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Gaia Project
Founded in 2008 by visual artist and independent curator James Brady, Gaia Project is a new independent artist-led, cross-disciplinary environmental arts organisation that embodies a creative response to the challenges that climate change presents in the 21st century. Drawing inspiration from the Deep Ecology movement we are committed to promoting a wider cultural awareness and understanding of the holistic inter-relationship between the visual arts, human activity and the natural environment. What makes Gaia Project unique is that (unlike a number of UK based environmental arts organisations) our scope to take action is not international but rather much more ‘grass roots’ and closely focussed, on that of the British Isles – our homeland.
Through the co-ordination of site-specific cross-disciplinary visual arts projects, Gaia Project works exclusively with artists who live and work in the United Kingdom and who share an active concern for climate change, ecology and sustainability through their practice. We believe that artists can play a valuable social and cultural role in investigating, interpreting, and communicating the phenomenon of climate change. They have the collective ability to stimulate social shifts in thinking, attitude and behaviour about our ‘everyday life’ which are now crucial to exploring the possibilities of developing more sustainable lifestyles (through a less carbon-reliant economy) and mitigating the future effects of climate change.
With an ongoing programme of critical activity Gaia Project seeks to position itself at the forefront of the current interfaced movement of visual arts within the climate change debate. This will be achieved by acknowledging the necessity for working with other disciplines in order to deliver cohesive, informed and publicly accessible projects. Wherever possible the artworks and ideas developed through our collaborative practice need to be founded in scientific research.
By linking artists with professionals in other non-arts fields (such as the earth sciences), and working closely with local government, local communities, cultural and environmental NGOs; Gaia Project’s core objective (through its varied activities) is to develop and facilitate a wide social engagement and debate in this complex issue of climate change. Through cross-disciplinary collaboration and cultural exchange networking we are committed to opening-up new creative platforms and critical interfaces, through which the broader social and cultural challenges of climate change can be explored on a national scale.
Gaia Project essentially aims to function in three interrelated ways:
1) Experimenting and investigating with new models of curatorial practice beyond conventional exhibition models, with a focus upon temporary outdoor site-specific projects.
2) Creative consultancy and cross-field networking facilitator for UK based environmental/ecological artists.
3) Producing and commissioning new artworks, public events, exhibitions, and symposia.
A message from our Curator
Climate Change is not just an environmental issue...
it is a social issue
it is a cultural issue
it is a security issue
it is an economic issue
it is a human issue...
If, as human beings we are to face the challenges that climate change brings, then we must strive to live more sustainable lives. We must educate our communities and develop the means and the attitudes, and the strategies and positive solutions to live more sustainably. Each and every one of us has a responsibility to make 'the change' a reality.
The ‘green’ (permaculture) movement is bigger than most of us may think. It is a counter-culture growing in strength day-by-day, uniting people with the same sensibilities and the same dreams. Gaia Project seeks to function as a positive and creative facet to this global movement.
As individuals, as families, as communities – locally, nationally and globally, we must take measures to become informed, and to inform others about living more harmoniously and sensitively with the environments in which we live. Humans have upset ‘the balance’ of this planet and this must be re-addressed before we become our own ignorant victims – some would say worthy victims of a living, breathing planet that will dispose of us for its own self-preservation.
Gaia Project’s moral objective is to make a small contribution to raising such awareness – promoting learning opportunities and uniting people. We endeavour to achieve this by using the visual arts as a vehicle to communicate – to make alchemy out of the creative and poetic forms of human expression.
You have heard the stories and seen the pictures: peak oil to economic recession – droughts to floods – species extinction to melting ice caps – slave labour to big business – biofuels to deforestation – carbon market to black market. These are just a few symptoms of the global condition in the 21st century and phenomenon in a much bigger picture – a picture that looks uglier by the day.
So, do we just sit back in ignorance and watch? Go figure…
James Brady
Gaia Project - Director/Curator
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Latest page update: made by James@Gaia-Project
, Apr 24 2009, 9:55 AM EDT
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