Creative practicefor a sustainable future

emer

gen

ce

Compiled and curated by

Fern Smith and Rhodri Thomas

Emergence is an initiative by Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales developed and presented in partnershipwith Volcano Theatre with the support of The Arts Council of Wales and British Council.

Inspirational thoughts on Emergence

Art and sustainability, poetry and love for theEarth, are for me a single passion. One serves theother, one expresses the other. Earth is thesubject, poetry its voice. When, in his poem‘Wind’, Ted Hughes writes, ‘This house has beenfar out at sea all night,’ or Larkin notices thespring buds, ‘The trees are coming into leaf/ likesomething almost being said’, the words are soright, so precisely describe the world weexperience that we respond with a heart-felt ‘Yes!’Emergence. New growth. Poetry – like all thecreative arts – makes the world fresh. The sameold world in a new light is a transfiguration. Art illuminates Earth’s intimate details, showingus why we love it, why we must cherish it.

The beautiful autumn of 2010, the hard winterof 2010-2011, and the warm spring of 2011, weretransfigurations of the ordinary, and noting theseseasons my daily task. My morning routine is towrite in my journal, recording details of weather,season, natural phenomena. But first I sort outthe house, tidy up, and recycle the day’s detritus.Recycling is routine. It takes no time at all. Much goes into the compost bin, the rest into agood strong Ceredigion re-cycling bag, foodscraps to the birds, the cat, the dog. A chickencarcass makes stock for the freezer, and the bonesgo into the wood-burning stove where it can waita day or two for fire. There is almost nothing left.We put out a black bag about twice a year. Why would I allow my rubbish to be buried inthe heart of the landscape that I love?

In my journal I write, observe, record. Then I switch on my computer to answer emails,hundreds of them in May and June, when theGCSE students clamour for attention. Some ofthe emails come from faraway places – Pakistan,India, Africa, South America. It is thrilling to beable to talk to each other across the worldthrough poetry. The happy coincidence of theGCSE exam and the internet have put poet andreader in touch with each other. A teacher inPakistan ends her latest message, “I could teachthem peace through your poem. Love from usall.’ An African student, writing in teenage text-speak, tells me a poem of mine made him raisehis hand in lit. class. From Argentina comes apacket of drawings and poems about whales anddolphins, because I wrote about them, and nowthey too love them and want to protect them.

After setting the house and its junk in order, I open my notebook, pick up my pen and write,to see what words will do. It seems to me that lifeand art are a single thing, what we create is to beshared, our decisions artistic and ethical, and thatthe way to help the planet is not anger, but truth.We must live it and love it. So my poems arelove-poems to the planet.

Gillian Clarke

Poet for Wales and

Sustain Wales

'Green Hero'.

The Story of Emergence by Fern Smith 2

Emergence and One Wales:One Planet by Rhodri Thomas 4

What the Delegates said aboutEmergence 5

Emergence - The Science by Dr Jean Boulton 6

Emergence 1 ‘The Context’A Delegate’s View by Philip Ralph 8

Global Warning by Martin Powell 9

One Wales: One planet and theArts in Wales by John E McGrath 10

Moving Arts by Alison Tickell 12

Zero Carbon Britain by Paul Allen 14

Exhibiting Artist Paul Emmanuel 15

Emergence 2 ‘Interconnectivity’ A Delegate’s View by Philip Ralph 16

Sustainable Ability by Lucy Neal 17

Kindness and Interconnectivityby Tom Andrews 18

Eco-Design by Axel Tangerding 20

Doing Less by Judith Knight 21

Emergence 3 ‘Resilience’A Delegate’s View by Philip Ralph 23

How to be Resilient by Eric Maddern 24

The Arcola Story by Dr Ben Todd 25

A Cautionary Tale by Bedwyr Williams 26

Sustainability and the Tragedy of theCommons by Dr Einir Young 27

Egino: Culture, Arts and theEnvironment by Eluned Haf 28

Moving the Agenda by Menna Elfyn 29

Emergence - A way of Life by Satish Kumar 30

Guest Speakers and Contributors 32

Resources 34

emergence

Preface Contents

1

Emergence seems to be theword I have been hearing andsaying most frequently recently.The Emergence conferences, heldthroughout Wales this past year inCardiff, Swansea and Caernarfon -the collective learning of which isbrought together in this document- are but one strand of a muchlarger picture. This project beganwith one of those accidental butlife-changing conversations andwas supported and nurtured bythe enthusiasm and faith of manypeople along the way. The crucialfactors which made it possible forme to co-develop Emergence wasthose rarest of gifts: space, timeand financial support – from theClore Leadership Programme. I was awarded the Arts CouncilWales fellowship for 2009/10 andtook a sabbatical from VolcanoTheatre which I had co-foundedand been jointly running for some25 years. This enabled me to stepback and look at my work and thearts in general, with ‘new eyes’.

I became interested andintrigued by the idea of leadershipfor perhaps the first time. Comingfrom a theatre company whichbegan as a cooperative in the1980’s, I had always had anantithetical response to theconcept of leadership, identifyingit mainly with authoritarianismand rigid thinking. During myfellowship I became interested inalternative models of leadershipand especially the idea of ‘servantleadership’; of being in service ofsomething greater than oneself orone’s organisation. There has alsobeen much research in recentyears into different organisationalmodels. One which particularlyinspired me is the idea of the ‘self-organising’ system which mirrorsnatural processes by drawing onand utilising information from theinternal and externalenvironment. This describes aseemingly alchemical processwhich I believe has much incommon with the power ofcreativity and creative thinkingand is found in the best artisticcollaborations and endeavours.

Fern Smith

Volcano Theatre

Company

Co-developer of

Emergence

Throughout my twelve monthsabbatical from Volcano I followedthe law of ‘synchronicity’ or‘serendipity’ and found myselfhaving and hearing many similarconversations. People from everyfield and country I wasencountering were speaking abouta ‘Great Turning’, ‘tipping point’,‘transition’, ‘window ofopportunity’ and even a new‘Reformation’. These people weregrounded in reality, in science andhad access to a wealth ofinformation that was all pointingin one direction – ‘business asusual is not an option’. Rather than seeing this as a timeof crisis and one which wasanxiety inducing, paralysing andoverwhelming, I was witnessing inthese people a power of optimismand activism I had notencountered before. They allseemed to be saying that we wereliving through a time of incrediblepotential for renewal and change.

In addition, creative thinking,actions and ways of living wereneeded as at no other time in thehistory of humanity. Pioneers,edge walkers, innovators werecalled for and also encouragementto tap into our deeper humanityand reclaim our values. I cameacross countless numbers whowere not only talking but walkingthe walk. Many were following theprinciple of ‘being the change youwish to see in the world’. Some of these were part of theenvironmental movement butmany were existing in the cracksbetween – between the body, heartand mind - professions.

The conversations took placeoutside of most people’s normalsphere of activity – at trainingcourses, workshops, intentionalcommunities and creativeconferences- which led first tointentions and then to eithersmall or large significant actions.

The conversations and ensuingchange (either in values,behaviour or worldly actions)flourished more in the presence ofthree factors: an environment oftrust and mutual respect; access tonew information; and anatmosphere of creativity, optimismand even playfulness. I becameinterested in the power of a trueconference – where people cametogether without narrow agendasand ready to fully participate withhearts and minds. I have aprofound belief that words canchange the world if those wordscan touch the deepest part ofourselves.

My intention with Emergencehas always been to create a spacewhere inspiration and thepossibility of change can occur. I have heard people say jokinglythat when you are one personstanding alone you are anindividual but when you standnext to somebody else, you havethe beginning of a movement.Emergence recognises the power ofnetworks, creativity and the arts totruly challenge and improve theway we all live. Transition andchange cannot occur throughshaming, hectoring or scaringpeople. We have to connect tointrinsic values and only then canlasting change occur in society. It is increasingly becomingaccepted knowledge that ourcurrent way of being and living isunsustainable. We use resources –food, oil, water - as if they were inlimitless supply. However,knowledge and information has toinform meaningful change,otherwise it is just so much data.Artists have a role in modellingand bringing about change – wecan be messengers, visionaries, thecreators of new lenses throughwhich we see the world; we caneven be violinists on the Titanic ifwe so choose. It is not merelyabout propaganda, though artsactivism has a vital role. In addition, the arts like everyother industry, needs to examineits policies and practice in order toreduce its environmental impact.

emergence

The Story of Emergence

For more information visit www.volcanotheatre.co.uk and www.cloreleadership.org.

2

“I was witnessing in these people apower of optimism and activism I had

not encountered before.”

At the very least Emergenceprovides an invitation and atmost, a provocation. Much of thebrilliant thinking aboutsustainability is coming fromWales – the Welsh Government iscommitted to a ‘One Planet Wales’– where we use one planet’s worthof resources rather than the three we are currently using. In addition, the Centre forAlternative Technology inMachynlleth has developed apractical and workable strategy forachieving a ‘Zero Carbon Britain’by 2030. The question is ‘what arewe doing as artists and as creativecitizens at this great time ofchange?’

Many of these policies,initiatives and directives speak thelanguage of implementation andpractical action. We need this inorder to manifest a moresustainable society. We also needthose eloquent in the language ofthe heart, of the imagination and

the elusive ‘X’ factor if we are tobecome adept at ‘the art of livingwithin the ecological limits of afinite planet’ (Professor TimJackson).

The pages which follow giveyou a taste of the first threeEmergence events held in Walesover a six month period betweenOctober 2010 and March 2011. All of the speakers were invited toparticipate for their inspirationalwords and work. Some talks weregiven in English, some in Welsh.They have been transcribed andedited and appear here with kindpermission of all those involved.Please read, be inspired andencourage someone else to read ordownload this document. Thework of Emergence is ongoing.This is just the beginning.

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“I became interested in the power of a true conference -where people came together without narrow agendas and

ready to fully participate with hearts and minds.”

Section 79 of the Governmentof Wales Act 2006 requires theWelsh Government to regularlypublish a scheme that sets outhow it will promote sustainabledevelopment. This makes it one ofonly three governments in theworld that are founded with thestatutory duty to promotesustainable development.

The scheme at the time of theEmergence conferences(2010/2011) was known as OneWales: One Planet. It sets out avision for a sustainable Wales andestablishes sustainabledevelopment as the centralorganising principle of the WelshGovernment and the wider publicsector. Its name derives fromEcological Footprintingmethodology which calculatesthat if everyone on the planetlived the way we do in the UK wewould need three planets worth ofresources. A ‘one-planet Wales’ istherefore a Wales which uses onlyits fair share of resources.

Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Walesworks closely with the WelshGovernment to support thecommunication andimplementation of sustainabledevelopment policy. With thepublication of One Wales: One Planet, Cynnal Cymru wasable to approach others with aclear articulation of the conceptand vision of a one-planet,sustainable Wales and to ask them,“What does this mean for you?”In 2010, we were reviewing ourstrategy and decided toconcentrate on three key sectors ofsociety that we thought had animportant role to play indeveloping a one-planet Wales.Educated as an environmentalscientist but with thirteen yearsexperience of working in the arts, I felt strongly at the time that thearts should be one of these sectors.By coincidence, Fern Smith, Co-director of Volcano, got intouch with us at that time in thecontext of her work with Julie’sBicycle, and Emergence-Eginiadwas born.

Rhodri Thomas,

Cynnal Cymru-

Sustain Wales

Co-developer of

Emergence

It took some time to work outhow we were going to approachthe challenge of explainingsustainability to arts practitionersin Wales. For Cynnal Cymru, itinvolved learning to look at thingsin a different way, but this was theidea behind breaking our audiencedown into sectors. Sustainabilityand the details of One Wales: One Planet have to be presentedin ways that are relevant andunderstandable to each specificaudience. Fern helped us todevelop an approach unique tothe arts. Slowly the concept ofEmergence began to take shapeand a partnership evolved betweenFern/Volcano, British CouncilWales and Cynnal Cymru-SustainWales.

Our first step was to undertakea survey of arts organisations andpractitioners to establish the levelof understanding of the concept ofsustainability and the willingnessto participate in a dialogue. The results of the survey told usthat a specific arts approach wasneeded and would be welcomed.Next we convened a panel ofexperts who, using the results ofthe survey as a basis, helped usfurther to refine our thinking.

