Confirmed Speakers

DAY 1 – 25 OCTOBER 2006

Clive Adams is a curator with a particular interest in the work of artists which engages with nature. He started his career at Arnolfini, Bristol in the Seventies, and his exhibitions have covered a period from C18th to the present day. The most recent are 'The Impossible View?' at The Lowry (winner of the Museums and Heritage Award for the best UK temporary exhibition of 2003) and 'The Art of White' at the Lowry until 17 April 2006. Clive is the Director of the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World (CCANW). CCANW is currently being developed, its aims are to:

• Develop new understandings through the work of contemporary artists which explores the social, environmental and scientific issues involved in our changing relationship to nature
• Create new art and art practice by supporting artists to respond to the wider historical and cultural constructions of 'nature'.
• Increase access to the contemporary arts by breaking down barriers to public engagement.

www.ccanw.co.uk

Johanna Gibbons studied landscape architecture at Edinburgh College of Art, Heriot Watt University, graduating in 1983. She formed J & L Gibbons with husband Luke in 1986. She is a Board member of the Landscape Foundation, a Design Advisor to the London Development Agency and an external examiner at Edinburgh College of Art. J & L Gibbons clients include the London Development Agency (LDA) the Earth Centre and Cambridge University.

J & L Gibbons has recently been awarded the contract to draw up a vision for Highbury Fields, which is Islington’s largest open space and sits in the centre of the borough. The vision will define a stronger dynamic between the historic environment and the requirements of today’s communities. The proposals will communicate the historical, visual, spatial, cultural and social significance of Highbury Fields, and demonstrate how the spaces can work interactively rather than exclusively within a conservation context.

www.jlg-london.com

Ed Gillespie is the Creative Director and co-founder of Futerra. In a varied, complementary career Ed has taught in Jamaica for a year, worked for the Survival Natural History Film Unit, as a marine biologist in Australia, New Caledonia and Orkney and was environmental manager for London Transport. Ed has Masters degrees in both Marine Conservation and Sustainable Development. At Futerra he co-writes and produces short provocative films on social and environmental issues, develops multimedia educational materials, and runs training workshops amongst a host of other media related activities.

Over the past years the Futerra team has worked with FTSE 100 companies, tiny local businesses, national government departments, schoolchildren, the UN, filmmakers, accountants and charities.

“In all our work we’ve found innovative, creative and strategic ways to promote sustainable development”

www.futerra.co.uk

Dan Gretton Co-Director, Platform. For over 20 years PLATFORM has been bringing together environmentalists, artists, human rights campaigners, educationalists and community activists to create innovative projects driven by the need for social and environmental justice. This interdisciplinary approach combines the transformatory power of art with the tangible goals of campaigning, the rigour of in-depth research with the vision to promote alternative futures.

Since 1996, the work of Platform has focussed on the impact on our minds, our bodies, our society and our environment of that most potent of modern phenomena - the transnational corporation.

www.platformlondon.org

Wallace Heim writes on nature, art and the ethical; on nature as performed in the everyday and as performed in aesthetic works. Her PhD in Philosophy at Lancaster University was on performance and nature: methods of change in social practice art. She is co-director of Public Space, a research company focussed on issues of environmental citizenship, social justice and public engagement in political decision-making. She curated the online exhibition, enterchange, for greenmuseum.org, and co-curated the event BETWEEN NATURE at Lancaster University. Her previous careers include directing courses on sustainable development for Edinburgh University/British Council; designing sets for theatre/film/television; and making sculpture.

www.greenmuseum.org/c/enterchange/

David Prior is a sound artist working in partnership with architect Frances Crow, specialising in the integration of sound and architecture to create 'sonic spaces'. Their work includes; Sound consultancy for artists, architects and designers: Sound design for exhibitions: Site specific public sound art and permanent spatialised sound installations: Research into relationships between architectural space and sonic arts practices. As a cross-disciplinary organization Liminal explores projects from two perspectives leading to new spatialised soundscapes and architectural interventions developed for their acoustic properties. Their approach to any new project depends on the specifics of the site and the clients brief, which is explored through the phenomenon of sound.

“This approach enables us to generate innovative proposals that can challenge the visual culture that dominates the arts and design professions”

www.liminal.org.uk

Daro Montag is an artist who completed a practice based PhD that proposed a methodology for an ecological, process based art.  This was based on his 'Bioglyphs' project where artworks were created by micro-biological activity.  He currently runs the MA in Contemporary Visual Arts at University College Falmouth and is responsible for the RANE research cluster (Research in Art, Nature & Environment)  The main aim of this group is to research and promote the relationship between process based thinking and visual art practice.

rane.falmouth.ac.uk

Tracey Warr and Phil Curtis present Artist Links, a joint project between Arts Council England and the British Council and it seeks to nurture a fragile cross-cultural environment between China and Britain through links between contemporary arts practitioners. As a development opportunity for artists, Artist Links uses its particular expertise of the UK and Chinese arts scenes and of the cultural operating environments in both countries to facilitate early stage development of artists' projects.

The featured artists are young, emerging and established practitioners. Their work covers theatre, dance, live intervention, new music, sound work, video and other lens based practice, installation, performance, ceramics, curating, digital work and other cross art form practice. Twenty four artists' projects, directly involving 34 individual artists were selected for Artist Links support through 2005 – 2006. These awards are equally divided between UK based and China based practitioners and have included residencies at Dartington College of Arts.