A Windowfarm makes it easier for anyone to get started growing hydroponically even in the limited space of an apartment, during fall, winter, and spring months.

Newly released school kits allow K-12 and University teachers and students to grow and study hydroponically-grown food in a scholastic environment during the winter.

Almost anything can be grown in a Windowfarm including, Arugula, Basil, Calendula, Chamomile, Cilantro, Collards, Cress, Dianthus, Dill, Kale, Lemon Balm, Lettuces, Lollo Rossa, Marigolds, Mesculan, Mint, Mustard, Nasturtiums, Pansy, Parsley, Safflower, Sage, Salvia, Snapdragons, Snow Peas, Sorrel, Squash, Stevia, Sugar Pea, Swiss Chard, Thyme, Tomatoe, and Violas.

Researchers have argued that to grow your own food is one of the most effective actions an individual can take for the environment and personal health.

via Food For Life Global

Carsten Nicolai + Marko Peljhan

curated by Yukiko Shikata (guest curator) and Kazunao Abe (YCAM)

The Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] presents polar m [mirrored], a brand new installation piece. Carsten Nicolai and Marko Peljhan, two artists who keep operating on the international stage, team up once every ten years for a collaborative investigation into the state, concept and informational environment of the ever-transforming “earth as environment” in the respective age. Part of this long-term project, this exhibition proposes a new understanding of human existence and living environments as formulated by the artists in the year 2010.

With polar m, they are proposing new perspectives on the global ecosystems. Their new work consists of two mirrored cubical spaces (one accessible and one not), a field of radiation generators and a system of radiation observatoria. It probes our understanding of the intelligence of nature and of human existence through the prism of radiation phenomena and their visualisation and sonification.

via Digicult

Come read out loud parts of an international report on climate change. The report is a 600-page text that summarizes the research of thousands of scientists and attempts to grapple with the complexities of adaptation.

The art of reading aloud takes this arcane scientific policy text and makes it part of the voices of our city and our lives. Bring life to data, breathe the language of science, and join together in voicing the vision of our future.

These readings will take place in urban spaces throughout Boston over the next four months. Each reading will be followed by conversation and drinks.

Part I: Observing Changes
When: Thursday July 8 6:30 pm
Where: Boston Commons (by Park Street T Station)

Info: www.platform2.info
RSVP: jane@janemarsching.com

This video was shown at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Mayor Miller attended to represent Toronto as Chair of the C40 at the Climate Summit for Mayors and continue to champion the leadership of cities in fighting climate change. Watch the video to see what Toronto is doing to fight climate change. Find out what you can do at www.livegreentoronto.ca

ECOAESTHETIC: The Tragedy of Beauty is the first exhibition of SEA to be mounted in Exit Art’s main gallery. In keeping with SEA’s mission to present artworks that address socio-environmental concerns – and to unite artists, scholars, scientists and the public in discussion on these issues – ECOAESTHETIC will establish a summer encounter of social and environmental projects. Through the work of nine international photographers, it approaches the mystery of beauty in the natural and built environment, which can be destructive or utopian.

The Tragedy of Beauty will focus on photography of land where the tragedy of the image becomes the aesthetic of the environment. The artists in this exhibition do not have a passive engagement with the environment; rather, they seek out beautiful and tragic images to emphasize the human impact on fragile ecosystems, to elucidate our relationship to nature, and to visualize the violence of natural disasters. The purpose of The Tragedy of Beauty is to demonstrate that global environmental struggles are creating an aesthetic.

ARTISTS

Edward Burtynsky (Canada); Mitch Epstein (USA); Anthony Hamboussi (USA); Chris Jordan (USA); Christopher LaMarca (USA); Sze Tsung Leong (USA); David Maisel (USA); Susannah Sayler/The Canary Project (USA); Jo Syz (UK)

In the beginning thunder was the voice of God. Faeries painted colours on flowers and everything that happened was directed by God.

Karl Schroeder was one of the first speakers in the Subtle Technologies symposium. It was called Rewilding Humanity. Karl, a sci fi writer, whose recent titles include: Cities of the Air and Pirate Sun delves into the philosophical realm by showing how Western science has re-discovered the divine. I yearned to hear him in conversation with Deborah McGregor. There were many resonances and points of departure as they took us on a journey looking at the same landscape through Anishinabe and scientific lenses. This is what makes Subtle so rich.

He first examined The Copernican Revolution, the shift in consciousness that occurred when science discovered that the sun was the centre of our solar system, not the earth. According to Schroeder, that knowledge stripped away the faeries. But recent groundbreaking research in cognitive science describes how the human mind extends into the physical world giving credence to the idea that there is no separation between the perceiver and the perceived.

For instance, Karl talks about math as an embodied process. We actually use our bodies to think and we can only do calculations in relation to the world around us.  The faeries are back as philosophy shifts into science and scientists realize that we cannot be separated from the world.

