eau: Carnival H20," features the Ambassadors pouring their local waters through "Lake Spirit, lady of the Great Lakes," a sculpture standing silhouetted against Lake Ontario at Harbourfront Centre, holding a vessel from which water pours down her body, mimicking the Great Lakes Watershed. The event culminates with a procession and the launching of giant Taiwanese lanterns on which participants can write good wishes for the future. Luminat'eau Artistic Director Kristen Fahrig says, "It is hoped that ... our understanding of community will expand to include all who live in this Great Lakes ecosystem so we can move together to protect it." Luminato, June 6-15, features hundreds of arts events involving a million participants from Toronto's vastly diverse community. [LINK]

Noted artist Suzanne Lacy will head a pilot project for a new program at L.A.'s Otis College of Art and Design, with help from the Ford Foundation. The Otis Global Public Service (GPS) program will allow art students to collaborate with community members of California's Central (a.k.a San Joaquin) Valley to "find creative solutions to some of the vast and growing problems in the region," including poor air quality, loss of farm land, high poverty and high-school drop-out rates and low reading and college-attendance rates. Lacy, a native of the Valley, is head of Otis' Master of Fine Arts Program in Public Practice. "The opportunity for our students to explore global issues in a rural setting is tremendous," said Lacy. Ford provided $150,000 for pilot project planning. [LINK]

"Young People In a Changing Climate" is the theme of the third annual Shoot Nations online global photography competition for young people 11-24. Presented by the international children’s charity Plan and photography-event organizers Shoot Experience, the contest asks entrants to portray the current effects of climate change on their lives, how they can act now to reduce these effects, how their environment will change in the years to come and how they might adapt to that change. Entries are accepted May 1-July 31, 2008. The best entrants will have the chance to win a trip to New York and be exhibited at the United Nations HQ as part of International Youth Day, August 12. Last year the competition received 1,500 entries from 85 countries. More than 4,500 people attended exhibitions of Shoot Nations photographs on four continents. [LINK]

"Art Changing Attitudes Toward the Environment" is a May 8, 2008, seminar at United Nations Headquarters in New York City, part of the U.N.'s Unlearning Intolerance series. Focusing on climate change and "the intolerance of the needs of our earth and the attitudinal and behavioral changes that must be made in order to protect it," the seminar points to art as a catalyst "that can unite people in thought and action." Panelists -- seven visual artists and four environmental/social activists -- speak in two sessions: "Confronting Environmental Intolerance: Art, Action and Human Security" and "Art for Change: Vehicles for Environmental Action." The seminar accompanies an exhibit of the artist's works at U.N. Headquarters, May 9-31, part of the global Art for the Environment Initiative by the Natural World Museum and the U.N. Environment Programme. [LINK]

The District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities is seeking an artist or artist team to enhance the Metropolitan Branch Trail. The selected artist(s) will work with urban designers, transportation and trail planners, landscape architects, civil engineers and District government employees to create a plan that visually unifies an eight-mile multi-use trail running from Silver Spring, Md., to D.C.'s Union Station. It will connect to the Capital Crescent Trail, the Anacostia Tributaries Trail System and the National Mall, part of the East Coast Greenway. This "artistic driven identity" will be included in the trail's signage, amenities maps and materials. The Commissions is working with the District Department of Transportation and surrounding communities. The commission, worth $7,550, is open only to artists in D.C., Virginia and Maryland. [LINK]

Looking to "wake up community movements through new forms of cultural art villages and by restoring small communities that have disappeared in rapid industrialization"? Apply for a residency in South Korea through the Seok-Su Art Project, August 1-October 30, 2008. Stone & Water, a nonprofit , community-based "supplemental art space" in An-Yang, has organized the SAP for 20-25 Korean and international artists. Successul residency candidates can expect to carry out public art and ecological projects using vacant spaces around Seok-Su Market and An-yang River; to conduct activities to restore small communities; and to conduct education/art programs with local residents. Residency activities are supported by Arts Council Korea and An-yang City. Photos from SAP 2007 may be found online at: http://www.cyworld.com/stonenwaterresidency. [LINK]