The first Emergence conferencein Cardiff was intended to set thecontext for what would follow.Naturally, One Wales: One Planetneeded to be presented andexplained. This task wasundertaken by Huw Charles onbehalf of the Welsh Government.The principles of sustainabledevelopment are so fundamentallyimportant to the future of life inWales that they requireinvestment and trust from everyindividual and organisation. One Wales: One Planet is thereforenot just important to the arts as areference point for thedevelopment of sustainabilitywithin the arts – the practice ofindividual artists and the

management of companies andvenues – but also as a referencepoint for work that enlightens andinspires people.

Science, like government, canexplain facts and present rationalarguments but the humananimal is not wholly rational. The complex and sometimescontentious decisions necessary forthe long-term benefit of thenation and the world can only bemade by the whole person,drawing on rational, emotionaland intuitive capacities. This istrue for both elected officials andfor the citizens who give them amandate.

When I made my openingaddress at Emergence Cardiff, I made reference to the

Renaissance and TheEnlightenment because, likeothers, I believe that this is thedegree of change required topreserve an ordered and justsociety within a global ecosystemunder considerable pressure. Our challenge is not to save theplanet but to save ourselves. To do this, we need to initiatechange that involves the wholebeing: the heart and the mind;the arts and the sciences. This point was developed byvarious speakers throughoutEmergence, most notably by JeanBoulton at Emergence Caernarfon.

Cynnal Cymru works withothers to catalyse change. Through our partnership withVolcano, British Council andothers, and with the financialsupport of British Council andThe Arts Council of Wales, wehope we have begun a process inwhich art, science andgovernment can work together torealise the vision of One Wales:One Planet.

emergence

Emergence and One Wales: One Planet

To find out more about the work of Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales visit www.sustainwales.com. To read One Wales: One Planet, the WelshGovernment’s Sustainable Development Strategy, visit www.wales.gov.uk/topics/sustainabledevelopment/

4 “if everyone on the planet lived the way we do in the UK wewould need three planets worth of resources.”

What the delegates said about Emergence...

5

“Emergence is a crucial vehicle forconnected action. Keep it going.”

“Striking, memorable and informative!”

“I want to spread the word ofsustainability. Find new thingsto bring to my place of work.”

“Excellent, superb, what a fab day!Thoroughly enjoyable and engaging.

I'm inspired to do more.”

“Thank you very much for this gathering and the work you are doing.”

“Excellent opportunityto listen to and meet a

variety of people who arethinking in the same

direction not necessarilywith the same thought.”

“Good speakers - well selected. inspiration in the morning andaction in afternoon. Good timings and great facilitation.”

Today I am going to talk aboutworldviews. Where do they comefrom? How do they relate toscience? What do they mean forthe ways we engage with theworld, ways to encouragesustainability and build resilience?And I want to think in particularabout what all this means forartists.

Let’s begin by thinking aboutscience and the way it affects ourthinking about the world. What isscience anyway? You might saythat the core of science, what mostpeople think science is, is reallybased on the work of Isaac Newtonin the seventeenth century. Isaac Newton is credited as beingthe scientist who finally got togrips with how the planets goround the sun. One of the thingsthat people don’t always realise isthat Newton’s physics, themechanical science whichunderpins the dominant discourseabout the way the world works,only actually applies to certainsorts of problems, such as themotion of things like billiard ballsand planets. Furthermore histheory only works as a universaltheory if you make someassertions about what is outsidethe universe. This most rational ofsciences, when it’s applied toeverything, has to rely on peculiaraxioms which sit outside thetheory and cannot be proven,such as what God did before thebeginning of time. Or how Godperiodically pats the solar systemback into place to keep it flat. So, whilst it is a brilliant piece ofphysics for solving certainmechanical problems, we must bewary of applying it as a theory ofeverything.

It is interesting to ask why it isso popular as a worldview.Because, if we take Newton’stheories as a universal truth, theytell us that the world ispredictable, measurable,controllable and can beunderstood and managed bydividing it up into parts. So peoplelike it; it gives a sense of control.But liking does not make it so.

Dr Jean Bolton

Scientist,

complexity

theorist and

change agent

Have we always thought aboutthe world this way? I went back tolook at the ancient cosmologies -the pre-Socratic philosophers inthe West, and the Hindus andDaoists and Buddhists in the East.What do their ideas suggest? Here, we have an image of flow, ofpatterns that can emerge and re-form, where new qualities canevolve. So this is very differentfrom the mechanical world view.

I wondered what we couldlearn about the way the worldworked from our personalexperience. One of the ways I useto consider this is to ask people to

think back to when they weresixteen -“what did you imagineyour life would be like; has it goneto plan”. So of course when I dothis people look at me as if I’mcompletely stupid and say “no ofcourse it hasn’t gone to plan,” andI say “why not” and they say “wellbecause I never had a plan,” or“I’ve changed” or “things went toplan for a while and thensomething unexpected happened”.

So what does our personalexperience suggest about the waythe world works? Sometimes theworld changes fast. Small eventscan have large, unexpected andindeed unintended effects. Thingsare interconnected. We can’tcontrol what happens. We learnand change. Interestingly theDaoist and Buddhist views of theworld as flow seems to fit with ourpersonal experience and suggestthat change can be - and often is -irreversible.

The next part of the story is toconsider the theory of evolution.This was really important.Darwin’s theory has very much incommon with the emergentflowing view of ancientcosmologists, and in additionCharles Darwin was the first torecognise that messiness andvariation are essential for change,are generative. We have to havevariety and variation in order tohave evolution. Nothing newemerges without diversity. This turned on its head a lot ofscientific thinking and paved theway for new thinking which led tocomplexity theory.

A particular physicist workingin the 1920s, Ilya Prigogine, said,“well we’ve got two images inphysics; the image of a machinewhere everything stays the sameand we’ve got an image of entropyfrom thermodynamics whereeverything decays. Why is neitherof these theories consistent withevolution”? He got the Nobel Prizefor recognising that the key, theanswer, was in one word. This word is ‘open’: open systems.The physics up to that time had tofocus on closed systems becauseotherwise the maths wasintractable as nobody hadcomputers, but when you actuallystart to look at open systems (andof course most things in our worldare open - organisations,economies, ponds) they interactwith their environment andthere’s a flow of information andenergy and the potential forevolution and change. This led tothe science of complexity.

emergence

Emergence - The Science

To read more about the work of Jean Boulton visit www.embracingcomplexity.co.uk

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“Civilisations never think they'regoing to collapse, but they do, as

history shows.”

So what is the worldview thatcomes from the science ofcomplexity? Firstly, everything isconnected. You can’t understandwhat goes on in terms of simplelinear separable cause-and-effectchains. In general one action doesnot lead to one outcome; actuallymany things cause many things;it’s a complex systemic process.Secondly, everything is unique. We are unique, our experiences areunique, our societies are unique.One size doesn’t fit all; there’s noright answer. Life is a path-dependent, historically based,emergent process.

The third point which is soterribly exciting and important isthis point about messiness.Variation is generative and has apurpose; variation, diversity,messiness are essential forresilience and adaptation. The fourth point (that policy-makers and politicians do not like)is that the future is unknowable;unknowable but not random. In other words it has patterns. It isn’t like everything is chaotic-the past does flow into the futurebut there are ‘tipping points’ whenthings can radically change. We’re not always at a tippingpoint but there are times when theworld can change rapidly andradically into something else.Runaway climate change is a reallyimportant example. If we were tobe at the point of runaway climatechange, there’s really no goingback. Upholding a mechanicalworldview allows people to getcomplacent as it suggests thingsare reversible, we can always pullback. Civilisations never thinkthey’re going to collapse, but theydo, as history shows.

So that’s the kind of picturethat the new science of complexitygives you.

So what I’m arguing is thatcomplexity science, ancientcosmologies, our own experienceand evolution all give similarviews as to the way the worldworks. We have to really call intoquestion our dominant Westernmethodologies which are based on

a mechanical worldview as towhether they’re going to lead us toact in a way which gives us asustainable and a resilient world.

So, what does all this meanthen for resilience andsustainability and what does itsuggest we should do? How couldarts and culture in Wales make adifference? First we should buildcommunities and relationships inthe widest sense. Resilience comesfrom embracing connectednessand diversity; connectedcommunities can share resources,pool skills, find new solutions asthings change.

And because we cannot everknow what’s going to happen,complexity theory emphasises theneed to experiment. We can’tknow outcomes in advance, wehave to build on what works andwe don’t know until we try. I find this very inspiring in thesense of it’s about taking action –not asking if we have enoughpower or if it fits with a plan. You can never know the endpoint, so all you’ve got is theintegrity of your action now.

And how can art help? I’ve gotvery, very interested in the issue ofclimate change denial. There’sbeen an EU survey recently aboutthe top ten things that peoplethink are important, and only onein ten Europeans think thatclimate change is one of the toptwo challenges of our time. I speak as a scientist and I believethere is no question about it –there is absolutely no questionabout climate change. So what isgoing on? I was at a conference inBristol recently where a very, very

good articulate climate changescientist explained the issuessimply and clearly - the best talkI’ve ever heard about climatechange - yet people in theaudience were still saying “well, I don’t really know, isclimate change really happening”.You have to recognise that thisreaction is nothing to do withreason and science but withemotions, with denial. I would saythat the only people who can helpcombat this denial are artists.What art does, clearly, is engagewith our emotions; it connects tothe emotions and the spirit andcan build images of the future thatcan both frighten and inspire.

I’d like to finish with the wordsof William James. His words, forme, capture the essence of thecomplexity message in a waywhich never ceases to move me.

“I am done with great thingsand big plans, great institutionsand big success, and I am for thosetiny, invisible, loving humanforces that work from individualto individual, creeping throughthe crannies of the world like somany soft rootlets or like thecapillary oozing of water - yetwhich, if given time, will renderthe hardest monument of pride”.

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“What art does clearly isengage with our emotions; itconnects to the emotions andthe spirit and can build images

of the future that can bothfrighten and inspire.”

A view of the world

from our experience.

The first Emergence event wassomething that I approached witha degree of trepidation as well asanticipation. As a writer andperformer, I am well aware of therole that the creative arts can playin society and am often struck bythe complexities surrounding anartist’s responsibilities to theirsociety. Should we lead or follow?Preach or reflect? Challenge orcuddle? Or all of the above?

As a human being living in theworld in the current time ofchange and crisis however, therewas no question in my mind that Ishould attend and participate inEmergence. Like most people I feelunsure about what exactly ishappening and believe that moreinformation and knowledge isnever a waste. Combine this withan opportunity to share anexperience with like-mindedindividuals and the whole thingseemed like the proverbial gifthorse which I for one wouldn’t belooking in the mouth.

The first event was wellattended and enthusiasticallydebated. Beginning with theunorthodox inclusion of aminute’s silence – not to mourn apassing but to mark a moment ofarrival and beginning – and thesuperb, impassioned poetry ofMartin Powell – whose secondpublic appearance this was but I’mcertain not his last – the dayquickly entered familiar‘conference’ territory: apresentation of the WelshGovernment’s ‘One Wales: One Planet’ initiative. What wasmost striking about this was thecomplete absence from thedocument of artists of any stripe –a fact that I was quick to pounceon in asking a question. The elephant in the corner – arewe propagandists or free-thinking

Philip Ralph

Award winning

Playwright and

Performer

artists and is there a disjuncturebetween the two? – was quicklyaired and debate and discussionflowed freely.

The day continued to ‘blow myhair back’ with presentations fromPaul Allen from the Centre forAlternative Technology whopinned people to their seats withsimple, plain, unalloyed factsregarding the changes needed inorder for the human race tocontinue to survive in anymeaningful way. This was followedby Alison Tickell of Julie’s Bicyclewith practical tools for artsorganisations of every stripe toaddress themselves to thechallenges of working and touringsustainably.

