Creative Footprint: A symposium on environmental concerns in art.

Speakers

Shelley Sacks

Shelley Sacks is an interdisciplinary artist working with others to shape humane and sustainable ways of being in the world. Shelley is Reader in Art in the Arts Department at Oxford Brookes University, Director of the Social Sculpture Research Unit and coordinator of the Earth Agenda project.
After graduating from the University of Cape Town in 1972, Shelley studied in Germany with Joseph Beuys as well as taking up a postgraduate scholarship at the Kunstakademie, University of Hamburg in 1974.

Throughout the seventies and eighties Shelley worked between Germany and South Africa creating new forms of work and non-formal education in dialogue with Beuys (until his death in 1986). This work followed the principals of the Free International University developed by Beuys and Heinrich Böll.

Her projects are all examples of an expanded, interdisciplinary art practice that explore the relationships of imaginal thought and 'new organs of perception' to the shaping of a democratic and ecologically sustainable world. Her work includes creating arenas and spaces for new vision, developing connective practices and new methods of engagement, and facilitating transactions, interventions and exchanges in working towards a humane and ecologically viable world. She describes these processes, forms and practices as 'instruments of consciousness', in contrast to 'objects of attention'.

Shelley is currently developing three new social sculpture projects – University of the Trees; Place of Meeting in Hannover, Germany; and Milk Futures: Land of Milk and H(m)oney in California. She is working on several social sculpture texts, including a Social Sculpture Reader with the philosopher Dr. Wolfgang Zumdick and cultural scientist, Dr. Hildegard Kurt, with whom Shelley teaches on a European programme in Weimar, Germany linking art and sustainability. Shelley is also developing a Connective Practices network exploring new methodologies of engagement concerned with the relationship of imaginal thought and culture to sustainability.

Social Sculpture Research Unit www.social-sculpture.org
Exchange Values www.exchange-values.org
University of the Trees www.universityofthetrees.org

Dr Daro Montag

In addition to leading the RANE research cluster and the MA in Contemporary Visual Arts I have been practicing as an artist for nearly twenty years. For many of these I have been engaging critically with two distinct fields of knowledge – art and science.

The art produced attempts to reveal, or make visible, natural phenomena or processes – the tracks and traces of the unseen and the overlooked. It involves getting to know a place in some depth, to move beyond appearances, in order to explore its ever-changing complexity.

In addition to working with specialists and institutions I have also worked with amphibians, invertebrates, microbes, plants, soil and the wind. I anticipate that this palette of collaborators will be extended in future projects

Research in Art Nature & Environment
www.contemporaryvisualarts.org

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Neville Gabie

Born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1959, Neville Gabie graduated from the Royal College of Art, London with an MA in Sculpture in 1988. Currently working full time as a practicing artist Neville previously taught as senior lecturer at Cheltenham College of Art, University of the West of England and Durban Technikon, South Africa. Neville also judged the 2007 Jerwood Sculpture Prize and is currently chair of trustees at Stroud Valleys Artspace and a trustee for Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust.

"My central concern is in working responsively to specific locations or situations. Those sites are not arbitrary or randomly selected, but fit together, being places in a state of physical or social flux. The nature of locations I chose to work in demands flexibility. Working in a range of media from sculpture to film and photography, my projects are usually developed over a sustained period of involvement and often a significant part of my practice includes working collaboratively with others. "

Neville Gabie is currently Artist in residence at Cabot Circus in Bristol for three years; the largest city centre retail redevelopment site under construction in the UK. As well as developing his own practice, with additional funding from ACE, Neville initiated a project for six other artists to make temporary work on the building site. www.bs1.org.uk The Cabot Circus Cantata, a collaboration between Neville, David Ogden and The City of Bristol Choir will be launched at the Arnolfini on the 10th June. Having travelled widely through his projects such as Playing Away [POSTS published Penguin Books1999] and with recent residencies in China and Western Australia, Neville provides insight into the perceptive qualities of the artist to reveal the latent Index of Things on both the macro and micro level in both the material and social world. His recent work describes the increasing tension that exists in the interface between these two entities.

www.nevillegabie.com

Lesley Greene

Lesley Greene is a very well regarded public arts worker. Recently awarded a Master of Arts Honoris causa from the University of the West of England in recognition of her outstanding contribution, locally and nationally, to public art development and her advocacy of art and design in public settings.

She is currently working as Knowledge Exchange specialist with a University of Gloucestershire Arts Research Team on an audit and arts strategy for the RSPB. She also advises Sustrans on its new Arts programme and is Art Consultant to In Our Element – fund-raisers that commission work within the biodiversity action plan programme for the Cotswold Water Park Society.

Lesley has been keen to influence policy-making. Her work for the London Arts Board, the Arts Council of England, the Royal Society for the Arts is known for its clear thinking and passion.

She is an Associate Trustee of the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trust, acting as Chair for four years during a key period of change for the Trust as it developed into one of the largest programmes of public art in the county.
Lesley has written a number of publications including: On the Beaten Track - Forestry Commission publication, Commissioning Art Work - Arts Council Publication. Lesley was also was part of the Research Study Team for the Department of the Environment (as it was then) that resulted in the seminal and detailed publication Art for Architecture (HMSO 1989) edited by Deanna Petherbridge.

Lesley has been a Green Party Stroud District Councillor 1994-2002 and is currently a Parish Councillor for her village of Bisley. Probably the only village in the country to have a Village Design Statement - Future Visions, commissioning work from Dominic Thomas and Walking the Land.

If this wasn’t enough the tireless Lesley is Co-ordinator for the Arts Working Group for Transition Stroud and a Trustee for Stroud Valleys Artspace.

Simon Ryder

Originally trained as a zoologist before turning to art, Simon Ryder's work combines art and science with his interest in the natural world. Two recent projects - 'Birds of the Antarctic' and 'Border Patrol' - have focussed on our perception of the natural world and the role that technology plays in this process. In collaboration with squidsoup.org, he is artist-in-residence at the National Wetlands Centre Wales.

www.artnucleus.org

Tara Downs

Gavin McClafferty

Gavin born in London 1970 is currently studying Fine Art MA at Cheltenham.
Selected projects include; Selector for the first Darbyshire Award exhibition (2007), Horizontal Column residency at Meantime (2007), Last Gallery (2008) at Futuresonic Manchester.

Gavin will be exhibiting a new sound installation Verbatim (2008) as part of the Unreliable Narrator group show at Brunels’ goods shed as part of Site 08 in addition to presenting the Last Gallery outside the Subscription Rooms in Stroud town centre on the 21st June.

About The Last Gallery

An architectural structure made from recycled materials, and totally open, will host to environmental / land use groups and Colin Glens In Negotiation.

The Last Gallery is an on-going project made from art industry waste identifying the role the creative arts have in adapting to the challenge of climate change and fossil fuel depletion. It functions as focal point and forum, acting as an initiator for social engagement; stimulating exchanges of ideas and information and explores the definitions of sculpture and art with no commodity other than the aesthetic of human relations.

“Inherent in my work is a vulnerability and a volatility that, in a visual sense, causes it to oscillate between creation and destruction where by I try to keep my interactions minimal or quiet to allow those stories already present to come forward”.

thelastgallery.blogspot.com
www.gavinmcclafferty.com