Ann Arbor artist Catherine Spurr tests her "wind sculpture" for the UM Arts andCraftsmen Guild Fall Air Fair, Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 in and around the Michigan Union

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Developing artist residencies in rural communities : the McLean County experience /

On cover: Arteries : articles on community arts development.

Daughter of Eve, "Femme Fatale", and Persecuted Artist: The Mythic Transgressive Woman in Oscar Wilde's and Richard Strauss's "Salome"

Historically, Salome was an unexceptional figure who never catalyzed John the Baptist's death. However, in Christian Scripture, she becomes the dancing seductress as fallen daughter of Eve.  Her stepfather Herod promises Salome his kingdom if she dances for him, but she follows her mother’s wish to have John beheaded. In Strauss’s opera, after Wilde's Symbolist-Decadent play, Salome becomes independent of Herodias’ will, and the mythic avatar of the femme fatale and persecuted artist who Herod has killed after she kisses John's severed head.  Her signature key of C# major, resolving to the C major sung by Herod and Jokanaan at her death, represent her tragic fate musically.

Integrated science and art education for creative climate change communication

An interdisciplinary field trip to a remote marine lab joined graduate students from fine arts and natural resource science departments to think creatively about the topic of climate change and science communication. We followed a learning cycle framework to allow the students to explore marine ecosystems and participate in scientific lectures, group discussions, and an artist-led project making abstract collages representing climate change processes. Students subsequently worked in small groups to develop environmental communication material for public visitors. We assessed the learning activity and the communication product using pre- and post-field trip participant surveys, focus group discussions, and critiques by art and communication experts of the products. Significant changes in knowledge about climate change occurred in program participants. Incorporating artists and the arts into this activity helped engage multiple senses and emphasized social interaction, as well as providing support to participants to think creatively. The production of art helped to encourage peer learning and normalize the different views among participants in communicating about climate change impacts. Students created effective communication products based on external reviews. Disciplinary differences in cultures, language, and standards challenged participating faculty, yet unanticipated outcomes such as potentially transformative learning and improved teacher evaluations resulted.

Which Reality? Interactions at the southern border of Mexico as fieldwork of creative practice

El siguiente ensayo sintetiza y describe el proyecto de investigación creación ¿Cuál realidad? cuyo objetivo es la creación y análisis de una práctica artística como forma de entender y generar conocimiento a partir de las manifestaciones y acontecimientos sociales y culturales en diversos lugares de la frontera sur de México. Lo que se busca es reflexionar acerca de las fronteras, no sólo como lo que delimita el fin o el principio de los territorios de estados nacionales o geográficos, sino como productoras simbólicas de las diferencias entre las personas, recalcando todo aquello en lo que no son iguales por encima de lo que tienen en común. Los espacios geopolíticos que delimitan el territorio de un estado-nación son el repertorio palpable de la movilidad de personas, cosas y acontecimientos. Estas prácticas son efectuadas de manera más o menos visible y demuestran que existen y han estado ahí constantemente redes de comunicación y formas de acción común, que tienen como fin procurar bienestar y elevar la calidad de vida de los partícipes. El proyecto ¿Cuál realidad? en su materialidad y visibilidad fue planteado como una serie de intervenciones en sitio, tales como esculturas públicas, instalaciones, acciones participativas, fotografía y video, a partir de la interacción en algunas ciudades fronterizas en los estados de Chiapas, Tabasco y Quintana Roo y su colindancia con los países de Guatemala y Belice. La producción a girado entorno a las siguientes tres líneas de búsqueda temática: La línea fronteriza, el espacio físico; las personas y grupos que confluyen en estos territorios; el contrabando de cosas y el trasiego de las personas entre los países o en el interior del territorio nacional (entre ciudades del mismo estado, inmigrantes rurales etc.). Los lugares seleccionados son significativos de la frontera sur y tanto las esculturas como las intervenciones han sido construidas con objetos y/o procesos que funcionen simbólicamente para los grupos o habitantes de la zona y en colaboración con ellos: objetos útiles para el trabajo, procesos de transformación de materiales, técnicas de fabricación artesanal, ropa, donaciones, entre muchas otras construcciones.