With my mind buzzing with allthis new information, the perfectend to the day came in the WorldCafe event facilitated by JennyMcKewn which allowed everyonean opportunity to addressthemselves to the people andorganisations that inspire us andshare what we ourselves are doing– and indeed what should/couldwe do – to be more sustainable inour practice.

It was a hugely packed andinformative day which – from PaulEmmanuel’s Fleece Paintings toevery conversation in the bar –created a real and genuine sense ofcommunity and proved to me thatinteraction and sharing should sitat the heart of an artist’s work.There was no doubt in my mindthat I would be back for the nextevent.

28th October 2010, Chapter Arts Centre, CARDIFF

emergence 1 The Context

8

“a real and genuinesense of community”

“interaction and sharing should sit atthe heart of an artist's work.”

A Delegate's View

Tsunamis sweeping across the deep seasHurricanes howling with deafening breeze Earthquakes shaking our tectonic plates Volcanoes erupting round Earth as it breaks

Dinosaurs died and allowed man to stand Millions of years changed the face of the landA new world was born and with life it did flourishEnough natural resources to keep us all nourished

For a long time the man and the Earth were as oneWe drank from it’s rivers, bathed in light from the sunThe soil was rich, and ideal for seeds The planet attended to all of our needs

But Earth for its pleasures could not comprehend The mentality of its so newly found friendWe used and consumed without fear, or careWe scarred and we butchered a beauty so rare

Poisoning oceans and chopping down trees Relaying landscapes to build as we pleased Taking for granted our grand evolutionSeeds that were planted replaced by pollution

Have you not wondered why its so called Mother Earth?Throughout all of history it has given birth!This bluish green ball gently floating through space Has potential for life quite like no other place

It gives and it gives and has nothing to askTo treat it with love and respect is our task For the moment the future we can’t comprehend Is the world that we know may soon come to an end

But there is still some time to undo what’s been doneRequiring our species to all act as one With wind turbines turning and running on airSolar panels sourcing our sun’s constant glare

We could cut our emissions and clean up with care Make it our mission to heal and repairSalvage and save for all that it’s worth Secure our existence as people of Earth

Martin Powell

Poet. Activist,

lyricist

emergence 1 CARDIFF

Global Warning

To watch Martin Powell perform his poetry live visit www.youtube.com/user/spokenwordnerd

9

It is very inspiring for all of usto be in a country which has madesustainable development part of itsgovernmental objective. It’s notjust a department sitting in thecorner vaguely hoping that otherdepartments will get on board; it isa commitment for the country as awhole which we can all sign up toand be part of. But it can beoverwhelming to think how wecontribute as individuals to such abig, strategic approach.

An example of this issomething I was involved with lastyear, organised by The AshdenFoundation. The participatingorganisations were divided intotwo forums. The forums were tolook at how arts organisationscould be part of a sustainableagenda and practically what theymight do with their ownorganisations and with their work.One forum was made up oforganisations of huge institutionalweight, housed in major buildingssuch as The Royal Opera Houseand the Royal National Theatre.The other group, was made up offestivals, avant garde andinnovative companies likeBattersea Arts Centre, and newinstitutions like National TheatreWales. Both forums were thinkingabout what they could dopractically and creatively toinstitute more sustainabilitywithin their organisations. And being in the more funkylight-on-its-feet side it wasperfectly clear to me which ofthose two forums was going tocome up with the exciting andsuccessful ideas aroundsustainability!

Both forums met three or fourtimes over several months and atthe end of that time the big oiltanker organisations that youwould think were so difficult toturn around had come up withpractical agendas about how theywere going to decrease carbon usein their buildings: they’d signedup to the 10:10 campaign; they’dhad meetings with productionmanagers and facilities managers;they’d replaced all their driers inthe toilets with more efficient,

John E. McGrath

Artistic Director

National Theatre

Wales

ecologically sound ones – all sortsof things were happening. And thefunky avant garde light-on-their-feet orgs had spent their timeworrying and discussing whetherart could address an agenda likesustainability at all! We’d had madideas like switching off all theheating in buildings and offeringthe audience woolly jumpers towear and scarves, we’d worriedabout whether or not to cancel allfestivals so artists wouldn’t travelanywhere and we’d achievedabsolutely nothing.

So I think there was a lesson inthere on the importance of bigorganisations who work through aquite formal structure to get thingsdone and the ways in whichsustainability can be quite aboring thing that we just have toget on with; and on the other side,the dilemma and difficulties thatartists can face when you’ve gotthe more internal, creative issuesof how a big and sometimesoverwhelming subject matterrelates to the day to business ofmaking art and making thingshappening.

Looking at One Wales: One Planet (the SustainableDevelopment Initiative for theWelsh Government) I thought thatthe key thing that came throughwas that you have to have a visionin order to achieve practicalities.Four of the big statements thatstruck me were;

Using our fair share: that is anextraordinary and very politicalstatement – one that would beinteresting to reflect on. What is afair share of resources? Is that ourfair share within society orsomething we think about at aglobal level? What is our share asartists and arts organisations? The fact that a government isputting the idea of fair share at thecentre of its thinking rather thangrowth as an organising principleis very interesting.

The second was that phrase“organising principle” –sustainability as a core organisingprinciple: how would we placesustainability in our work andrespond to the challenge that theAssembly Government is making?

Third, which I think is a verybig statement to make, is the ideathat sustainability promotes socialjustice. Aligning sustainabilitywith social justice may seem self-evident but often that is not thecase. Often those two things canbe seen as inimical to each otherand certainly when governmentdepartments get involved forexample in house building, theissues of sustainability andaffordability can often be inconflict with each other. So howdo we, as an arts community inWales, align this withsustainability?

The fourth principle was theprinciple of long-termism. In thearts, we are often on short- tomedium-term funding cycles, sohow can long termism beembedded into the creativejourney?

We can also reflect on twomore big ideas. One is the idea ofa catalyst. We in the arts can holdon to this. It’s what we do everyday – spark ideas, thoughts andassociations in people’s minds. But a catalyst doesn’t necessarilydo predictable things. It doesn’thave a message that it thinkspeople ought to know. We wouldall agree as artists that this is notwhat we want to do. But a catalystdoes inspire people to have theirown thoughts and maybe come upwith ideas that we would neverhave ourselves.

Second is the idea ofidentifying, learning from andusing examples of good practiceand networking them. Where doesgood practice lie, what inspires usto go and do likewise?

I want to finish by talkingabout three things that for meemerged from our exciting butmaybe failed engagement with theAshden Foundation as funky avantgarde organisations and the first isTravel…

emergence 1 CARDIFF

One Wales: One Planet and The Arts in Wales

For more information on the work of National Theatre Wales visit www.nationaltheatrewales.org.

10

“Where does good practice lie, whatinspires us to go and do likewise?”

the end product. Visual artistshave been much better at thisthan the performing arts.

So these are the things for methat can help us embedsustainability as a core organisingprinciple into everything that wedo and I hope that my journeywill be joining up the biggerpicture, thinking about those dayto day questions that I so muchstruggled with in those discussionslast year, but which I hope thatnow I and the organisation I ampart of are beginning to find stepstowards solving.

11

Travel is a major challenge –how do we share with audiences,how we continue to be global andinternational? When we travel weshould always make our travel ajourney – a deep journey oflearning and not just a superficialvisit. National Theatre Wales isattempting to embed this principlein its work.

Secondly, the theme of thework: it's hard to think of manygood works about climate change.Why? Because you don’t generallymake good art about big themesthat you barely understand, you

make art about stories and theimpact of things on people’s lives.We need to find the stories,engage with them and work outhow we can tell them.

Finally, we should be thinkingabout sustainability in practice.Particularly in theatre we think alot about what we want to say andhow we say it but not about theprocess of manufacture. We shouldencourage creative artists likedesigners, writers and directors tothink about sustainabledevelopment in the practice ofproduction and manufacture of

“When we travel we should always make our travel a journey - a deep journey of learning and not just a superficial visit.”

Shelflife: A National Theatre Wales co-production with Volcano Theatre.

In December 2007 I met agroup of colleagues at Julie’sRestaurant in London to discusswhat we as a music industry coulddo about climate change (I arrivedon a bike, hence the name of thecompany). It was in the aftermathof Al Gore’s “An InconvenientTruth”, and also just after thehigh-publicised Live Earth event.There were some contentiousresponses to Live Earth; peoplewere understandably sick of beingtold what to do by people clearlynot doing it. Inherently this lacksintegrity and is a terrible model ofleadership.

We thought, this is notworking, we need to do thisdifferently.

So, we set about identifying thedrivers that were going to movethe music industry forward, andthe usual suspects came to mind:scientific evidence and legislation.At the moment it is notmandatory for most performingarts industries to comply withgovernment emissions reductiontargets, apart from the CarbonReduction Commitment (CRC)which only affects largeorganisations. There are somehidden costs in the form of taxesbuilt in to the way that we pay forthings, but we’re not beingincentivised by government and Ithink that (a) there is an inherentvalue in anticipating futurelegislated requirements, and (b) that we can actually imposeour own voluntary responses. That is what Julie’s Bicycle isabout; individuals andorganisations stepping up to themark in extraordinary ways. First Steps

The very first thing JB did wasto commission Oxford Universityto do a piece of research. “FirstStep” scoped the emissions profileof the music industry over a year,and the findings were staggering.I’ll take one example – CDpackaging. We identified that thebenefit of switching to 100% cardpackaging from a jewel case was a95% reduction in CO2 Emissions.Then we took this to the musicindustry and said, “Look at that.

Alison Tickell

Director, Julie's

Bicycle

Now what are we going to doabout it?”

We’ve done two things; one isthat all the major record labelsand a few bigger independentshave committed to reduce theirCO2 emissions year on year by10%, and we’ve got a system tocall them to account for that. The second thing is that they’vecommitted to shifting theirpackaging types from plastic tocard over a period of time. Now while that doesn’t soundvery dramatic, to me it’s excitingbecause it means overcoming anumber of real barriers in thesystem. One is price: plastic jewelcases are plastic and cheap-lookingbut they cost up to three times lessthan card alternatives. This issignificant, but the argument thatwe really want everybody to hearis that if you move to scale youcan create a market shift whichtips the pricing, and we havealready seen that beginning tohappen. If enough of us demand adifferent way of doing things, theprices will inevitably come down.

Another major issue is supplychain systems. These have been inplace for years, often with thesame people operating them, so the process of engaging theentire supply chain inenvironmental sustainability hasbeen an interesting study in howto move forward while dealingwith entrenched relationships andways of doing things, and realresistance to change. Industry Green

One of the mechanisms wehave developed is a certificationscheme specifically for the creativeindustries, called Industry Green(IG). It covers CD packaging,festivals, venues and offices. Westarted IG for a number of reasons:one was that the creativeindustries were coming to ussaying, “How can we show that we

are going green?” and another wasto combat ‘Green Wash’ – anawful lot of people were feelingvery anxious about going green incase it backfired. The third reasonwas simply because we wanted tocall the industry to account andact cohesively.

The certification is thorough,and is based on four philosophicalprinciples that underlie theGreenhouse Gas Protocol, aninternational accounting scheme:the first is “commitment” to theissue. People should engage withthe issue of environmentalsustainability from governancelevel right through to the ‘doers’.The second is “measure” yourenvironmental impacts.Understanding what the impactsof your work are is key, and we’veprovided various resources to dothis. The third is “reduce” yourimpacts. What we don’t do is setspecific targets around IG. Targets are good but can bedifficult because if you don’t havethe capacity to meet them youfail, and it becomes easier toabandon the attempt. The last andperhaps most important bit is“communicate” – disclosure. This is about the arts and creativeindustries becoming voluntarilyaccountable by disclosing theirimpacts and sharing best practicearound how they’re working toreduce them. We need to makethis the norm.

