Putting creativity at the heart of
environmental policy and action
In 2007, CIWEM launched a major new strategic programme on Arts
and the Environment with the formation of the Arts and Environment
Network.
The programme includes leading and influencing national policy
dialogues on the subject, and building strong new alliances for an
increasingly shared agenda. Key advocacy messages and recommended
actions are directed at broadening these efforts, and at seeking
greater cross-sectoral coherence of policy thinking. For a
rationale of the network please see the Network's Policy Position
Statement on Arts and the Environment.
We Assert!
The AEN and its associates has for some time wished to declare
its diverse interests, beliefs and intentions. This has now been
realised in the production of
We Assert! A
Manifesto
Taking its inspiration from historic manifestos of political and
artistic intent, this collection of texts and images presents the
intensely personal, the deeply philosophical, and the clearly
articulated ideas, frustration, anger, love, pain and hope for our
futures.
Collaborative examples
The Network is particularly keen to help spread the word
about interesting case experiences of using the arts to address
environmental issues in the UK and overseas. We will research and
feature work on the collaborative
examples page from all arts disciplines, in order to help
promote creative approaches to the environmental challenges we all
face. Please let us know of
examples of projects and initiatives you have come across, or been
involved in, which offer useful experiences and inspiration for
others, including 'lessons learned'.
The AWEinspiring! Award
The AEN has also launched a high-profile Arts and the
Environment Award, in association with the Centre for Contemporary
Art and the Natural World (CCANW), to recognise innovation and
excellence in work by arts practitioners or environmentalists
engaging with arts practices.
For further
details and past winners, please see the AWEinspiring! Award
page.
Meet
the Steering Group
The Arts and Environment Network Steering Group meet four times
a year to discuss how CIWEM can bring creativity into the heart of
environmental practices and actions. We wish to include all CIWEM
members and stakeholders in this process, so if you would like to
get involved please email arts@ciwem.org. The current
steering group includes:
Dave Pritchard
Dave Pritchard is an influential figure in contemporary agendas
on art and the environment. In a 25-year career based mainly
at the RSPB, BirdLife International's partner organisation in the
UK, and the Ramsar Convention Secretariat in Switzerland, he has
had roles as international legal and policy specialist, advocate,
book author, senior manager and board director.
Dave is a Board Member of the UK Government's Joint Nature
Conservation Committee, and also served two terms on the Board of
Wetlands International. He has had a particularly long and
central association with the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands; and has
played roles in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, in the
governing bodies and technical committees of other Conventions, and
in UNESCO.
In relation to cultural issues, Dave acts as an independent
consultant, and persistently champions the building of stronger
links between the worlds of environmental policy, cultural heritage
and the creative arts. He is a practising artist, writer,
researcher, member of several arts-sector working groups and
Boards, and project adviser/collaborator in a number of pioneering
environmental arts initiatives.
David Haley
Ecological artist, David Haley, believes our ability to survive
Climate Change is the enactment of an evolutionary narrative. As
the dance of creation and destruction, also, demands new
opportunities and meanings for the other side of collapse, his
inquiries into the nature of water, whole systems ecology and
integral critical futures thinking inform his arts practice,
education and community developments.
Haley is the Senior Research Fellow in MIRIAD (Manchester
Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design) at
Manchester Metropolitan University. He is a founding member
of SEA: Social and Environmental Arts Research Centre, Director,
A&E [art&ecology] Research Unit and he leads the award
winning MA Art As Environment programme. His career has
included community and European touring theatre, celebratory arts
with Welfare State International and commercial work in new product
design, conference and audio visual production.
Haley is an active member of the eco-arts network, greenmuseum.org
and Director of the International Institute for Art and the
Environment and Harrison Studio & Associates (UK). He is,
also, a Fellow of the RSA and member of the Arts and Humanities
Research Council Peer Review College. Haley is on the Board of
International Advisors for Bamboo Culture International and
editorial committees of Cultura21, MAiA (Music and Arts in Action
Journal) and the Public Art & Urban Design Observatory.
Alastair Moseley
Alastair is the Water Sector Director for international
consultant, WSP Group, directing the water capability of the
business and developing a wide portfolio of services for the
integrated management of water. In a career spanning over
twenty-five years in civil engineering and environmental
management, Alastair's wide portfolio of experience embraces
sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS); hydrology and
hydrogeology; river system analysis; flood risk assessment and
environmental protection; rainfall analysis and catchment
response; sewage and water treatment; integrated water
management; water and wastewater networks; water industry asset
management; water resources and water industry strategy
planning.
In addition to his role as WSP UK Water Sector Director,
Alastair is a council member of the Chartered Institution of Water
and Environmental Management sitting on the Joint Professional and
Engineering Boards, and becomes President of the Institution in
September 2008. He is also a member of the ICE West Midlands
Management team.
Outside of working hours he is an active musician, playing
clarinet with the Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra and piano at
recitals and concerts around the country. He is keen to bring music
into his Presidential Year with CIWEM and promote musical events
that will inspire education and understanding about water and
environment affairs.
