GREENHOUSE BRITAIN
Helen Mayer and Newton Harison at Gunpowder Park, March 28 2006
 Helen and Newton Harison discussing Greenhouse Britian with David Haley at Gunpowder Park | GREENHOUSE BRITAIN is an arts based initiative that considers issues of climate change, the effects of the rising levels of sea water to the coastline of mainland Britain and an increasing world population. This event is one of the six related workshops touring Britain looking at ways in which future housing distribution, food production, energy needs and water and life support systems can be adapted to respond to these changes.
Organised jointly by Manchester Metropolitan University, The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, South Ayrshire Council, University of Wolverhampton, University College Falmouth and Gunpowder Park.
The project features American artists Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison. Among the leading pioneers of the eco-art movement, the collaborative team of Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison (often referred to simply as "the Harrisons") have worked for over thirty years with biologists, ecologists and urban planners to initiate collaborative dialogues to uncover ideas and solutions which support biodiversity and community development. For over 35 years, they have proposed questions, often difficult and unexpected, that have led to visions of sustainability and survival.
The Greenhouse Britain project stimulates a long overdue debate on global warming as people across Britain are encouraged to share stories, ideas and suggestions which will lead to new visions of sustainability and survival.
The Gunpowder Park team has positioned the Park as the leading East of England regional organisation for this national initiative focusing on our most pressing ecological concerns.
| Losing Ground: Gaining Wisdom | | On March 28th, to an audience of artists, scientists, landscape architects and students, the Harrisons presented Losing Ground: Gaining Wisdom, a lecture addressing issues of climate change focusing on a number of their artistic projects from as early as 1974 through to the present day.
The Harrison's concept of art embraces a breathtaking range of disciplines. They are historians, diplomats, ecologists, investigators, emissaries and art activists. Their work involves proposing solutions and involves not only public discussion, but extensive mapping and documentation of these proposals in an art context. Past projects have focused on watershed restoration, urban renewal, agriculture and forestry issues among others. The Harrisons visionary projects have often led to changes in governmental policy and have expanded dialogue around previously unexplored issues leading to practical implementations throughout the United States and Europe. The Harrisons draw on natural systems to inform human systems. Their practice involves co-opting expertise from different sectors and disciplines to explore issues relevant to local, national and international populations and landforms. They have developed work across Europe, America and Asia.
"Our work begins when we perceive an anomaly in the environment that is the result of opposing beliefs or contradictory metaphors. Moments when reality no longer appears seamless and the cost of belief has become outrageous offer the opportunity to create new spaces - first in the mind and thereafter in everyday life."
And in this new beginning
this continuously re-beginning
you will feed me when my lands can no longer produce
and I will house you when your lands are covered with water
and together
we will withdraw
as the waters rise. (The Lagoon Cycle 1978)
| Text excerpts courtesy of www.greenmuseum.org
For updates on the Green House Britain project contact:
David Haley, Research Fellow, Metropolitan Manchester University
d.haley@mmu.ac.uk | |
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