At the moment environmentalsustainability is mainlychampioned by big business. Bigcorporations like Unilever andWal-Mart are really addressing it,and we, the arts and creativeindustries, need to start thinkingabout ourselves in relation to this.It’s critical, and Industry Green is away of us very systematicallyprioritising what we need to acton, and provides the means to geton and do it. Smeasure

Another instrument that weencourage you to use if you’ve gotbuildings is called “Smeasure”.Developed for us by OxfordUniversity, this smart tool helpsbuildings monitor their weekly gas

emergence 1 CARDIFF

Moving Arts

Moving Arts 1:Bands, Moving Arts 2: Orchestras and the British Council commissioned Moving Arts 3: Theatre can be downloaded fromwww.juliesbicycle.com

12

“The concern that is felt amongsttouring practitioners is not reflected in

practice: the environment is notfactored into any planning.”

and electricity use against weatherconditions. By encouraging venuesto use these tools we are beginningto benchmark how venuesperform in relation to oneanother. Instead of being astandard imposed from above, thisbottom-up approach is giving usan opportunity to be self defining,to understand where, how andwhat we do in relation tocomparable activities andorganisations. We’ve alreadybenchmarked festivals this yearand we are getting very close tobenchmarks for theatres and musicvenues. It’s exciting to see whatfantastic things are going on inthe industry already.

These tools also aggregatedifferent organisations, forexample we’ve got a communityfor Scotland, bringing together allof the Edinburgh Festivals; andwe’ve got a community in thenorth east for theNewcastleGateshead CulturalVenues (NGCV). Withcommunities engaged we can startto play with the internal dynamicsof the data; we can compare likewith like, launch local initiatives,and so on. It’s very effective andwe’re finding that people aredeveloping an appetite for thiskind of information sharing.Campaigns

Julie’s Bicycle run targetedcampaigns alongside and inrelation to Industry Green. For example, in 2010 we did awide-reaching campaign with10:10 and 10 big festivals toreduce carbon emissions by 10%.The festivals are taking theirenvironmental impact veryseriously and are looking atsourcing renewable energysupplies, significantly decreasingtheir waste, trying to decreaseleftover tents, and monitoringwater use. All of this could make ahuge difference. The Julie's Bicycle Theatre

Programme

The theatre programmelaunched in June 2010 and hasbeen absolutely overwhelming. It’sformed around different types ofnetworks where producers,

managers, technicians, artisticdirectors, and all sorts of peopleare coming together to identifywhat their real needs are. One group is focused on lightingand instead of being aboutsuppliers and manufacturersflogging the lights, it’s aboutdesigners and technicians saying

what their lighting requirementsare in relation to sustainabilityand communicating this to theatremanagement and suppliers. Again, if enough people are askingfor the same basic specifications,then you can start to create somemarket shifts. The other thing thatwe’ve done is to set up a UKTheatre Group made up of ChiefExecutives from some of the UK’smost influential theatreinstitutions, such as Nick Star,Executive Director of the National(chair), Ambassadors’ TheatreGroup, Really Useful Group,Cameron Mackintosh, NationalTheatre Wales, National TheatreScotland, the RSC and others.They’re looking at how to supportthe theatre industry across the UKin some of the challenges that weare facing. We did this with musicand it was successful, so we’vedone it again with theatre.

Touring

Our Moving Arts researchidentified the carbon emissions oftouring bands, orchestras andtheatres. The environmentalconcern that is felt amongsttouring practitioners is notreflected in practice: theenvironment is not factored intoany planning, which is generallypredicated on cost, convenienceand artistic considerations.Environment is the exceptionrather than the rule, because thereis a perception that environmentalaction costs. But it doesn’t alwayscost, particularly not aroundlogistics and planning of travel.Our recommendations are toembed environmentalsustainability into planning; scopeyour green house gas emissionsbefore you go on tour – we’vedeveloped the IG Touring Tool toallow you to do that; revisit youremissions when you come back;report and communicate yourmeasurements. We’ve also got aGreen Rider for touringcompanies, a Green VenuesChecklist which identifies whatvenues are doing in terms ofenvironmental sustainability and aGreen Database to signpost greengoods and services.

I thought I’d finish with aquote from singer songwriter KTTunstall, who’s been very helpfulwith our work. She said, “If themusic business creates asupportive operating frameworkfor the artist it would make iteasier for us to take on the role ofcommunicating with ouraudiences. From this position ourart will have intrinsic integrity sothat we as artists can speak withconfidence and with strength”.

I’ll just go back to the firstquestion which Julie’s Bicyclestarted with, which is “how canwe best support our arts and ourartists?” Our response is aroundcreating an infrastructure orsupporting the creation of aninfrastructure around artists that isenvironmentally responsible. So rather than telling the artistwhat to say, we provide a contextin which they can say it.

13

“Our recommendations are to embed environmental sustainability

into planning.”

We launched “Zero CarbonBritain” in Parliament in July2010.

There are some big challengesafoot. Lots of people are doing alot of very good work. But thequestion is “Are we anywhere nearon target for the sort of carbondescent that science demands?”How do we fit together verydisparate things which mightrange from changes in loftinsulation to changes in transportand diet? How do we integrate itall into a carbon descent strategy?How do we switch from thecurrent hardware and what is thesort of Britain we need in 2030?We’ve written this report as aconversation starter, to try and getdialogues going about the 20-yearhorizon. We are trying to integratea wide range of different topics,disciplines and energy sources butalso different scales. What ishappening at the domestic level inpeople’s homes, in communitiesand what are the things we needto be doing at the national scale?So we began a process of assessingthe challenges, looking at climatesecurity, international security,energy security and economicsecurity and trying to get them allto intersect.

In 1896, Svante Arrhenius, aSwedish Physicist, concluded thatadding greenhouse gases wouldraise the planet’s temperature andbegin to cause changes. Now weare in a position where science istelling us that global emissionsmust be cut very rapidly rightround the world to avoid the 2°Ctipping point.

If we are to move forward, weneed to recognise that the long-industrialised countries have beenburning fossil fuels for 150 years.The newly industrialisingcountries that are seeking todevelop basic humaninfrastructure that is essential tostabilise global population (and istheir moral right) are saying “if weare all going to have to achievethis global de-carbonisation veryquickly, then we need a biggershare”. This is why we chose, for

Paul Allen

Director, Centre for

Alternative

Technology

the sake of our scenario, to explorea “zero carbon Britain” in twodecades. To get the globalagreement we all need, we, in thelong industrialised countries needto go much more quickly in orderto give the majority world theheadroom they need to put in theinfrastructure they urgentlyrequire.

We set the rules of the gamewhen the western world wasawash with cheap fossil fuels.Climate change is not the onlyreason to switch from fossil fuels.The world peaked in discoveringnew fossil fuels between 1960 and1970, so we need to move awayfrom that oil and gas dependence

In order to explore this we dida numeric scenario exploring twofundamental processes. The firstone we call “Power Down”. It means throwing away the 1950’sattitude to energy, getting a smart21st-Century attitude and thinking“how can we use energyconsiderably more wisely whilststill delivering what we enjoy?”Then the second process “Power Up” is thinking “what areour indigenous renewal energyassets? What is the energy we haveat our disposal on British land andcoastal waters and how quicklycould we power that up? What technologies are availableand how can we get these twoprocesses working together?”

So first of all, Power Down.Now until quite recently a lot ofour energy has come from theNorth Sea oil and gas reserves andwe’ve enjoyed the profits fromproducing it. But increasingly weare having to switch to pipelineswhich stretch as far as Russia, totanker routes stretched to somevery distant parts of the world. As the cost of these imports goesup, these pipelines are acting likeneedles sticking in the UKeconomy and are actually suckingmoney out of it. So then we wentthrough life, sector by sector;transport, buildings, food and landuse etc. We identified a 56%reduction in energy use in 20 yearsby being really smart about howwe use our energy.

Then we need to think aboutPowering Up - identifying thestrategic renewable assets of theUK. The UK has 40% of Europe’srenewable energy resource. We arevery well endowed and as acountry with a technology historyand as a country that is justcoming out of North Sea oil andgas, there are enormousopportunities. What we aresuggesting in this scenario, and I re-emphasise it is only ascenario, is that the big newuntapped asset is in offshore wind.

People have said to me “But what would it cost to do allthis?” I reply that it is not a cost.A flood is a cost, a fire is a cost, acatastrophe is a cost. This is afabulous investment. Whereveryou save energy, you earn morethan it costs to do it. Whereveryou generate energy, you get more

emergence 1 CARDIFF

Zero Carbon Britain

For more information on the work of centre for Alternative technology visit www.cat.org.uk. To download a copy of Zero Carbon Britain visit www.zerocarbonbritain.com.

14

“Are we anywhere near on target for the sort of carbon descent that

science demands?”

back. We are in a position withoffshore renewables that we werewith North Sea oil and gas in the1960’s.

In our scenario we have shown one possible path buttechnology says we can do it. We can de-carbonise in 20 yearsbut it’s important that societyknows all the options, so we arenow on a communicationsprogramme. We’ve been talkingaround the country and we arelooking to engage with the artsparticularly to help us tell thisstory, to raise the debate - notbecause we want propaganda – but because we want to get peopletalking about what sort of Britainwe want in 2030. It’s not atechnological challenge. We arenot waiting for a new widget to beinvented. It’s a social and politicalchallenge. If people can’t imaginea positive future, they won’t createit and it’s a lot easier to selldystopia than it is to sell utopiathrough any media.

We wanted to come here to sayto the Arts “Please help us engagewider society”. We want to fosterdebate about future horizons andparticularly to draw on Wales’history because it’s a veryimportant place to be. Wales hasled the world into fossil fuels. In 1913 Cardiff was the largestfossil fuel exporting port on theplanet. The Industrial Revolutionhad come from here. It was thegraft, the grit, the ingenuity thatforged this new world and weneed to draw upon that sameenergy and push that forward forthe next energy revolution.

We also need the arts to help usbreak through reality TV becausereality TV is everywhere but itdoesn’t reflect reality. It doesn’treflect the real problems andchallenges we face as we moveinto the 21st century. We need tomove away from this consumerfocussed lifestyle and we need the

help of art because we need tochange prevailing attitudes. There are attitudes here that areoutdated and it’s only through artthat you can really begin tochange people’s hearts.

What we need is to creatememories for the future. Art canreflect to society how we are nowand help us envision how wecould be and create these tools tohelp us cope with the new. It can also help us to learn andshare lessons and engage witheach other and with the same sortof ingenuity that we had when wedrew the first energy revolutionout of the ground. Because theenergies that we have in Wales areevery bit as rooted in thelandscape as coal was.

It’s going to be very, very hardwork but it creates something I think that gives us a sense ofpurpose that perhaps we have lost.You can’t buy a sense of purposeat Argos. I went to try and do it -it’s not in the catalogue.

Paul Emmanuel

Exhibiting Artist

and Welsh Artist

of the year 2011

Paul Emmanuel’s most recentbody of work Fleece Paintings isjust that, unrefined sheep fleeceonto which the artist has appliedvariously-coloured oil paints. The fleece is sourced locally fromfarms surrounding the artist’sstudio in the Brecon Beacons andthe works themselves are namedafter each of these farms. The initial inspiration for theseworks came from the artistnoticing scraps of matted fleece inthe grass and caught in the barbedwire fencing enclosing the fieldsaround the farm where he livesand works. These paintings arealso inspired by the use of sheepmarker - different colours daubeddirectly onto the animal’s back asa way of delineating one flockfrom another.

Exhibiting Artist

15

“we are looking to engage with the artsparticularly to help us tell this story, to raise

the debate”

Fired up from my experiencesin Cardiff it was great to be at thesecond Emergence event and, fromthe very beginning, I knew thatthings would be the same and alsovery different..

After the still strange butwonderfully appropriate minutessilence it was straight in to agloriously funny piece ofperformance art by Alan Dix.Using the Japanese powerpointtechnique of pecha-kucha – 20slides each one only onscreen for20 seconds – Alan presented uswith the most brilliantly skewedand anarchic version of the originsof global warming – whichsomehow managed to blame it allon the polar bears! The day was offto a good start but it wasn’t goingto be plain sailing.

