deep sustainability: the art, ecology & politics of forestscathy fitzgeraldred stables summer school july 2012

Tuesday 17 July 2012Good afternoon everyone and thx to Denise and ANne for organising what I think is an import gathering. Also thx to Seodhin for putting my name foward. I feel honoured to share my work with you.Iʼm going to v. briefly talk about my work it has evolved in an odd slow organic way over many years with excursions into science, art & politices

‘We nearly always ask the wrong question—”What can I get from this?”

And so rarely the right one— “what can I give back?”’

Tuesday 17 July 2012Firstly however I Thought I would start with a quote which refers to what I am ultimately aiming for in my work -. This quote is from a writer poet activist who like several others has found that by looking at how we treat forests is a good starting point to think about our relations to the world around and so to sustainabilty.

ʻI thought again of our fundamental inversion of all relatedness, of how we nearly always ask the wrong question—What can I get from this?—and so rarely the right one—What can I give back? Even when we try to learn from others, it is from the same spirit of acquisition: What can I learn from this forest ecosystem that will teach me how to manage if for maximum resource extraction?

“What can I learn from this forest community that will teach me better how to serve it?‘“ Derrick Jensen, A Language Older than Words

Tuesday 17 July 2012Rarely: What can I learn from this forest community that will teach me better how to serve it?ʻ  Derrick Jensen, A Language Older than Words

i.e a thriving forest ecosystem has much to teach us about multi-species sustainability

Tuesday 17 July 2012I didn’t start out in the arts, although all through my schooling i was passionate about art and nature. I was a microbiologist in research in NZ for 10 yrs and I found the change in going to art college extremely difficult. While its not evident in these photos I had in fact wanted to engage with ideas of ecology in my final year of art college as when I had first arrived in Ireland in 1996-7, in Ireland I had been working for the tree organisation Crann in Leitrim. However, my hopes of writing my thesis on art & ecology, stemming from my newly found interest on forests were dashed - as unfortunately someone had written on the topic in the year previously and I was told to look for another idea.This change in plan happened in the final few months of my degree I had to change tack quickly so I returned to looking at science. HOwever even though these works referenced science I found I was expressing ecological concerns about genetic modification & likewise my thesis was titled ‘science and the eclipse of the earth’ . I continued working in this way until about 2005 but continued my interest in forests

Newton & Helen Harrison talking recently about the ethics of art & ecology practices 2012

Tuesday 17 July 2012Who I had wanted to write about in particular for my art college thesis was Helen and Newton Harrison, who, as some of you know have been at the forefront of art & ecology practices since the early 1970s.

I was fascinated how the Harrison's managed vast ecological studies over large bioregions through an art practice that involved dialogue with scientists, politicians, general public. Central to their work, and its something that I think I have long carried with, me was their key aim about seeing their art practice as forming a‘conversational drift’ amongst all participants. Their ultimate aim was to ‘change the conversation’. (some of you maybe aware of relational aesthetic in cont art practice, it is a much longer practice in art & ecology circles)

However, back in 1999, I clearly remember thinking I could never imagine myself having the confidence to do anything similar - it seemed a million miles away from the painting dept I was then in.

see youtube.com/cathnarnia

Tuesday 17 July 2012However several odd things, when I look back now completely changed and broadened my experience and confidence, Firstly I mangaged to create a solo show in Leitrim at The Dock in 2006 that gave me an opportunity to really focus on my forest art & ecology interest. I took it into my head to document all the new woodlands that Jan Alexander had inspired 13 years earlier in the biggest broadleaf plantings by individuals in a community in Irleand . When I had first worked with Crann many years before I had seen all the activity of the woodlands being planted... I was curious, as was Jan, to revisit and interview these new woodland owners and their young trees.I had never made a film before, I borrowed a video camera from the local arts office but I managed to created a half hr docum and installation that fully recorded this extensive community project. (the films are online)The other thing at this time was that I had unexpectedly started working for my neighbour, at that time, the deputy leader, of the Green Party Mary White. From the rel. slow reflective world of art and science, I was brought into the fast and challenging world of implementing policy -. Never having been involved in politics before this has given me an indepth insight to all the efforts and fustration of politics that has at its heart an aim for sustainable living and ecological and hence social justice. However, at the time, like with other things, I never really saw how this connected with my art practice.

we have at best 3 to 4 decades to get humanity to live more sustainably on this one finite earth - culture|futures 2009

Martin Salinas Save the humans (2010) Flickr - creative commons

Tuesday 17 July 2012Skipping on a few years, I managed to maintain an interest in this area despite it being little understood or discussed in the wider public or in contemporary arts. I wondered how best to move forward

transforming my conifer plantation to a forest slow art residency of 40 years - native ash tree seedlings coming up in thinned conifer plantation

Tuesday 17 July 2012It didnʼt happen overnight but Iʼm in the very fortunate position to live in a small conifer monoculture plantation.

