Free Thinking

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The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Free Thinking: Can Artists Help Save the Planet?

Artistic Reflections of the Environmental Crisis

Can Artists Help Save the Planet?

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Can Artists Help Save the Planet?

From ice photos by Wayne Binitie to 140 ideas from artists collated by Hans Ulrich Obrist

Forensic architecture asks us to 'look at an air bubble'. Olafur Eliasson says, 'Look down, look up.' Just two of the 140 suggestions from artists discussed by Hans Ulrich Obrist.

Is encouraging action still art? What does it mean to make art about the environment? Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough brings together a curator, researchers and artists to discuss these questions.  She hears about suggestions from artists, inspired by the forward thinking Gustav Metzger (1926 - 2017), collated by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. These include the idea from Futurefarmers that we "make an unannounced visit to a farm and take a good long look at the farmer's bookshelf" or Forensic Architecture's call for us to "Look at an air bubble" or Olafur Eliasson's "Look down, look up" and a poetic call to action inspired by the writer Audre Lorde (1934-1992): you can find an episode all about her work in the Free Thinking archives.  Lucy Neal describes a project that has involved a forest camp in Coventry looking back at the ideas of the suffragettes. Wayne Binitie shares his experiences of taking photographs of melting ice sheets, recreating them in a gallery and making sound and music. Dr Jenna C. Ashton describes her work with communities in Manchester thinking about how they face up to changes in the climate and reflect those in a pageant planned for next year.
 
140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kostas Stasinopoulos is published now - and draws on the environmental programme Back to Earth run by the Serpentine Gallery where Obrist is an Artistic Director   https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/art-and-ideas/
You can find out more about his paintings and photographs at  http://waynebinitie.com/ and an exhibition of his work is due to open later this year. 
Walking Forest by the artists Ruth Ben-Tovim, Anne-Marie Culhane, Lucy Neal and Shelley Castle, commissioned by Coventry 2021 City of Culture is one of the 15 Season For Change arts commissions ahead of COP 26  https://www.seasonforchange.org.uk/
Dr Jenna C. Ashton is a Lecturer in Heritage Studies at the University of Manchester and co-founded CIWA, the Centre for International Women Artists, a collective artist studio and gallery in Manchester, UK   https://creative-climate-resilience.org/ 

You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Dr Des Fitzgerald and Dr Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion. 
They're all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil.      https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 

Producer: Sofie Vilcins

Image: Girls Garage, DIY Planter, 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth, edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kostas Stasinopoulos, Serpentine and Penguin
(London: Penguin Books, 2021)
"Build Something That Feeds Your Community
Think about how you define your community, and how you
could best nourish and serve them. Make a planter box to
feed your family, or build an entire chicken co-op for your
local urban farm!"

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