Axel Tangerding sharedarchitectural marvels with us – my personal favourite being thedisco in Holland that charges itsbatteries from gyroscopes in thedance floor! Judith Knight ofArtsadmin and Lucy Neal of theTransition towns movementshared ideas and inspirations ofthe way that people are alreadychanging and adapting theirpractices and ways of working –underlying everything was thetheme of Interconnectivity. The moment we cut ourselves offfrom our fellow man and forgetthat we are all clinging to a singlegas bubble in an infinitenothingness, we are lost. This wasthrown beautifully into sharprelief by Tom Andrews of PeopleUnited whose tales of paying forthe person behind you in thequeue for a toll bridge havesubsequently left me out of pocketbut rich of heart every time I pass through the Severn Toll. A company whose raison d’etre isspreading happiness could seemlaughable but in Tom’s presence itseemed like the most reasonableand natural thing in the world.

Another World Cafe with JennyMcKewn brought us together and

Philip Ralph

Award winning

Playwright and

Performer

got us talking – but for me, andI’m sure many who attended, the highlight of the day was Satish Kumar’s extraordinary, free-flowing and impromptuaddress which closed the day. This unimposing man who walkedto the world’s capitals for peacespoke passionately and with greatclarity about the concept ofEmergence and the need to beflexible and fluid to change. Notonly was it the highlight of theday – but one of the highlights ofmy life – to hear him speak.

29th January 2011, Taliesin Arts Centre, SWANSEA

emergence 2 Interconnectivity

16

“The moment we cut ourselves offfrom our fellow man and forget that weare all clinging to a single gas bubble inan infinite nothingness, we are lost.”

Alan Dix's 'Pecha Koocha' Presentation

A Delegate's View

This is just something that Ifound in my road: a very resilientbluebell growing in the crack of apavement. I’m just going to haveit there while I talk about thereport Sustainable Ability. I andHilary Jennings, my colleague,were asked to draw together asnapshot of the responses thatthose working in the culturalsector in Britain, were making toclimate change and resourcescarcity. In the course of this, wewere asked to consider bestpractice, the barriers to greaterresponse and to look at the role ofthe arts at this extraordinary timethat we are living through.

We are running out of time andwe are running out of planet.There are now nine key threats toour planetary support systems andthe systems that we and otherliving things need to survive. We are well into the danger area ofthree of them: climate change, thenitrogen cycle and biodiversity.The other six are acid oceans,ozone depletion, fresh water, landuse, aerosol loading and chemicalpollution. Actually there is oneother that doesn’t come into thatlist because it’s not necessarily athreat to support systems thoughit’s certainly a threat to humanbeings. This is around peak oil andthe decline in our current supplyof cheap oil.

As well as drawing out some ofthe key points of this report, I feelit also quite important to bring inmy own personal experience,

working with Transition TownTooting. Transition Towns are avery fast growing global socialchange movement. They seek atlocal levels to come up with acoherent response both to Peak Oiland to climate change. Transitionis about making change at locallevels: how we live, where we liveand to come up with some verypractical solutions to thechallenges that we face. It recognises that we can create avision of the future that we wantand literally to design a wayforward but in order to realise it,we have to imagine it.

In this process,interconnectivity is a given.We need to look at everything, athealth, transport, energy,buildings… every aspect of ourlife. We need to question whatskills do we have? What old onescould we bring back? What newones can we learn? Learning isvery, very central to the wholedynamic of the Transitioninitiative.

In the Sustainable Abilityreport, whilst there are manyinitiatives doing quiteextraordinary things, there werehardly any at all that were lookingat oil. All our responses to climatechange are very much complicatedby the issue of peak oil which isdescribed as a point in time whenthe maximum rate of globalpetroleum extraction is reachedafter which the rate of productionenters terminal decline. For 150

Lucy Neal

Independent

Producer, Artist

and Educator;

Initiator and

co-chair of

Transition Town

Tooting; Co-author

of Sustainable

Ability; and

co-founder and

director of LIFT.

years- and particularly for the last50 - we’ve got used to cheap oil.This is an incredible resource ofenergy that’s allowed us to buildup our society as it is. We’veconsidered it as a tap, but what weare now becoming very aware of isthat it’s in fact a tank and it’s afinite tank. It’s taken 3 millionyears to create the oil that we usein one year. It fuels how we travel,what we eat, how we use and heatour homes and all the things thatwe have got used to using,consuming and throwing away.

Whilst we often feel that notenough is being done and we’vegot to hurry up and it’s anemergency, this report showed usthat actually an enormous amountis already being done in the artsand cultural sectors. This includedvery, very detailed work beingdone on buildings and looking atcarbon emissions and how toreduce those, right through to thearts practice itself. When welooked at best practice, you hadthis incredible feeling of new workemerging, with people working ina very interconnected, holistic waylooking at the arts and a wholeway of life.

The other thing that we lookedat in the report was behaviouralchange. Now this is a very, verycomplex area, which bringstogether social marketing, eco-psychology, positive psychology,addictive psychology... really allthe new cognitive neuro-sciencewhich looks at the values and thedeep frames that we live our livesby. Personal change comes fromthese intrinsic values, not fromextrinsic values and these are thevalues that matter to us:connection, community, family.Now, this is absolutely the realmthat the arts work in all the time.

We did a survey as part of thereport that looked at the differencebetween how people connectedwith these issues at a personallevel and how they felt theirorganisations were. There wasactually a gap, and people felt theywere doing more in their personallives. There was also a sense thatwe needed to slow down, that we

emergence 2 SWANSEA

Sustainable Ability

To read Lucy Neal’s report visit www.sustainableability.com.For more information on the work of Transition Towns visit www.transitionnetwork.org.

17

“We are running out of time and we are running out of planet.”

Kindness and Interconnectivity

were literally just going too fast tochange. We are living through arevolution in terms of a shift ofconsciousness away from theindividual towards this sense ofconnection. We are connected to aliving system - the web of life -and the arts in this context canlead systemic change in terms ofhow we imagine that and how wecreate shared imaginative spaces.

The conclusions of the reportwere that artists and the culturalsector have a very, very dynamicrole to play and it’s when theymake these connections betweentheir practice and the art of livingthat really something verypowerful comes through. The artsare part of this formidable waythat we can actually imagine theworld we want and then literallybring it into being. The scope forartists to be involved in this isabsolutely endless.

I will just read the last line orso from Kieran Munday who isdoing research into values atCardiff University... “We need towork with deeper frames to elicitdifferent values. The idea ofscience being value free isn’tworking. Science is not in the jobof communicating whereas thearts communicate the things thatmatter to us: concepts, values,responses on a deeplysubconscious level. We need towork in positive frames of sharing.These can be intrinsicallymotivating. Doing things thatmatter on the inside that reaffirmwho we are. The arts have acentral role in helping us to allrefocus on aspects of ourselvesthat value community, connectionto others and nature and moveaway from the predominantlyconsumerist and intrinsic worldview that lies at the root of ourastonishing predicament”.

People United is aboutkindness, community and a senseof common humanity. Our workexplores, celebrates anddemonstrates these ideas andvalues. I see us as a creativelaboratory. We test things out.Some things work, some thingsmight not. We try to evaluatereally professionally. We learn, wereflect and then we give the ideasaway. Whether that’s a sensiblebusiness model I don’t know, butwhat we aim is to be a smallorganisation that can make a bigdifference.

Underlying all our work is‘interconnectivity’: how ouractions affect other people and theworld around us. We aim atempowering communities, byinspiring small sparks of kindness,understanding connections andgrowing a feeling that we canmake a difference. All of this workfeeds into social andenvironmental action. The keyquestion that we ask is ‘how canthe arts encourage people to careabout one another and the worldaround us?’ We’ve got very goodlinks with the University of Kentand we do a lot of work focusedaround social psychology. Most studies seem to be aboutwhat’s wrong, the problems andthe negative things and only arelatively small amount (althoughthis is growing) around happinessand what psychologists callaltruism and pro-social behaviour.

Why do people help oneanother? What are those factorsand conditions that allow peopleto feel they can make a difference?There seem to be a number offactors and if you get these, it ismore likely to happen. It isn’t astraight equation. It includeslooking at role models (if the

parents volunteer, the children aremore likely to get involved inthings), social learning theories,empathy, values and groupbehaviour (stressing inclusivecategories). I recently read a reportwhich showed that learning aboutglobal issues significantly reducesthe sense of powerlessnessspecifically about climate change.So understanding and knowledgecan really make a difference butthey are only one tool.

If we are going to do a projectwe need to show that itencourages reflection, connectionand action. People learn indifferent ways so if we try tocommunicate in different ways, wecan make that connection.

That’s the theory. Let me tellyou a little bit about some of theprojects that we’ve done. One ofour first projects was working inschools. We started with thethought that there is so muchnegative news in the press and onthe radio. What happens when wework across one community andcelebrate what’s positive and shareindividual stories of generosity,courage, love? We worked in threeprimary schools, two in Kent andone in Halifax and we workedwith every single class but not justthe young people, we worked withevery single teacher, caretaker,dinner staff, governor and asmany parents in the widercommunity as possible. Everybodyhad a story to tell and we used thearts to tell those stories. From verysimple things like ‘when JohnTerry missed the penalty in theEuropean Cup Final, his mates puthis arms around him which Ithought was a really nice thing todo’, right up to someone talkingabout their daughter dying andbeing supported by theirneighbours during that terribletime; and someone going throughthe Dartford road crossing andabout to pay some money and theperson in the booth said “actuallythe car in front has just paid foryou”. She went “What?” and triedto see who it was and drove up toDerby with a huge grin on her face

emergence 2 SWANSEA

Sustainable Ability continued

18

“every time she goesthrough the Dartford

road crossing she alwayspays for the car

behind!”

“The arts are part of thisformidable way that we canactually imagine the worldwe want and then literally

bring it into being.”

and as she came back she thought“I tell you what I’m going to do,I’m going to pay for the carbehind me”. And now every timeshe goes through the Dartfordroad crossing she always pays forthe car behind!

It was really important thateverybody told their story. It’s notabout being preachy. It’s aboutconnections and empathy. We worked with cartoons,dancing, theatre, oral history andenvironmental projects. Eachschool developed their uniquework in light of their own ideas,local context and the particularartist in residence they wereworking with. As well as tellingtheir stories through exhibitions,plays and publications, someclasses came up with practicalideas: they made magazines thatwere distributed to everyhousehold in the area, 792handmade gifts for every pupil intheir feeder schools, radioprogrammes for other localchildren and smoothies for theFire Service. These may seem smalland they may seem flippant butactually they forged connectionsthat those schools didn’t have andthey made the young people feelas if they had done something.

This was our first project and I thought ”it’s all very nice buthow can you prove it’s made adifference?” So we worked withtwo universities: one looked atqualitative research, the secondlooked at it in a quantitative way.They had a team of psychologists,who interviewed every pupil inYears 1, 3 and 5 at the start of theproject, during it, afterwards andthen two terms and a summerholiday down the line - not aboutthe project, but about people’svalues and how they connected totheir community. They also didthat with two control schools wehadn’t gone into andbenchmarked those results. What came through in a clear,consistent and significant way wasthe three schools that we hadworked with showed an increasein pro-social behaviour, and

attitudes to wanting to dosomething positive. There was alsoa significant increase in attitudestowards others, not just childrenin their own class but also peopleoutside their own circle. Anyhow,we did that project which wasfantastic and like a fool I said“Right, OK, let’s do somethingeven more ambitious. Let’s do itacross a whole town”.

The town we chose was HerneBay in North Kent, a town of35,000 people with lower levels ofvolunteering and arts participationcompared to other towns and

areas of significant deprivation.Can an arts project make adifference around artsparticipation, neighbourliness,volunteering and trust? We startedsmall, we didn’t want to go in likea reality TV show and say “We aregoing to transform your town”. It was organic, growing throughpersonal connections andindividual conversations. The project was called We All DoGood Things. We are a smallorganisation so we had to workwith people; 5,672 people fromacross the town have activelyparticipated in the main part ofthe project. The most importantand exciting thing is the legacy.Out of it eight new initiatives havesprung up: the adult’s mentalhealth art group; a social actionyouth group; adults with dementialinking with primary schools andan annual giant picnic – all run bylocal people. This is notnecessarily anything we’ve donebut we offered a space for thesethings to build up and grow. The arts are fantastic at providingthis space. They are not a magicwand, they don’t solve everythingbut they enable other things tohappen and it really helps us tolook at the big questions. It’s greatat expressing feelings, it’s

Tom Andrews

Founder and Chief

Executive of

People United

participatory and it’s fun andthat’s really important.