I had with Jan A been aware of the the radical change in mindset amongst leading Eu foresters, who now thinking about long term sustainability are transforming monoculture plantations to permanent forests. It struck me one day, that I had, literally surrounding me, the opportunity to transform my own woodland & make a long term commitment to this diverse community. It could also be the site for my filmworks.

At the point, I was working full-time on a project that involved building a large online community an became v. confident with social media. So in my spare time in 2008 I started blogging on art & ecology and was close follower & contributor to the comprehensive UK Art & Ecology. Slowly I gained confidence and quite an in-depth knowledge of key debates in the art & ecology area.

creating backyard filmic narratives

connecting my local eco stories/actions to

planetary concerns

still from burning bright 2008

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Tuesday 17 July 2012In regards to my art practice i first I thought my video work was just about creating short films about environmental actions but I was soon returning to old questions that I have long had,

the ecocidal eye: beyond the anthropocentric to a relational gaze in cinema

Tuesday 17 July 2012& this has in fact lead on to my current phd work, where I’m looking at asking can we aspire to a more ecological, rather than human centered means of encountering the world beyond the tired conventions of current nature documentary formats

‘probably no substantial dimension of film history that is so widely admired by a public audience... has also been so thoroughly ignored by film critics, historians and theorists, as the nature (wildlife) film’

(Upclose and political - three ruminations on nature film, MacDonald 2006, in Adventures in Perception, Cinema as Exploration, 2009)

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Tuesday 17 July 2012to my surprise still, when I looked at film theory I found very little critical analysis of the form of nature films. Film writer Scott MacDonald has in recent years tried to alert the film world about this

Scott MacDonald believes

experimental cinema has potential in ʻretraining perceptionʼ....allowing an examination of the conventions of media-spectatorship (and production) that largely ignores the earthʼ

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Tuesday 17 July 2012Encouragingly, MacDonald has also commented that he thinks

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I’m learning with my neighbours and local green cllr about close to nature, non clearfell forestry

Tuesday 17 July 2012At the same time, I’m still learning with my neighbours and local green cllr about close to nature, non clearfell forestry; my site is now listed on the new Irish database - at just 2.5 acres its the smallest close to nature manged forest in Ireland; clever wee forest: every 3 years it produces 70 tonnes of firewood and is home to increasingly biodiverse communities!!!

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With ProSilva, the EU wide close to nature forest group I have studied mixed species, permanent forests in Netherlands, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia

Tuesday 17 July 2012With ProSilva, the EU wide close to nature forest group I have studied mixed species, permanent forests in Netherlands, Hungary, Austria and Slovenia; clearfelling has not been practised in Slovenia for 64 years; this also led me to lead work on new national sustainable forest policy over the last 3 yrs which has been just been accepted.

see 40 yr+ residency in this forest as a continuing dialogue - my relational films & forest learning becoming an audiovisual diary that I share with other humans online, an e.g of deep sustainability

ecoartfilm.com ...15 million followers :-)

Tuesday 17 July 2012I see my expected 40 yr+ residency in this forest - as a continuing dialogue, my relational audiovisual expts becoming a sort of diary that I share with other humans online - I see my forest interventions are not a conservation project but more a restoration, an active tending.

further readingwww.ecoartnotebook.com and my research on experimental ecocinema and forests at www.ecoartfilm.com

see also www.artsandecology.org.uk and greenparty.ie/policy

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articles and presentations:

Tuesday 17 July 2012

A tiny forest in the making in rural ireland, it is now part of a conversation threading through art and politics of a new new way of relating to the more-than-human world: deep sustainability where all thrive

Tuesday 17 July 2012A tiny forest in the making in rural ireland, it is now part of a conversation threading through art and politics of a new new way of relating to the more-than-human world: deep sustainability where all thrive

by the way I had an unexpected email last Jan 2011, it was from the Harrisons! Iʼm not sure how they became aware of me but they wrote and said, Dear Cathy, from our perspective, very good workʼ. THANK YOU.