Forty-eight Theatre of the Oppressed-based events took place in 23 countries on six continents on March 16, 2008, the Jokers International Day of Action on Global Warming Organized by Headlines Theatre from Vancouver, B.C. , Jokers Day included events presented by the Mozambican Community Theatre Network, the Atelier Théatre Bourkinabé (Burkina Faso), the Interactive Resource Center (Pakistan), the Vidya Educational & Charitable Trust (India), Drama Kidz (Malaysia), Kazakhstan English Language Theater, Clean Energy For Eternity (Australia), Centre do Teatro do Oprimado do Rio de Janeiro (Brasil), Association for Socio-political Theatre (Italy), Theatr Fforwm Cymru (Wales), RiffRaff Theater (Denmark), Paulo-Freire-Gesellschaft (Germany), No Nonsense Theatre (U.K.), Les Echomédiens (France), Tiyatro Boyali Kus (Turkey), Zagreb's Youth Theatre (Croatia), The Earthling Collective (Canada), Mandala Center for Change (Wash., USA) and more. A full listing of events worldwide is on the Web. [LINK]

Vocal artist Rachel Bagby, founder of Choral Earth, has received the 11th annual $10,000 AHN Award for excellence in the field of art and healing. The Arts & Healing Network honors Bagby, who in 1986 pioneered vibralingual practices that help people form vocal communities for ecological and social healing. In 2006, Bagby founded Choral Earth’s Sing Your Part™ initiative "to inspire choirs and their audiences to exercise their power to create sonorously vital — i.e. environmentally just and healthy — communities." Historically, says AHN, choruses have proved influential in movements for social change in South Africa, Chile and England and the U.S. Today an estimated 28 million people regularly sing in a chorus or choir. Choral Earth offers training materials and programs that help choristers green their communities and raise their voices proactively in the current struggle for environmental balance." [LINK]

As part of its "Green Docs" series, MASS MoCA is showing an interesting, award-winning film: "Plagues & Pleasures on the Salton Sea," March 27, 2008. John Waters narrates this history of a place once called the California Riviera and now known as one of America’s worst ecological disasters: a fetid, stagnant lake coughing up dead fish and birds by the thousands. Part environmental exposé and part portrait of the hardy eccentrics who have carved out lives for themselves around the Salton Sea’s edge, Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer's film is described by the Village Voice as “a heartbreaking, sidesplitting parade of humanity" -- Hungarian revolutionaries, Christian nudists, pop stars, land sharks, hard drinkers, empty cities, failed resort towns, tons of dead fish, a dying café and a man who built a mountain. [LINK]

Two syllabi have been added to the CANuniversity collection of resources in community-based art education. They come from Beverly Naidus in Washington. Naidus is an associate professor of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at U.W. Tacoma. She contributed a syllabus for "Eco-art: Art in Response to the Ecological Crisis" from Spring 2007, examining the eco-art movement and exercising the artistic voice "to express concerns about the world we live in." The course involves journal keeping, experiments with the four elements, a collaborative project and an oral presentation on an eco-artist's work. She also contributed the syllabus for "Labor, Globalization and Art" from Winter 2008, requiring numerous activities that help look at labor issues in relation to global justice: reading of e-reserve articles, a journal, photo/text and mixed-media projects, a collaborative puppetry project and a research project. Bibliographies are included. [LINK]

Two environmental-education groups have been working with artists in Canada on the environmental effects of mining in that country. MiningWatch Canada has an interesting story on the Web about its intersection with the Canary Institute and Myths and MIrrors Community Arts in Sudbury, an old copper-nickel mining town in Ontario. They're working together on “Conversations with the Earth," a project involving youth and young parents in participatory research and public dialogue events in which people share their stories of the land in and around Sudbury, how mining and pollution have touched their lives and their environment. It's led to collective creation of public artworks, videos, zines, a mural on the outside of the project's new building, a cob-built "Earth Castle and "The Fate of the Earth," a series of puppet shows created by whole families. [LINK]