When I say “I’m from an artsorganisation about arts, kindnessand community,” people oftenlook at me in a slightly strangeway. But surely that’s whatcharities should be about. It should be about making adifference, changing the world,doing something that has an effecton other people. Of course youneed to be professional andpragmatic and make sure whatyou are doing is important and iswell researched, but it should alsobe about having dreams andthinking that you can make apositive difference.

I want to finish with a quotefrom Bethany (a Year 6 Herne Bayprimary school pupil) who wrotedown “Kindness is just love withits work boots on” which I think isfar more profound than anything Ican come up with.

To read more about Tom’s work visit www.peopleunited.org.uk.

19

“Can an arts project make a difference around arts

participation, neighbourliness,volunteering and trust?”

I am lucky enough to have twoprofessions. I was educated as anarchitect, and in my early studies Icame across Bauhaus and thistotally changed my life. In the 20years after the First World War,everything was in ruins,everything had collapsed. They were thinking in theBauhaus (like a think tank wewould say today), how do we wantto live and work and how do wewant to finance it? We are in asimilar situation today, and Iwould like to remind us of thisemerging energy of the Bauhaus.Recently I was in China, and theyare discussing a new Bauhaus Asia,because in Asia there is so mucharchitectural activity and there isno reflection on what they aredoing. If a building is going to staythere for a hundred years, it’sworth rethinking what we aredoing, especially in theindependent theatre, as we wantto be alternative, aesthetically andin terms of content. We have aresponsibility to our audience anda responsibility to ourselves.

I built Meta Theater, 30 yearsago in the Bauhaus style in thelonely Bavarian countryside, halfan hour outside Munich. Over thepast ten years I have turned it intoa green theatre. A Swedish groupcame five years ago and told methat they would like to havesomething similar.

This was quite a journey,because I was not only obliged tomake the design but also be

Axel Tangerding

Architect, Actor,

Director and

Founder of Meta

Theatre, Munich

involved in asking life questions. I said “Okay let’s start from thebeginning. How do you want towork, how do you want to live,how do you see yourselves in thefuture? If you are going to dosomething totally new, beforedoing anything or copying, let usjust reflect how we want to work.A lifetime spent in a theatre? Howdo you want to produce? How doyou want to invite people in”.

Finally last Autumn, we started.In Spring we will have theopening of the first section. It’s really a big complex, like aflagship. People come out to theconstruction site and wonderwhat’s happening! It’s all aboutfantasy. I am grateful to this youngtheatre group for being veryinventive, involving thepoliticians, inviting them for bigmeals and communicating thiscrazy idea in the lonely forest oneand a half hours outsideStockholm.

The village was a formermining area and when I camethere, the supermarket was closed -everything was closed down as themines had gone. Last year thesupermarket reopened as a co-operative, and now the newestproject I heard was that water wasbeing channelled to run downhill

from the mining area – producingenough to supply 400 householdswith electricity. So this is a sideeffect of a fantastic project. We could not reach all of our goals- you have to fight with theauthorities and funds are alwayslimited – but the main goal was tomake it a green building. I wouldsay I succeeded halfway. Not allthe way but I think already it’s abig success.

I have also collectedinformation from other newcentres, comparing where theysucceeded and where they failed.This is a very interesting project.It’s a discotheque in Rotterdam.They only need electricity for thefirst hour, so when the dance flooris moving they have a movingfloor and they produce their ownelectricity. And they have a wattmeter on the wall and the toiletsfunction by the condensed waterof the sweat and the rain water!It’s absolutely crazy and peoplelike it. It’s a nice example becausesustainability, I think, has to befun, and create a good spirit.

The craziest project I found wasin Slovakia. It was an independentgroup. They knew about myproject and they said “We built atotally new theatre for 10,000Euro. We got the roof for free, doyou want to see it?” and I said,“Yes of course”. They showed me apicture with a motorway junctionbridge, and they said “Yes that’sour roof!” They set about findingstraw bales and beer boxes and allthe materials they could find andbuilt this thing. I said, “What doyou do for energy?” They said theyhad had a long discussion anddecided to have no energy – so no

emergence 2 SWANSEA

Eco-Design

To read more about Axel’s work visit www.meta-theater.com. and www.teatermaskinen.com for more information on eco design visitwww.sustainabledanceclub.com, www.stanica.sk/ and www.architekturclips.de/

20

“How do you want to work, how doyou want to live, how do you see

yourselves in the future?”

heating – which means they onlyopen at the end of May until thebeginning of October. I thoughtthis is a clever idea because whydo artists always comparethemselves with industry,producing every day, always beingpresent, always having thisproduction pressure? So I thoughtabout it, how do we research orfind a new approach to producingthe arts? How should we work?Maybe it’s seasonal work, maybewe have seasons where we breathein, and a season where we can alsobreathe out…

Thinking about sustainabilitysometimes makes me depressedbecause it’s such a huge issue, thenI start to calm down and reflectwhat I can do. I get so muchinformation about sustainability –there is so much paper andinformation. To calm myself downI picture a carpet. This carpet hasdifferent threads running throughit, threads sometimes disappearingand reappearing again. I think ifeveryone can be conscious of hisor her own thread – where wemove in and out – all together wecan make the carpet moreresilient.

I was recently at aninternational theatre conferencegiving a talk about arts andclimate change. I was on a panelin one room and in the roomnext door was another paneltalking about how to tour morearound the world. Guess whichroom had the most people in it? It wasn’t mine, I can tell you.International touring is a big, bigissue, and it’s quite hard for thearts to get hold of it. How do werespond? What do the grants cutsmean to us? Does it mean we doless, and if that’s the case,couldn’t that be a good thing?

Should we keep touringinternationally? And if we do howdo we do it in a more sustainableway? Is it ethical to fly orchestrasbackwards and forwards across theworld, mostly for the benefit ofmore wealthy western audiences,when we know the effects of theirflights? Is it necessary to have theLondon Philharmonic fly to NewYork to play Mahler’s Fifth, whenthe New York PhilharmonicSymphony Orchestra fly back toLondon to do the same program?I don’t want to make comparisonsbetween the beautiful music theyplay, and lorry-loads of biscuits,but isn’t it really funny when yougo are on a motorway and seelorries churning goods up toScotland and the same lorrieschurning the same goods backdown south again? We know thatarts change lives as opposed tobiscuits, but actually is thissomething that we really need toaddress now? If people are to flyaround the world, it’s probablymuch better that they are artists

than bankers! Artists spreadinformation and inspiration, butactually when the oil runs out,who should be allowed to fly onwhat’s left? Is it artists, is itdoctors, is it scientists.

International touring has beena really, really important part of

Doing Less

21

Judith Knight

Co-director and

Founder of

Artsadmin

“why do artists alwayscompare themselves withindustry, producing every

day, always beingpresent, always having

this productionpressure?”

“when the oil runs out, who should be allowed to fly onwhat's left? Is it artists, is it doctors, is it scientists”

Artsadmin’s work, especially in the80s when it was a sign of success.It was lovely to go to Florence andbe well looked after and have aglass of wine on the Piazza, abetter fee and a probably a moreinterested audience than doingone night in, say Milton Keynes!Actually, even in those days youwent to Germany and stayed therefor a bit, but of course the cheapflights came. So now you can senda theatre company for one nightto Spain and back again, twonights to New York and backagain. How long can we keepdoing that?

Artsadmin has a building inEast London where we produceand present work and offer spacefor artists. Slowly, after 30 years,we have tried to become moregreen. One of the things we havedone was a festival called TwoDegrees: Arts, Activism and theGlobal Climate Emergency. It wasn’t a theatre festival as such,more a participatory week, gettingyoung people out on the streetsmaking activist work andinterventions in the City ofLondon, which is very close towhere our building is. This issomething we’re going to do everytwo years now.

As part of this we had aconference called Slow Boat withabout 100 different performingtheatre and arts companies to lookat how we tour. We divided theconference into three issues:making the work, moving thework and presenting the work.

On the making, this is all fairlyobvious. How can we make the setmore easily? But one of theproblems with art is (likeeverything else), it’s just got biggerand bigger. We power things withstronger lighting, because we can,because we have got it. How canwe persuade artists that creativitydoesn’t always mean bigger? –That there’s another way of beingcreative?

In terms of moving the work,Julie’s Bicycle have a list ofrecommendations, tips and a tonof information. One of the most

useful things is that you canactually measure your tours.Whether it’s a national orinternational tour, you can workout what the carbon budget is,which is enormously helpful andcan really make a huge difference.

There are things that we can acton now – being morecollaborative, recycling sets andstuff that gets thrown out. We have the guidance now fromJulie’s Bicycle, so we really haven’tgot the excuse of not quiteknowing where to go and how todo it. Funders should encourage usto do that as well. It needs tocome, like everything else, fromboth sides. Some of these solutions

seem very simple, but actuallygetting everyone to work on ittogether is probably the hardestthing. We need support for thenew models.

Can we do less? That’ssomething I ask myself every dayand I’ve never managed it, butactually we could calm down a bitand do less. We don’t have to feelwe’re in competition with eachother all the time to do bigger andbetter. One of the projects we didas part of this festival last year wasby an artist called Richard

DeDomenici called Plane FoodCafé. We tried to tour this in agreener way. One person travelled,they worked with local performerswhen they got there, theytravelled by train, the set wassourced locally. There are many,many other examples of artistsdoing this. A lot of this is comingfrom the artists, which I find veryinspiring. They’re not just makingthe work, but looking at how theypresent it themselves.

It’s really important that largeorganisations take the lead here.Small organisations obviouslyhave less clout. The largeorganisations need to share theirexpertise and knowledge andinvite smaller ones to join withthem, but we’ve really got to havethe will to do it – it’s no good justtalking about it... Lesscompetition, more connection,more collaboration, morecommunication – together we cando this, if there are enough of us.

emergence 2 SWANSEA

Doing Less continued

To find out more about Artsadmin visit www.artsadmin.co.uk.

22

“It's really importantthat large organisationstake the lead here.”

The final event which wasfocused around the theme of‘Resilience’ took place in NorthWales and it was heartening to seeso many new faces after the south-Wales focus of the first two. It was wonderful to hear so muchWelsh being spoken and thesuperb, passionate andunobtrusive simultaneoustranslation which really added tothe day.

If I had doubts about the levelof presentation and debatetopping the first two events, thenthese were rapidly dispelled.Personal highlights for me wereJean Boulton’s extraordinarydissection of scientific thoughtand the fact that we need tounderstand and accept thatuncertainty of outcome withregard to climate change does notmean it is not happening. Thiswas echoed by Einir Young whosephrase – ‘Business as usual is notan option’ – continues to echo inmy brain.

Representing the artisticcommunity was the glorious,deadpan Bedwyr Williams who, asall artists should, offered anacerbic and sidelong glance at theissues, arguing that artists alwayswork sustainably. Alongside himthe mesmerising storytelling skillsof Eric Maddern reminded us thatthe traditions of coming togetherto share ideas and knowledge areas old as the human race itself andyet as relevant and vital today asthey have always been. Ben Toddof the ground-breaking ArcolaTheatre showed both a flair forspeaking off the cuff in responseto the stimulations of the day andalso the innovative and practicalways its possible to work thecapitalist system towardssustainability. The day wasrounded off with a paneldiscussion of all participants.

So, having attended all threeevents, what can I tell you thatwould give you a flavour of what Iexperienced? And has it changed

me and the way I make art?I learnt that there is

undoubtedly change in the air –that the climate change scepticsand deniers are fiddling whilst theplanet burns – and that there iscause for fear, doubt and concern.But I also learnt that people areadapting, changing, growing andevolving to meet these changeshead-on. I learnt that there isenormous strength, humour, joyand power to be had inconversation, solidarity andsharing. That people gain fromworking together. The flavour ofthe events was undeniably positiveand upbeat. We can do something.There is a will and there is a way.