Here are some mind-expanding books recommended by Karl Shroeder

Brian Arthur – The nature of technology
Jane Bennett – Vibrant matter
Andy clark – Supersizing the mind
George lakoff – Philosophy in the flesh
Thomas metzinger – The ego tunnel
Timothy morton – Ecology without nature
Brian cantwell smith – On the origin of objects

The festival kicked off with a talk on indigenous perspectives on sustainability by Deborah McGregor, Associate Professor of Geography and Aboriginal Studies at University of Toronto. As an Anishinabe woman who grew up on Whitefish River First Nation in Northern, Ontario, Deborah noted that relying on the environment was her lived experience before the concept of “traditional knowledge” was constructed by governments and academia.  She spoke about the growing recognition that around the world Indigenous people have developed sustainable practices. This knowledge is embedded in stories and is a rich source for ideas that are vitally important to inform global environmental issues. One thing that struck me in her talk was the importance of protecting not only the stories but the language—the key to the knowledge. Even more importantly, the traditional knowledge holders, practitioners and speakers of the languages should also be protected as part and parcel of the preservation of this knowledge.

From space, astronauts can see whole continents and oceans in a single glance. If we imagine such a vantage point and begin to focus on Ontario, we can start to see how our communities interact with one another and what impact they might have on the planet as a whole.

Ontario Centres of Excellence is proud to present Canadian astronaut, Dr. Bob Thirsk, as our luncheon keynote speaker. Hear about Bob’s experiences as a Canadian astronaut and the importance of engaging young minds to create sustainable communities. Bob will be joined by the Mayor of Guelph, Karen Farbridge, as she shares some exciting developments towards achieving the goals of sustainability via Guelph’s Community Energy Initiative.

Friday, June 25
11:15 a.m. – 2.30 p.m.

11:15 a.m. – Registration
11:45 a.m. – Lunch
12:15 p.m. – Presentations
1:45 p.m. – Networking

Delta Guelph Hotel
and Conference Centre
Royal City A Ballroom
Guelph, Ontario

For more information about the Mind to Market Innovation Series,
please visit http://m2m.oce-ontario.org,
contact the event hotline by e-mail
or at 416-861-1092 x1019 / 1-866-759-6014 x1019.

Regular Registration $60
Table Registration (of 10) $550
Student Registration $30

Can you imagine a forest of poetry? I mean literally. A forest where different kinds of trees represent dead poets. The kind of tree of each poet selected by alive poets, as homage to the ones who were before them. A certain way to celebrate the life of poetry with life in itself. A celebration where life and poetry come together as one. A way of expressing that although poets may die, their poetry does not; and that poetry is as necessary to life as the air we breathe and that we need trees as strong as the poems we remember, as the poetry that gives us breath.  This forest of poetry is a reality, a reality that is currently being grown in  Cuba.

Soleida Ríos’ poetics are political. She is a Cuban poet who was born in Santiago de Cuba, in 1950, and lives today in Old Havana, with her dog Gala.

Soleida is not an activist, at least not in the common way. She doesn’t do anything to take public space or make public battles, not in the traditional way. Her only battles happen in a black and white (cliché), on the page space. The book is her first public place to be taken. Anyone who knows Soleida in person can see that her life is a practice of what she writes or perhaps what she writes is a complementary practice of her life. Then, the second place to be taken, in political way, is the “day after day”. Maybe because she thinks that politics must begin with the individual and end with the individual. In Soleida’s texts we can find racial and feminist topics, the creation theme, but most of all, ecology, human ecology: “the study of the interaction of people with their environment” (Thesaurus Dictionary).

That’s why as a writer, her poetics are so particular. Autobiographical texts where she writes poetry that looks like a letter, but a letter to an unknown person. There are personal things, but it is not a personal matter. It is political. It passes through the individual’s life, personal life, and then becomes political. Soleida’s poetics are political because they study the individual and personal relations with other individuals and the environment. We can say she studies herself. And when she does it, she studies everything all around her.

Soleida created The Whispers, at every “Café Emiliana,” a periodic meeting where she invites writers and musicians to perform. The Whispers is a ritual that happens a few minutes before the Café begins. A group of volunteer writers – and one or two that are just friends or part of the habitual public of the Café, go to the “Plaza de Armas”  (Weapons Plaza), just in front the Café -that is a virtual space at the Cuban Institute of the Book, and read poems from Hispanic literature to people. The volunteers meet one hour before the Café begins then they separate and go their own way, stopping individuals  to ask them if they want to hear a poem, and if they consent to it, the passerby becomes the audience for a poetic recital. This goes on, spreading poetry throughout Old Havana, for about one hour.

The first time she does it, something strange comes up: contrary to what the global market of books and critics say, people are hungry for poetry. There is a subject for a contemporary critic. Looks like there is not a problem with poetry in itself but it is with the way in which poetry comes to the people. Again, Soleida discovers something that doesn’t come up from the side of academy or sociology.

It comes from the side of poetry, as a political practice of the individual.

A few days ago some Cuban writers received by electronic mail a list of the result of the questionnaire about the poetry forest. We selected the first poet that we’ll bring back to life as a tree and what kind of tree it will be. The forest of poetry is for now, only a project, because Soleida Ríos doesn’t have yet the monetary support. But no one refuses to participate, and every one is excited. There is, no doubt that she is going to make it real.

This guest post is by Lizabel Mónica, a Cuban artist, writer and director/editor of Proyecto Desliz, http://www.desliz.net.tc
an arts network and publication dedicated to bypassing borders and establishing new bridges.