Tagged: sustainability

Encounters: Artists, Cities and Communities

Encounters: Artists, Cities and Communities

Public Art and Power: Spring 2014 talks at NYC’s Public Art Fund
Through public commissions and site-responsive projects, the ways in which artists engage with the cities and sites they encounter continue to evolve alongside the communities and organizations that present their work. From citywide curatorial projects like Elmgreen & Dragset’s A Place Called Public in Munich, to Sam Durant’s investigation of historical narratives and their contemporary communities, and Katharina Grosse’s numerous site-specific outdoor commissions, considerations of place and people are always paramount to working in the public realm. The Spring 2014 Public Art Fund Talks series brings together a diverse group of artists to share the inspirations and practicalities involved in their varied approaches to the places and communities that become sites for public art.

http://www.publicartfund.org/

Mattress Flip Front, 2001 – Zoe Strauss @ ICP!

Mattress Flip Front, 2001 - Zoe Strauss @ ICP!

For a decade between 2001 and 2010, Philadelphia photographer Zoe Strauss (b. 1970) showed her photographic works once a year in a public space beneath an I-95 highway overpass in South Philadelphia. In these annual one-day exhibitions, Strauss mounted her color photographs to the concrete bridge supports and viewers could buy photocopies for five dollars. Through portraits and documents of houses and signage, Strauss looked unflinchingly at the economic struggles and hardscrabble lives of residents in her own community and other parts of the United States. She describes her work as “an epic narrative about the beauty and struggle of everyday life.” Strauss, a self-taught photographer and political activist, sees her work as a type of social intervention, and she has often used billboards and public meetings as venues. This exhibition is a mid-career retrospective and the first critical assessment of her decade-long project.

A stronger, more resilient NYC — a year after the flood, designing for the next disaster

A stronger, more resilient NYC — a year after the flood, designing for the next disaster

The next challenge to NYC infrastructure is likely to be heatwaves, not water, and our next mayor will do well if he adopts the lessons from Sandy, as articulated in the SIRR report.

How IKEA practices sustainablity to help save the planet — TED Talk

http://www.ted.com/speakers/steve_howard.html

Mega-retailer IKEA, selling $30 billion worth of products worldwide to more than 690 million customers in 300 stores, is in a good position to make a huge impact and lead the way toward a more sustainable planet. In this TED talk, Steve Howard explains how: helping farmers grow more-sustainable cotton around the world, remaking classic products to use fewer, more easily recylable parts, and investing €1.5 billion through 2015 in renewable energy sources, notably wind and solar.

As he says: “… sustainability is going to shape society and the business landscape over the next couple of decades….”

More here: http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_US/about_ikea/people_and_planet/