And has it changed me?Undoubtedly. In ways that Iprobably can’t even begin toquantify. I am more aware of thework being done by others; I am

Philip Ralph

Award winning

Playwright and

Performer

more committed to working inways that are resource-light –doing less with less BETTER; I ammore positive that change canhappen and is happening. Scepticsand cynics may carp and moan –but in attending Emergence inCardiff, Swansea and Caernarfon, I made a strong connection withmy fellow artists and I learnt thatthere is a way to be both apropagandist and an artist. They aren’t mutually exclusive. We face the biggest challenge of alltime as a race. Emergence showedme the role that artists hold infacing that challenge.

It was a privilege to be there.

21st March 2011 Galeri, CAERNARFON

emergence 3 Resilience

23

“we need to understand and accept that uncertaintyof outcome with regard to climate change does not

mean it is not happening.”

A Delegate's View

A few years ago some friendsand I celebrated New Year on the beach of a nearby lake. We planned to fire a flamingarrow from a magnificent bow outover the black water, symbolizingthe new lighting up the dark. We spent a lot of time getting thearrow just right so it would flamegloriously. Then with greatceremony I, in the role of archer,fired the shot. It plopped a fewfeet in front of us and expired inthe water. I was embarrassed anddisappointed. But minutes laterthe desire to try again rosestrongly in us. We cut a straightishpiece from a nearby ash tree, madea slit in one end, put a leaf in it toact as flight feathers and tied a bitof rag doused in paraffin roundthe tip. No ceremony this time,just “Come on, let’s give it a go”.And it was beautiful: a flamingarrow arcing far out into themiddle of the lake. As one of ourcompanions said: “Our best laidplans will come to nothing butour improvisations will bebrilliant!”

We need to cultivate thecapacity to be intuitive,spontaneous and impromptu. In these challenging times weneed brilliant improvisations. Yes we need plans but we alsoneed the faith that in the momentwe can act wisely; that we can, asthe Chinese say, turn crisis intoopportunity.

There is an old saying: “Goodmariners are not made on calmseas”. Misfortune can be a catalystfor discovering amazing strengthof character, as Friedrich Nietzschesaid: “That which does not kill memakes me strong.”

During the Korean War therewas a unit of soldiers who suffereda devastating massacre. But somesurvived. Later a psychologistcalled Al Siebert worked with thesemen and discovered an interesting

Eric Maddern

Storyteller,

Teacher, Activist

thing. Those who survived weren’tjust lucky. They had what hecalled a ‘survivor personality’.They were able, for example, toembrace apparent opposites on thespectrum of human character.According to the needs of thesituation they could be serious orplayful; logical or intuitive; toughor gentle; shy or outgoing; lazy orhard-working. They were“both/and” sort of guys. If therewas a mess they would clean it upwithout being asked or expectingthanks. They took responsibility.In normal times they would get onwith whatever they were doing butif there was trouble they’d bethere. They were, what you mightcall, “foul weather friends”. This confident and flexiblepersonality gave them the

lightness of foot to respondresourcefully to whateverchallenges life threw at them.They were, in short, the resilientones.

It seems to me that thequalities of resilience – curiosity,courage, compassion andcreativity; flexibility and yes,perhaps faith – are also qualitiesshared by many if not most artistsand creative people. Perhapscultivating these qualities ineveryone is the best preparationwe can make to survive thechallenging times gallopingrapidly over the horizon.

Miracles used to be seen as theresult of divine intervention. But now, the miracles are up to us.We must believe in them. But wemust also make them happen.

emergence 3 CAERNARFON

How to be Resilient

To find out more about Eric’s work visit www.ericmaddern.co.uk and www.caemabon.co.uk.

24

“Our best laid plans willcome to nothing but

our improvisations will be brilliant!”

How do you go from Arcolabeing this fringe wild venue, thatoperates on a very tiny scale withno money, with one salary, tonow, about 20 people with aturnover of a million pounds, butstill keep that same spirit? This isour story. Arcola’s business modelhas three strands: a professionaltheatre program; a youth andcommunity program; and thesustainability program.Sustainability is not somethingthat we tack on somewhere. We do not really do plays aboutsustainability, it is a core part ofthe business and it is supported.

You cannot compromise the artto become green; if you do what isthe point? Nobody will listen, youdestroy your place to stand. You can go in absolutely the rightdirection but you are no longerany use to anybody.

Our idea for Arcola was that allof the different arts would cometogether, with scientists, withentrepreneurs. But what do you doon stage? We are a theatre; if wecannot put it on stage, what is thepoint? This is looking at what youactually do in your building. Can you reduce the energyconsumption of your lights? Can you change it without doingrubbish art? We did a show as away of saying “Yes you can”. It was a Tennessee Williams play,directed by Bill Bryden, JoanneTown is the lighting designer –English National Opera, that kindof calibre – lit on five kilowattsusing a mixture of LED andfluorescent lighting. At the time itwas on I was presenting at a big

lighting show plaza, and I said toJo, “Can I stand up in front of anaudience of your peers and tellthem that you are lighting actorsfaces using fluorescent, whichapparently you cannot do?” She said “Yes, tell them”. She didit, and it was Critic’s Choice andthe best rendition of this play seenfor years. So you can have all thesemechanisms in place, but actuallyit is only because the art is stillreally good that people care.

There is now no money in thearts. It has all been slashed. But Arcola has conveniently gone,“That is okay. We are actually ascience company”. This kind ofway of working is common to allorganisations, they may not do itin this way, but they will all do itin some way – resilience is built in.Now we are actually animporter/distributor and I havejust got a big grant to set up afactory. Arcola is very well knownfor turning factories into theatres.We are now going to become wellknown for turning factories intofactories. In order for the arts, inorder for us to be able to do thiskind of work, we have to persuadethe council to trust us. It goes backto this: mechanisms versus theorganic. What we are working onnow is a model with the council.I wear a suit normally and shaveand brush my hair, so I canpersuade the council to trust me

Dr Ben Todd

Executive Director

of Arcola Theatre,

London

(“this is a safe guy, he has a PhDfrom Cambridge”). But then wesay to the council, “Alright we willdo your safe boxes and we areinsured up to the eyeballs, and weare terribly respectable, but thencreate a space in which we can docrazy stuff”. So you create abusiness plan and then you let theguys get on and invent crazy stuff.

The ambition for Future Arcolawas to create a globally significantlandmark for Dalston and theworld’s most environmentally-sustainable venue. And then wewent and got Arup involved. Now for this little communitytheatre in Dalston, Arup is perhapsnot the best partner, you wouldargue. Arup built the Sidney OperaHouse, the Pompidou, they arehuge, but they are really rathernice as well. So you show thatpicture to the Mayor and he trustsyou, and you wear a suit, and thenyou deliver and he comes andopens it.

The learning for me is not toforget the influence you can haveon other sectors. The high profileof the arts is recognised by policy-makers and politicians. We have amassively disproportionate level ofinfluence, and they do actuallyunderstand it. How can we workthat to make the best use ofourselves? That is the challenge for us.

We need to change the entirepopulation. Six billion peopleneed to change what they do. That is a cultural shift, and by theway we need to do it by next yearplease. This is never going tohappen with rational signs on theback of a bus, asking you to inflateyour tyre pressure and drive a bitless. It has got to be done in akind of monumental change thatonly culture can drive.

The Arcola Story

To find out more about Arcola Theatre visit www.arcolatheatre.com.

25

“Sustainability is notsomething that we tack

on somewhere.”

“We need to change the entirepopulation. Six billion people need to

change what they do. That is a culturalshift, and by the way we need to do it

by next year please.”

I’m probably not the bestperson to speak aboutsustainability, but I am an artistand I actually make a living out ofit and I try my best to besustainable. I live a few milesoutside of Caernarfon and have astudio in a market hall in thetown. I cycle into my studio whenthe weather is good and whenprofessional go-getters inhatchbacks aren’t trying to run meover. I decided to work in Walesand leave London because myreferences are here. North Waleshas always been depicted byincomers and I think it’s time forWales to depict and not to bedepicted and I think I’m one ofthe people to do it.

It’s difficult being an artist inWales. It’s like waiting for thebeam from a lighthouse run by acruel moron. Since the BeechingAxe there’s no railway inCaernarfon so everything is a trekand it’s costly. In terms of carbonfootprint I’m wearing big brothelcreepers that are size 13.

Wales is a singing and a poetrycountry; I have to accept that. It’s not going to change. Singingand poetry will always be thebullies in the crèche.

This is the Blaenau Vista SocialClub. A writer once said aboutBlaenau Ffestiniog that it’s a dryrun for Armageddon. This was partof a roadshow which was aGrizedale Arts initiative. It was anarts roadshow in a style of a rockband tour. In Blaenau Ffestiniogthe education tent got burnt bythe local kids. It was hard-core. It’ssometimes important to realisethat engaging with a communitymeans actually engaging withthem as if you’re fighting withthem. It’s not all about facepainting. Sometimes there needs

Bedwyr Williams

Artist and winner

of a major Creative

Wales award 2011

to be some shouting as well.Although it looks bad that the kidsset the education tent on fire, it’sprobably better that they did thatthan they just painted butterflieson their faces and went homewith a goody bag.

Grizedale Arts used to be a kindof re-arranging-twigs-in-the-woods,Andy Goldsworthy kind-of-placebut then this guy on a horse,Adam Sutherland, took over andgot interesting artists involved notpeople who do things with moss.What’s great about these people isthat they really engage with thelocality. People go and stay atGrizedale, they help out, maybe

they’ll put something on… It’s sounlike the Eisteddfod in Waleswhere we pay a lot of money tohave tents in a field. There’s nowaste here. They’re not paying fora tent that’s going to go. This could be the Eisteddfod.They could take 40 or 50 grand -however much a tent costs - itcould go into one building everyyear to re-plaster it, re-do thewiring and then that building isthere. Why are we paying forexpensive De Boer tents in a field?I don’t understand that.

This is a kind of cautionary taleabout coming to Wales. It’s called“Twiggery”. I imagine this guyshaking out his ponytail andsaying “Yeah I really like thelandscape here.” The subtext is, “Idon’t really like the people”. Thepackage of being sustainable inWales is everyone. Not just someof us being sustainable and artsyand middle class. It’s the tough

guys and the kids chewing gumand dodging school – everyone.That’s the challenge. How do youengage them? You can say “it’s toolate” and “tipping point” and tryto scare them but if people don’tlisten… I hate words like “engage”and “sustain”. It doesn’t meananything to kids and people thatdon’t come to galleries. I thinkthis is possibly how it could endup. You could be like the guywho’s just shaken his ponytail outand made a kind of twig out therein the woods. Nobody knowsabout it and nobody heard himscream as I stamped on his flaskand put a hatchet in his back…

Back to Grizedale. What I likeabout them is that they’re notstraightforward. They’re beingsustainable, they’re working withthe local community. They’re notpatronising them. They’re not justorganising workshops. Alexei Saylesaid that anybody who uses theword “workshop” outside of lightindustry is a twat and I’ll go alongwith that. Just let’s do it withoutregenerating and building. An example of that is where mystudio is, in the market hall inCaernarfon which is prettyramshackle and run down. So I’mthere, there’s a designer there,there’s a set designer and a soundengineer and we’re just there.There’s no new plaster work,there’s no launching, no Mayorcoming to cut the ribbon. It’s justpeople doing it cheaply and I hopethat it grows into somethingbigger because there’s a shortage ofdecent studio spaces in this town,in fact in North West Wales. I don’t think they really exist.

Grizedale Arts is beingsustainable but you don’t see theword sustainable anywhere. It’s like when I saw a wind chimewith Feng Shui written on it. You can’t have that. Things canjust be sustainable. You don’t haveto have the label sticking out ofyour shorts, just wear the shorts.

emergence 3 CAERNARFON

A Cautionary Tale

To find out more about Bedwyr’s work visit www.bedwyrwilliams.com

26

“It's difficult being an artist in Wales. It's like waiting for thebeam from a lighthouse run by a cruel moron.”

