Moving Towards a Balanced Earth: Kick the Carbon Habit FEATURES WORLD RENOWNED ARTISTS INCLUDING ANTONIO BRICENO, SUSAN NORRIE, KEN RINALDO AND AMY YOUNGS
SAN FRANCISCO and WELLINGTON, New Zealand, May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- The
Natural World Museum (NWM), in partnership with the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), revealed today plans for a 2008-2009 traveling exhibit
entitled Moving Towards a Balanced Earth: Kick the Carbon Habit. The exhibit
will debut at the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in Wellington to commemorate the
celebration of UN World Environment Day (WED) on 5 June 2008. For the past 30
years a different country has hosted the WED celebration; this is the first
year Wellington, New Zealand has been the official host city. As the host of
WED 2008, on the theme of "Kick the Carbon Habit," New Zealand is one of the
first countries to pledge a carbon-neutral future.
Moving Towards a Balanced Earth: Kick the Carbon Habit features the works
of 27 artists representing 20 countries. The contemporary art pieces all
focus on climate change, with an emphasis on lowering carbon emissions. The
thought-provoking exhibition includes photographs, paintings, sculpture,
video, multimedia and conceptual installations.
Each year, NWM and UNEP launch their annual flagship exhibit in honor of
WED -- a principal vehicle through which the United Nations stimulates
awareness of the environment and enhances political action. Each exhibit
focuses on a different environmental issue and utilizes the universal language
of art as a catalyst to raise global awareness as it tours the world. After
New Zealand, the exhibit is scheduled to tour through Latin America, North
America, Asia, and Europe.
Exhibition Curator Randy Jayne Rosenberg states, "Artists are often
described as prophetic, visionaries, and poetic shapers of the world -- one
step ahead of the rest of humanity." In this exhibition, we ask the
participating artists to find new ways to articulate this balance; to help us
find a new vocabulary and through their artworks help us find new visions and
new choices. The show visualizes answers to questions such as: How do we get
the Earth in balance? What does balance look like? What does it feel like? How
will we know when we're there?
Pieces in the exhibition include: Notes from Havoc, an installation from
Australian video installation artist Susan Norrie, exploring one of the worst
environmental disasters in Java when an earthquake ruptured an oil and gas
well; Farm Fountain, from collaborators Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs, (both
Professors of Art at Ohio State University) whose installations encourage
active, self-determined relationships with a work of art and the coupling
between human, machine, nature and culture; Venezuelan photographer, Antonio
Briceno, who brings to Wellington his Gods of America series, a long-term
project that documents gods and shamans from South America and North America.
Participating artists include: AES & F Group, Ken Aptekar, Lise Bjorne,
Lien Botha, Antonio Briceno, Enrique Martinez Celaya, Alison Clouston, Bill
Culbert and Ralph Hotere, Geoff Dixon, Chris Drury, Mounir Fatmi, Peter Fend,
Isa Genzken, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Walangari Karntawarra, Ik-Joong Kang,
Gabriela Morawetz, Susan Norrie, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Susan Plum, Ken
Rinaldo and Amy Youngs, Alexis Rockman, Harriet Russell, Soledad Salame, Lars
Siltberg, Cyprien Tokoudagba, and Bill Viola.
"With a focus on lowering carbon emissions, we hope this exhibit will
contribute to a shift in visitors' attitudes toward the environment, and in
the consumer choices they make," said Mia Hanak, the Founding Executive
Director of the Natural World Museum. "Let us use this time around UN World
Environment Day to each do our part in helping turn the tide of public
awareness and promote positive action around climate change."
The 2007-2008 international exhibition, Melting Ice / A Hot Topic:
Envisioning Change, focused on climate change, specifically melting ice caps,
to coincide with last year's WED theme. The exhibit will directly reach a
projected one million viewers upon completion of the tour. It kicked off its
tour in Oslo at the Nobel Peace Center during UN WED in June 2007, and then
traveled to the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, then moved to Monaco,
and is now housed in the Field Museum in Chicago, USA, where it will remain
through September 1, 2008.
NWM has partnered with UNEP since 2005 through the global "Art for the
Environment" initiative, a curatorial program that utilizes the universal
language of art to unite people in action and thought on a broad spectrum of
environmental topics. NWM has produced the traveling exhibit Moving Towards a
Balanced Earth: Kick the Carbon Habit as part of the "Art For the Environment"
program.
Achim Steiner, UN Under Secretary General and Executive Director, UN
Environment Programme (UNEP), said: "If, as they say, a picture is worth a
thousand words the Kick the Carbon Habit exhibition will surely be worth
thousands of tonnes in avoided greenhouse gas emissions as a result of
visitors inspired to personal action by the powerful art works in the Natural
World Museum's exhibit hosted at the Te Papa Museum and eventually at
galleries across the world."
Te Papa is pleased to unveil this year's new traveling exhibition in New
Zealand, marking its involvement in the joint efforts focused on the role of
art in changing behavior in order to help safeguard the environment.
"There is no issue more topical than the concern about the well-being of
this planet and the responsibility we have collectively to ensure its future
for our children. Te Papa is very pleased to host this coming together of art
and environmental issues, in an exhibition that explores our relationship with
the Earth," said Dr Seddon Bennington, Te Papa's Chief Executive.
There will be a media preview for the exhibition on 4 June between 11am
and 1pm. Media can contact the Te Papa public relations office at
0064 4 381 7083 for more information and to RSVP.
DOWNLOAD IMAGES AND MORE INFO AT:
www.naturalworldmuseum.org/press/co2
SOURCE The Natural World Museum