Lily Yeh and her organization, Barefoot Artists, are exploring ways to launch a new program with Iraqi refugees in Syria. Collaborating with Red Crescent, the team recently organized an art event at Al Tijari Park in Damascus. "During our visit," says Yeh in her December newsletter, "we engaged 25 children in drawing and painting activities, collected stories of their hopes and aspirations, and together created a colorful painting using their drawings. Working with our partners in Syria, we hope to return in the near future to continue the project. We intend to collect people's stories through art and interviews so as to share them with the American audience to promote mutual understanding and peace in the Middle East and America." News about their projects in Kenya, Rwanda, China and elsewhere is on the Web. [LINK]

"The arts and the humanities are absolutely necessary to environmental recovery. It’s not the water that’s the problem, it’s us. And if we fix us, we’ll start fixing the water.” So says AMD&ART's T. Allan Comp in "Reclaiming a Toxic Legacy Through Art and Science," a substantial article by environmental journalist Eric Reece in Orion Magazine (November-December 2007). It tells of the cleanup of acid mine drainage into Blacklick Creek in the Appalachian town of Vintondale, Pa., accomplished by Comp, local citizens and a team of designers and AmeriCorps and VISTA volunteers. Reece explains in detail how they did it, then built a park, planted 1,000 trees, and brought hope back to the area. Comp now oversees the Watershed Assistance Team at the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining, placing VISTA workers in communities across Appalachia. [LINK]

Students Jorgen Tandberg and Yo Murata are the winners of the Bat House Competition, and their design for an urban bat house will be built at the Wetlands Centre in South London. The competition was initiated this year by artist Jeremy Deller and the Bat House Partners to highlight the potential for architects, builders, home-owners and conservationists to work together to produce wildlife-friendly building design. The public was challenged to design a building of aesthetic and environmental excellence, built with sustainable materials, offering a home to bats and an educational visitor attraction. Tandberg and Murata, fourth-year undergraduates at the Architectural Association, designed a complex, beautiful structure that looks like a picture in a frame. Jeremy Deller won the Turner Prize in 2004 with "Memory Bucket," a film including three million bats leaving Frio Cave in Texas. [LINK]

The latest addition to CAN's BlogNet, appearing automatically on our front page, is the RSA Arts & Ecology blog from London. Arts & Ecology, a program of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce (RSA), supports the arts in examining and addressing social and environmental concerns in an interdisciplinary and international arena. They do conferences, publications and projects that look at arts efforts to challenge and propose solutions to pollution, waste and loss of natural habitats. The RSA began working to better the environment in 1770, offering the first prize for reducing industrial smoke emissions. Now the Arts team sits next to another major RSA project, CarbonLimited, encouraging citizens to help reduce the carbon emissions that increase global warming. This blog is gathering input for an elaborate upcoming site, Arts & Ecology Online. [LINK]

"Political Equator II" is the second conference in a series that explores many sociological, ecological and political borders, moving from California to Baja California. November 16-17, 2007, a collective of architects and urbanists offer "a provocative series of events and interventions ... hosted by major cultural institutions, neighborhood-based NGOs,and independent alternative spaces, eventually crossing over into the no-man’s -and of the border zone itself, where the Tijuana River symbolizes the conflicts these collaborative practices seek to expose and engage." They include a conversation on a train, a Table of Collaboration, a "front" at the activist border artspace Casa Familliar, a border crossing, a lecture on the "planetary garden" at the Tijuana River, and a global border-zone conversation at Centro Cultural Tijuana. The convenors are Teddy Cruz + Grant Kester with Denise Bratton, Eloisa Haudenschild + Steve Fagin, and Carmen Cuenca. [LINK]

"Weather Report: Art and Climate Change" is an exhibition in Boulder, Colo., through December 21, 2007, part of Ecoarts, an extraordinary calendar of events this fall. The exhibit, curated by Lucy Lippard, features collaborations between artists and scientists "intent on creating a visual dialogue about climate change and enlightening and empowering audiences with a vision for a sustainable future. " Issues include desertification, floods, changing watersheds, global warming, renewable energy, carbon profiling, reforestation, species transformation and more. The sponsor, Ecoarts, is a cross-sector coalition of some 20 major science, arts, environmental, educational and other organizations and institutions that also presented across Colorado this fall: a gathering of indigenous leaders, science workshops, sustainable living expos, performances, talks, fairs, feasts and parades, plus tours of solar homes, culinary gardens, science exhibits, coal-fired power plants, wind turbines and more. [LINK]