Image: pixabay.com
THE LETTER
The letter we all need to read... feel,... and send! Send it to 2020. Send it to our fears, disappointments, and anger. Send it to ourselves. For having done this, we will find peace. Hope. Love. We will find Future. And Faith...
Image: cortada.com
AN EYE OPENING PROJECT
"DO NOT OPEN" is a participatory art project, organized and lead by Prof. Xavier Cortada. Its goal is to provoke a first-hand awareness on climate change and the way it affects our life and the life of those coming after us. Because it is true that for many people (or should we say for most of the people) climate change is still something distant, something chimerical, something that is not relevant to them - not now, not in this moment. Yet, Prof. Cortada proves us wrong. He makes us, or actually let's say, he helps us see, admit and acknowledge the personal (and global) effects of climate change. Because this is the only way a change could be made. Not via impersonal narration, but via personal interpretation.
Prof. Cortada asks the participants to write letters to the future, focusing on the climate change which effects we experience today. Then the participants should put the letters away and leave them unread, until a future time. The result is the acknowledgement that climate change is real and that our today is what will form the next generations' tomorrow. ..
Image: pixabay.com
TIME TO SAY THANK YOU
The following text has been written on the occasion of Earth Day 2020 - 50th anniversary, by Chantal Bilodeau - a renown playwright and translator, a pioneer in the sphere of eco theater, called one of "trailblazers who are changing the climate conversation" .
"(Dear Earth) Thank you for putting up with our excesses and our temper tantrums, our greed and our indifference, our honest mistakes and our willful ignorance. You patiently endure our petty in-fighting, our endless politicking, and our deflections. No matter how disruptive our actions are, you continue to hold us in your embrace with great compassion. When the future is so uncertain, your calm and steadiness are comforting." - Chantal BIlodeau
Image: ALN
IT IS ALL ABOUT ART
What happens when you mix the enthusiasm of 40 students in architecture at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), the canonical musical piece form 1964 "in C" by Terry Riley, the unique architectural improvisations by David Gersten, the unprecedent musical talent of the pianist and composer Michael Harrison, and the remarkable piano skills of another pianist and composer - Stuart Isacoff? The answers is simple. A masterpiece called "Galapagos in C".
The performance was part of two collaborative Architecture studios co-taught by Gersten and Harrison. Gersten led the class "Galapagos Providence" and Harrison led the class "Outside the Guidelines". "In a series of call and response duets, listening and speaking to the paintings within the RISD Museum's Grand Gallery, the work attempts to create a conversation with the room, drawing out the paintings into the sounds of 'In C' using spoken word, sound installations, performative gestures and projections," Michael Harrison say, while explicating the idea behind the project.
The performance was featured in "The Wall Street Journal".
image: pixabay.com
OUR BEST FRIENDS. AND OUR BEST TEACHERS
Prof. Una Chaudhuri talks about the book on animal studies and performance - "Animal Acts: Performing Species Today", published by University of Michigan Press. But Prof. Chaudhuri does not talk only about the book. Nor does she talk only about animals and their place in contemporary performance. What she talks about is how we think about animals, about ourselves and about the world we share. About the way animals are trying to create a connection, and the way we, humans, are trying to distort it. She talks about animals. But she actually talks about us…
