SAVE THIS DATE
for a
Green Infrastructure Forum
on
“Ecoart, Ecoservices:
Creative Collaborations in and for the Environment”
Featuring Lynne Hull and Dr. T. Allan Comp
On Thursday December 6, 2007 from 2:00 pm to 5:00 p.m. there will be a Green Infrastructure Forum featuring internationally recognized environmental artists Lynne Hull and Dr. T. Allan Comp on ways to help government and private sector leaders engage the art community to more evocatively communicate to the public both the importance of protecting parks and open space and the impact of the land use decisions on these green spaces.
The forum, which is sponsored by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government's (COG) Community Forestry Network and the Greater Washington National Parks of the National Park Service (NPS), will be held at 777 North Capitol Street, N.E., Suite 300 Washington, D.C. in the Council Board Room. For directions see: http://www.mwcog.org/contact/directions/
This event, one in an ongoing series of Green Infrastructure Forums and Workshops since 2002, is to discuss park, forest cover, open space and recreation land approaches within the metropolitan Washington region, will feature:
Forum Presenters
Lynne Hull
Eco-Artists
Ft. Collins, CO
Colorado artist Lynne Hull has pioneered “trans-species” art, creating sculpture installations as wildlife habitat enhancement, eco-atonement for human impact. She works from the belief that artist creativity can be effectively applied to the urgent situations we face today.
Lynne has worked in the American West with a variety of wildlife agencies including state wildlife departments, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service. She has worked in 14 states and 8 countries, with a wide variety of wildlife agencies and communities. In 1998 she worked in Yucatan and Chiapas, Mexico with environmental NGO Pronatura. In 1993-94 she realized three projects in the U.K. courtesy of a special Fulbright Fellowship and one in Kenya on a Lila Wallace/Reader’s Digest Foundation/Arts International Residency. Currently she is working on “Migration Mileposts”, linking communities in the hemisphere who share migratory birds, and recently completed “East Drake Pondworks”, a major Art in Public Places for the City of Fort Collins, CO where she lives.
Her client list includes hawks, eagles, pine martin, osprey, owls, spider monkeys, salmon, butterflies, bees, frogs, toads, newts, bats, beaver, songbirds, otter, rock hyrax, small desert species, waterfowl and occasional humans.
Dr. T. Allan Comp
Founder and Director, AMD&ART, 1994-2005
Director: Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team: an OSM/VISTA Initiative, Office of Surface Mining, U.S. Department of the Interior
Jo Hanson, the pioneering public artist in San Francisco, described Allan as "a relaxed blend of John Muir, John Dewey and John the Baptist." He holds a PhD in history, worked for several years in cultural resources with the National Park Service, left that to work as a developer of historic properties and consultant to historic preservation projects, and then to work for a regional Heritage Area in western Pennsylvania where he invented the AMD&ART project www.amdandart.info. Recently named a Purpose Prize Fellow by Civic Ventures for his work with the people of the Appalachian coal country, he’s garnered other awards for his successful effort to engage the art and humanities in environmental recovery and for his remarkable choreography of multiple federal agencies working with rural mining communities. Profiled by the Chicago Center for Arts Policy in its “Great Arts Innovators: Great Writers” series; his AMD&ART Project won the EPA Phoenix Award in 2005 and he has two EPA Bronze Medals. Always a volunteer for AMD&ART, his work attracted the attention of other watershed and community improvement projects in the Appalachian coal country and in the Western hard rock mining country as well. A leader in creating innovative partnerships, Allan now leads the Appalachian Coal Country Watershed Team, an OSM/VISTA initiative www.accwt.org, and the Brownfields initiatives at the Office of Surface Mining.
The forum on “Ecoart, Ecoservices: Creative Collaborations for and in the Environment” will include presentations and discussions on:
- How can infrastructure assist in understanding ourselves as a community, as a link between past and future, urban and natural?
- What can we as artists, scientists, engineers and architects, designers, offer each other to expand our boundaries and connect to our neighborhoods, watersheds, ecosystems and regions?
- How can art and science work together to play a role in interpreting environmental issues for the public understanding of these cycles? For example, can we assist the public to make the lifestyle changes needed to reduce and mitigate climate change?
- Can creative collaborations create physical, intellectual and emotional connections which result in public advocacy and better understanding for parks, for environmental regeneration, for the conservation of vital environmental services?
Background on the Green Infrastructure Demonstration Project
Research on regional land cover data trends conducted by the National Park Service (NPS) and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) for the Metropolitan Washington Green Infrastructure Demonstration Project has revealed that the region is losing 28-43 acres of open space daily. Demographic data and trends forecasts indicate that by the year 2030 the region will have two-million more residents.
When word of these findings was released in May 2004 the Washington Post wrote an excellent article entitled “Region's Green Space Going Fast”. NPS and the COG received comments and calls expressing concerns about this trend for several weeks afterward. The data from this research has been cited by local governments and citizens groups alike to advocate for local green space efforts and many said that they were concerned by the loses yet felt helpless to change this trend. In the absence of a regional outrage, few wrote or spoke out about this alarming land cover loss trend; and no one spoke for the plant, animal, soil, water, and air – those environmental communities forever changed by our sprawling development patterns.
Speculating on this less than enthusiastic public response to these data; it leaves one to wonder if it is that people have become complacent about open space loss and the destruction of living resources, or is it simply that the written and spoken words we use to communicate important issues, in this case those of environment and quality of life, routinely fail to connect with the public. Lukas Beckmann, a German writer and environmental leader, wrote, “We need new sources of knowledge so that words do not become more and more devoid of meaning”. Art is one of these necessary, but not sufficient, parts of environmental improvement projects so essential to inspire and connect people and their environment.
TO ATTEND:
To attend this forum please respond to this e-mail message at: glenn_eugster@nps.gov or blecouteur@mwcog.org or send a note by telefax to (202) 619-7220 or (202) 962-3203. By telephone call Glenn Eugster at (202) 619-7492 or Brian LeCouteur at (202) 962-3393.
Please respond by no later than Monday December 3, 2007.
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