OPEN CALL: ARARAT +2-4%/°C RESIDENCY
Mustarinda offers 3 Nordic artists a residency grant. The grant will cover travel expenses using environmentally friendly means (up to 700e), allowance 1500e, transportation in the Kainuu region, assistance and curatorial meetings, and accommodation in Mustarinda Residency for 1,5 months. The residency period takes place 1.9. - 15.10.2015. We invite free format email applications to the address info@mustarinda.fi before the 5th of July. We are looking forward to receive applications from a wide range of professionals of different fields, including visual arts, architecture, theatre, video/film making, writers, journalists, experimental technology, research and science. For basic information about the residency facilities, please go to http://mustarinda.fi/en/society/residency" href="http://mustarinda.fi/en/society/residency">http://mustarinda.fi/en/society/residency.
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The original ARARAT
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The original ARARAT exhibition was organised at Moderna Museet in Stockholm 1976 and involved 100 artists, teachers, inventors, architects, growers, craftspeople, engineers and students. The exhibition’s theme dealt with the skewed distribution of the world’s resources. The exhibition’s philosophy was based on the interaction of nature - ecology. It had a thought-provoking view on environmental issues, with a focus on recycling, small-scale production, transparent democratic process, alternative energy and construction, organic farming and public transport, in line with the 1960’s experiments with art and technology.
Looking back to the original ARARAT gives an exceptional possibility to analyse the development of ecologically concerned activities and ways of thinking during the last 50 years in the Nordic countries and elsewhere. How have ecological frameworks developed and what has their role been in wider societal development? What kind of narratives have been created for alternative, sustainable ways of living and creative activity? How has the context of ecological art changed during the decades?
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Current situation: +2-4%/°C
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Mustarinda is inspired by the original ARARAT concept and sees many intellectual and artistic links between the activities of the ARARAT collective in the 70's and ours now. Unfortunately, the main ecological concerns remain as urgent and unsolved as they were back then. We would like to show our respect to the diversity of the original ARARAT by gathering together a new work group from diverse backgrounds to realize a series of events and exhibitions beginning on ARARAT’s 40th anniversary.
According to IPCC, the global community needs to cut down its greenhouse gas emissions by 20-40% in the next few years to reach the official goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees and to avoid a catastrophic 4 degrees or stronger warming. Over 1300 natural scientists have signed the so-called Consensus Report, the core of which can be summarised as follows: ”Based on the best scientific information available, human quality of life will suffer substantial degradation by year 2050 if we continue on our current path”. According to the recent analyses and future forecasts by IEA, Shell and many others, current policies will lead to +4°C warming, while taking the +2°C path would require vast changes in the operational and cultural logics of societies.
The sustainability narrative of the original ARARAT was largely based on presenting alternative technologies and related practices for building sustainable communities. In the year 2015, we now know that despite of many technological achievements the ecological crisis is deepening rapidly and posing severe threats to our societies already in the near future. Although there is more than enough scientific knowledge about the threats and the urgency to make societal transformations, the issues are downplayed by mainstream political and economic actors and discourses. One of the most demanding questions is how to decouple the demand for never-ending economic growth and growing emissions.
These notions provide some focus points for the new series of events and exhibitions under the working title +2-4°C/%. The concept links the expected rates of global warming with average economic growth rate goals in the world’s main economies. The concept asks how to negotiate between these two interconnected indicators. How much and in what ways our societies must change to achieve the goals of less than +2°C and more than +2%?
Great, almost unimaginable structural changes seem unavoidable in the near future. +2-4°C/% aims to foresee where the changes take place and how they affect different groups of people. It seeks to develop effective cultural and artistic practices for searching and building alternative futures.
The residency is funded by Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme.
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MUSTARINDA
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The goal of the Mustarinda Association is to foster sustainable values and lifestyle, ecological and cultural diversity, and the status of different disciplines of art and science, especially contemporary art. The not-for-profit association was registered in 2010.
The core activities of the association consist of independent and critical art, research, and education. The activity is centered in the Mustarinda House, which is located next to the Paljakka Nature Reserve in the Kainuu region. There are facilities for artists/researchers-in-residence as well as art exhibitions and different types of events. In addition, the association develops regional nature protection, nature tourism, and culture.
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MUSTARINDA
Paljakantie 61, 89400, Hyrynsalmi, Finland
www.mustarinda.fi | info(a)mustarinda.fi