Nick Reeves
Nick has been Executive Director of CIWEM since 1998 and is a
Chartered Environmentalist.
His previous roles include Director of Policy & Deputy CEO
at the Institute of Leisure and Amenity Management (ILAM); Founder
and Managing Director of Land Technology Ltd - a management buy-out
company; Head of Environment with a local authority; artist, and a
freelance journalist writing on cultural affairs and the
environment; Adviser to the South East Arts Board.
Other Activities: Co-founder of the Green Flag Awards Scheme -
the Government funded environmental awards scheme and member of the
CLG Green Flag Advisory Board; Science Council Board Member; Board
Member of the Society for the Environment; Member of the RSA
Environmental Awards Forum; Council Member - the Institute of
Association Management; Member of the Environment Agency's Thames
Region Fisheries, Ecology & Recreation Advisory Committee;
Trustee of 'Brumcan', a recycling and environmental charity.
Nick is an Honorary Fellow of CIWEM, Fellow of the Royal Society
of Arts, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Fellow of the
Institute of Horticulture, Fellow of the Institute of Directors,
Freeman of the City of London and a Liveryman and Court Assistant
of the Worshipful Company of Water Conservators.
Clive Adams
Clive Adams' career began at Arnolfini/Bristol and now spans
almost 40 years, during which time he has curated dozens of
contemporary and historical exhibitions which have focussed on our
place within nature. These have ranged from David Nash to
J.M.W.Turner.
As Director of Mostyn Art Gallery in the late 80s, he supervised
its restoration, establishing it as Wales' leading exhibition
space. As an independent curator, he has worked in Japan and
Korea. An exhibition curated for The Lowry, 'The Impossible
View' won the Museums and Heritage Award for Best UK Temporary
Exhibition. He is a member of the International Association
of Art Critics, International Association of Curators of
Contemporary Art, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and External
Panel Reader for the MA Art and Environment Course at University
College Falmouth.
In 2006 he founded a Project Space in Haldon Forest Park near
Exeter, being the first phase of the development of the Centre for
Contemporary Art and the Natural World. CCANW now attracts
around 40,000 visitor/participants a year and its programmes have
ranged from those promoting the use of timber in architecture to
eco-fashion. Forthcoming programmes will explore 'Games
People Play', 'Soil Culture' and 'Islam, Nature and the Arts'.
Richard Povall
Richard Povall is a composer and digital artist, and was
until 2006 a co-director of dance-theatre
company half/angel. In 1997 with his partner Nancy
Sinclair, Richard co-founded Aune Head
Arts where he now leads on development.
Richard is a digital artist, composer and researcher who has
been working with new technologies for the past three decades. His
work, which includes interactive screen based work, custom
electronics and interface design, video and installation as well as
music for dance and theatre, has been shown
internationally.
He has held senior research fellowships at Dartington
College of Arts and Middlesex University, and was
Director of Contemporary Music at the Oberlin Conservatory of
Music in Oberlin, Ohio in the 1990s. He holds a PhD from
the University of Plymouth. He is an Aune Head Arts Trustee,
and has served on numerous Boards, including Dance South
West and Organic Arts, and chairing Soundart Radio and
Dance in Devon, the Dance Development Agency for Devon. His
research interests now centre around developing new technologies
for installation, and Arts & Ecology. He led the MA Arts &
Ecology at the former Dartington College of Arts (now part
of University College Falmouth) from 2008-10. He is a Fellow
of the Royal Society of Arts.
James Brady
Based in Merseyside, England, James is an
inter-disciplinary artist, activist and independent curator of
eco-cultural activity. Through his diverse practice he
endeavours to reveal creative patterns embodied within our
symbiosis with places, environments and 'natural
systems'. Very often his artworks address, abstractly,
what is commonly perceived and all too often misinterpreted, as an
anthropocentric distinction between the 'natural' (organic) and the
'human-made' (artificial).
The ecological possibilities of 'life as art as life as
evolution' is what fascinates and inspires James. What
drives his activity as a curator, is a desire to connect
people, ideas and actions in order to create emerging relationships
in our world that might otherwise remain unrealised.
James' curatorial practice is an integral extension and evolution
of his artistic activity. In recent years he have curated
exhibitions and collaborative projects with organisations such as
Liverpool Biennial International Festival of Contemporary Art,
London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, the BBC and CIWEM (Chartered
Institution for Water and Environmental Management). He
is the former Co-founder and Curator of High Tide UK, an
independent, non-profit environmental arts initiative.
He is one of the few curators in the UK whose practice is
engaged primarily in 'arts, ecology and sustainability'.
Characteristics of his curatorial activity include
inter-disciplinarity, collaboration and commissioning.
Currently he is an Associate of the CIWEM Arts and Environment Network. From 1997
to 2005 he worked in the UK museums and galleries sector,
primarily with collections, archives and exhibitions. His
academic and early professional background is in Art
History/Theory, and Museology.