Precarious decencies: negotiating creative (im)mortalities, in life, together

This paper takes up the question of what might hinder the collaborative impulse among artists and specifically poets, and offers—as one possible answer—the complication posed by the urge of an artist for immortality, or for their (individual) name to live on. The paper begins by returning to a moment in Plato, namely that of the Symposium and its observations concerning the connection between poiesis (making) and a questing after immortality. Contrasting with what seems like Plato's broadly positive framing, the paper takes up a second reading of immortality (or the 'will-to-live') found in an early text of the Yogic canon, that of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. In this second text, written somewhat later than Plato's, the will-to-live is framed otherwise, as one of five afflictions that can be 'made thin' by practice. The paper's wager is that, viewed in this way, as an affliction, the will-to-live (or urge for immortality) deserves consideration as a hindrance to the impulse towards collaboration. Noting, however, that in the poiesis of writing poetry, where there is both the making of things and the action of making things, this creative constellation always contains the tempering solution to its own inherent lures. Writing, although providing fuel for immortal appetites (due to what it makes), also works to temper the worst of this same impulse via the contribution of practice—as dedication, craft and community-as-practice. The practice of writing, therefore, is already at play, and can be emphasised explicitly for any poet or maker who also wants to be able to want to collaborate. The practice of writing, then, and its turn away from investments in identity, works to thin out the more destructive face of an urge for a dubious eternity that can eclipse our ability to work together creatively with others in this life.

Creatrix: artist in residence performance at birthing the mother 14

Digitally projected improvised creative writing performance art.

Creative Practices Around the Production of Cork

Cork, as a natural product provided by the bark of the cork oak tree, is an important staple of the Portuguese economy and important to Portuguese culture. It is a sustainable product with a positive ecological footprint, from harvesting to industrial production, with the advantage of creating a local economic model through regional labour activity and distribution. Within the balance between nature-human-economy to create a sustainable system, cork production in Portugal represents a human and social dimension. By focusing on that dimension and by creating an awareness of the cultural and social impact of the activity and by re-appraising the meaning of the material within the culture, the study reframes a consideration of the actual place of labour and production. The human, geophysical, historical, social, economic, ecological and cultural aspects of the place are observed as regards their relation to work or labour in that physical space. A pilot study is being developed in the village of Azaruja in the district of Évora, Portugal. In this small locality, cork is very important in terms of the relationships between the physical subsistence of their residents and the local natural resources, because it structures the place in its cultural, social and economical dimensions. This paper outlines the theoretical foundations, the process and the outcomes of the participatory ecodesign project titled Creative Practices Around the Production of Cork which was initiated by a Portuguese artist/design researcher and developed further through the collaboration with the other two authors, one a Portuguese visual artist/researcher and the other a Turkish fashion designer/theorist. The investigation focuses on questions that expand the notion of place for artists and designers, filtered through the lenses of manual labourers in order to understand their physical, social, cultural and economic relationship with the environment. To create the process of interaction with the place and the people, a creative collaborative dynamic is developed between the authors with their range of artistic sensibilities and the local population. To adopt a holistic notion of sustainability and cultural identity a process of investigation is designated to: (1) analyse, test and interpret - through the dissemination of life stories, visual representation of the place and the creation of cork objects - the importance of culture related to the labour activity of a local natural resource that determines and structures the region; (2) to give public recognition to those involved, taking into account their sense of belonging to the place and in order to show the value of their sustainable labour activities related to local natural resources; (3) to contribute to the knowledge of the place and to its dynamism through an aesthetic approach to labour activities. With reference to fields of knowledge such as anthropology, the social arts and sustainable design, a practice-based research is conducted with collaborative and participatory design methods to create an open model of interaction which involves local people in the realization of the project. Outcomes of this research will be presented in the paper as a survey analysis with theoretical conclusions.

Creative industries as a globally contestable policy field

The development of the creative industries “proposition” has caused a great deal of controversy. Even as it has been examined and adopted in several, quite diverse, jurisdictions as a policy language seeking to respond to both creative production and consumption in new economic conditions, it is subject to at times withering critique from within academic media, cultural and communication studies. It is held to promote a simplistic narrative of the merging of culture and economics and represents incoherent policy; the data sources are suspect and underdeveloped; there is a utopianization of “creative” labor; and a benign globalist narrative of the adoption of the idea. This article looks at some of these critiques of creative industries idea and argues against them.

Co-creative media : theorising digital storytelling as a platform for researching and developing participatory culture

This paper considers the question, ‘what is co-creative media, and why is it a useful idea in social media research’? The term ‘co-creative media’ is now used by Creative Industries researchers at QUT to describe their digital storytelling practices. Digital storytelling is a set of collaborative digital media production techniques that have been used to facilitate social participation in numerous Australian and international contexts. Digital storytelling has been adapted by Creative Industries researchers at QUT as a platform for researching the potential of vernacular creativity in a variety of contexts, including social inclusion of marginalized and disadvantaged groups; inclusion in public histories of narratives that might be overlooked; and articulation of voices that otherwise remain silent in the formulation of social and economic development strategies. The adaption of digital storytelling to different contexts has been shaped by the reflexive, recursive, and pragmatic requirements of action research. Amongst other things, this activity draws attention to the agency of researchers in facilitating these kinds of participatory media processes and outcomes. This discussion serves to problematise concepts of participatory media by introducing the term ‘co-creative media’ and differentiating these from other social media production practices.