The arts has a role to play intranslating what scientists aresaying, in ways that people willunderstand and ways that willmake them feel that it belongs tothem. There is a lot ofmisunderstanding and peoplesometimes have closed minds, andit’s a very interesting idea to seehow artists can help to convey themessage.

The Welsh Institute for NaturalResources has been doing work inAfrica for many years. One of theimportant subjects that thehuman race will face in years tocome is food certainty: where willwe get our food from? How do youfeed a population that’s growingso quickly? The second issearching for different materials sothat we are not too dependent onoil. Oil will cost more and will bemore difficult to source. And if weare over-dependent onpetrochemicals, then we will be introuble.

Personally, I am looking at waysof making sustainability the basisof everything we do. How do wesolve the mess so that it makessense to us as individuals? The Welsh Government placesgreat emphasis on sustainability.One Wales: One Planet states thatwe will try to reduce our ecologicalfootprint so that we live lives thatuse only our fair share of theworld’s resources. But the questionis: what does this mean to us inreality? Different people seedifferent things in different ways.

There are different definitionsof sustainability. Sometimes, theemphasis is on the environment,sometimes on people. But, ifeveryone lived in a sustainableway, everyone could livebeneficially, healthily and withoutruining the planet for futuregenerations. Ideally, we shouldreach a balance between thepeople, the planet and generatingmoney in a way that does notdamage one or the other.Everything is connected, and therewill always be conflict connectedto the decisions we make.

Sometimes, it is easier to thinkabout what is not sustainable: we

are going to run out of oil; warsare inevitable; a lot of people havenothing while others have a lot;people have to migrate because ofdifficult economic andenvironmental circumstances.Nineteen million people live inNew York State, and their carbonfootprint is bigger than the carbonfootprint of the 766 millionpeople that live in the world’spoorest countries. Texas’ emissionsare greater than all the countriesto the south of the Saharacombined. The 60 million peoplethat live in Britain produce moreCO2 than everyone that lives inEgypt, Nigeria, Pakistan andVietnam combined. One air-conditioning unit in Florida emitsmore CO2 in a year than a personthat lives in Afghanistan orCambodia does during his or herlifetime. A dish-washing machinein Europe emits as much CO2 in ayear as three people that live inEthiopia.

A phosphorus famine is on theway – which is very serious interms of growing food andagriculture. There is a finite supplyof minerals which are needed forinformation technology. Ninetyseven per cent of them come fromChina. And now, China wishes touse them themselves, whichmeans that we will not be able toobtain them. There are manythings on the horizon that weshould be preparing for.

We cannot carry on with abusiness as usual attitude – we arebecoming more and moreecologically indebted. By 2050 wewill only have 10% of the earth’sresources in reserve. We must dosomething quite dramatic.

Water will be one of the mostimportant things over the comingyears. We face a challenge tostabilise the concentration ofcarbon in the environment and

Dr Einir Young

Head of

Sustainable

Development at

Bangor University

the economic system is fragile. We cannot grow for ever.

I do not want everyone to feeldespair and say that there’s nopoint. Everyone must acknowledgewhere we are and what we, asindividuals, have to do. How canwe use all the negativeinformation and turn it intopositive information that will helpus move forward? Can artists makea difference? The basic problem isnot that we don’t understandwhat we have to do, but topersuade ourselves and others todo what is right.

An example of the challenge weface to do things differently is thecommon land catastrophe. In the Drakensberg Mountains inLesotho, it is very important thatthe ecosystem is protected andthat the area is not overgrazed asthis will cause land erosion that will affect reservoirs. A range management system wasintroduced where some farmerspaid so that their animals couldgraze this land. They kept thenumber of animals down and theenvironment recovered while theanimals prospered. But nobodytold them that their animals werenot allowed to graze on thecommon land as well, andtherefore the people who couldnot afford to pay for their animalsto graze the range managementarea were losing out, victims of theargument: “why should I take myanimal off the common land,when everyone else’s animals aregrazing there?” This is the tragedyof the commons and that is thechallenge in terms of the earth aswell – one planet common to usall, but why should we make aneffort, when China is emitting ona massive scale? Or everyone inAmerica is driving a big car?Maybe there are ways to persuadeus. What are the elements –people, planet, profit – we shouldconsider? This is this century’s hottopic – if we do not get this right,will the planet just take care ofitself? What would we do if thewater and oil dry up or if thelights go out?

Sustainability and The Tragedy of the Commons

For more information about Einir’s work visit www.sbbs.org.uk

27

“How can we use all the negativeinformation and turn it into

positive information that will help us move forward?”

Emergence is such animportant word, especially theWelsh equivalent – ‘eginiad’. It does not mean the same thingexactly as its English counterpart.‘Egino’ means to flower, to start,to grow. It conveys somethingvery natural. Plants emerge(‘egino’), cultures emerge andideas emerge.

Furthermore, I have beenthinking about the theme‘Resilience’ – how this is the abilityto change, to react and to benefitfrom change; the challenge ofthinking about the world as it isnow but also the world of thefuture. It is an important word forWales - that a minority culture istrying to survive, and celebrates itsexistence. The natural world thatsurrounds us here in Wales affectsour poetry, our visual arts, ourtheatres and music.

One of the main things thathas influenced us as Welshspeakers was what happened inTryweryn in the 1950s and 1960s(the clearance of Welsh speakingvillages from valleys that weresubsequently flooded to providewater for Liverpool andBirmingham). I would challengeanyone to consider whathappened in Tryweryn, or anyother reservoir, as sustainabledevelopment. But reaction to thatgave Wales quite a strong stimulusin terms of culture, language andthe arts.

After college, I worked as apress officer for Europe’s greenparties. Part of the work I didincluded the ‘Boycott Bush’campaign – a very excitingcampaign – which saw meworking with artists from differentcountries during a period whenworking with artists was notsomething that the environmentalsector did very often. It was aradical lobby, with lots of protestsbeing held, as well as celebrations.

On the 11th of September2001, everything suddenlychanged. No longer were weallowed to say things like ‘BoycottBush’. We were no longer able touse the same terminology as wedid before.

Eluned Haf

Director Wales

Arts International

In 2002, I was working at theWorld Summit on SustainableDevelopment in South Africa, andwhat was interesting andimportant was that for the firsttime, we were now discussingcultural diversity. And I do thinkthat the 11th of September 2001had a big role to play in that.

This huge summit was all aboutlobbying for new environmentalprotections and trying to get thegovernments of the world to signup to what had been discussed inRio, ten years earlier. Side by sidewith that, you had this enormousmovement of campaigners andcelebrations going on anddiscussions about culturalentitlement and cultural rights.And again I found myself workingwith a theme of culture and water.There were sessions in thetownship, and the organisers ofthose events used drama, music,and art to involve local people indiscussion about the need for

sustainable development. Whenyou live in a township, sustainabledevelopment must mean runningwater, it must mean health, itmust mean right to education.

But it also means the right tocommunity, the right to self-expression, the right to culture,the right to being part of a biggerfamily within the world and beingable to say so.

Currently, I am working withthe international arts in Wales.Not only is the human racechallenged to consider the futureof the planet, but our own futuresas individuals. My conclusions arethat cultural and environmentalresponsibilities go hand in hand. I went to South Africa thinkingthat I was representing the greenlobby, but returned thinking that I had been campaigning forcultural rights.

The environment and cultureneed to do more than just co-exist. Of course, when someone tries tosave the world, culture is notalways at the top of the agenda,but in terms of surviving andmoving on into the future, wherewould we be without the arts,without our culture?

In Wales, we now have anopportunity to consider; we needto make cuts and savings, butmore than that – we need todiscuss, to express ourselves. Andthere is no better way ofcommunicating than through thearts. We in the arts have a duty touse this opportunity to encouragediscussions in order to challengenot only those within our ownarts and culture to get involved,but also the wider society.

In Johannesburg in 2002, wehad high hopes that culture, artsand the environmental sectorswould come together. And I thinkthat it has taken almost ten yearsfor that to happen. I hope that tenyears from now we won’t be justsitting and discussing but that wewill take for granted that there aresome things that we must do,from making environmentalsavings to expressing ourselvesculturally, regardless if we are inthe minority or not.

emergence 3 CAERNARFON

Egino: Culture, Arts and the Environment

For more information on the work of Wales Arts International visit www.wai.org.uk

28

“We in the arts have a duty to use thisopportunity to encourage discussions inorder to challenge not only those withinour own arts and culture to get involved,

but also the wider society.”

I’ll start with a poem that’s allabout water and it connects Waleswith the world. I read that there’sa piece of ice in the Arctic the sizeof Wales which melts every year.“The size of Wales” is often usedto visualise disasters - and it mademe think.

I like the tension betweenscientists and artists. I became anartist because of what washappening to the world’spopulation, as opposed to theenvironment at the time. I wouldsay that artists have tried to get togrips with change, andcontributed and planned forchange. In essence, when we talkabout a sustainable Wales, we’renot only talking about the greenagenda, but the value agenda.Personally, the value agenda andthe green agenda go together, butpeople’s health and well-being isalso very important. And that’swhere the artist or author believesthat he/she can contribute to self-realisation and satisfying spiritualneeds. An artist cannot createstrategies, but he or she can createthe space for strategies to work.There is a connection betweenartists and the attempt to changeand to change values.

Change has happened in Wales,especially in the field of poetry,and I like to think that I havesomehow contributed to thisdiscussion. In 1984 I created apoetry show called Rhyw Ddydd(Some Day) which looked at thelives of women in Wales andbeyond. In 1986, Fel yr Hed y Frân(As the Crow Flies), an anarchicgroup visited pubs and schools inan attempt to take poetry awayfrom the safe and narrow confinesof the National Eisteddfod’scompetitions. In the 1980s artistsand poets were involved in anti-apartheid protests, andcontributed to an anti-apartheidpublication which saw Welsh andEnglish poetry come together. In 1989, the drama Madog byTaliesin Theatre in Grangetownpushed boundaries – the valueagenda and a sense of belonging –and referred to the ethnic

communities of Wales. A dramacan be translated into manylanguages – that’s why poetry hasplayed such an important role inmoving the agenda and trying tomake a change – a cultural cross-pollination.

That’s why emergence - thisidea of change and moving theagenda on – is important.

Martin Luther King, said, thatwe’re all prisoners of hope. And Ithink that’s a very good metaphorof where we’re at in the worldtoday.

Menna Elfyn

Award winning Poet

and Playwright

Moving the Agenda

To find out more about Menna’s work visit www.mennaelfyn.co.uk/

29

“An artist cannot createstrategies, but he or shecan create the space for

strategies to work.”

WELSH ICEThey’re becoming the same, Welsh ice and spring frost,Both worn underfoot to a blue wafer,How alike as they leave us, how soon they’ll be lost.

Only bitterest breath comes over the glacierWhere kisses are white wreaths upon a white coast.They’re becoming the same, Welsh ice and spring frost.

A kingdom must start or finish in flood.There’s some iceberg with our epitaph written on its crown.How alike as they leave us, how deep they’ll go down.

We’re scarcely a cobweb, a rumour of ghosts,And a country might vanish at the turn of a key.They’re becoming the same, Welsh ice, spring frosts.

History thaws. But when has mercury shownMercy or memory of what it murders?They’re alike as they leave us, how soon they’ll be gone.

It starts at the pole in a kind of unlockingAnd soon we’re a legend beneath a blue level.They’re becoming the same, Welsh ice and spring frost;So alike as they leave us, so soon to be lost.

Trans. from the Welsh by Robert Minhinnick

One day I was sitting in a caféwith a friend. I picked up thenewspaper and there was a piecesaying that the great Britishphilosopher, Bertrand Russell hadbeen arrested and put in jailbecause he was protesting againstnuclear weapons. I said to myfriend, look here is a man ofninety going to jail for peace inthe world, what are we doing here,sitting, drinking coffee? We mustdo something. After somediscussion we came up with theidea of walking to Moscow, Paris,London and Washington DC, thefour nuclear capitals of the worldat that time. We were very excited,we wanted to go walking butdidn’t know what would happen -that was emergence.

Vinoba (our Guru) said that ifwe really wanted to experience

emergence we must go without asingle penny in our pockets. I wasa bit surprised. I said, “Not apenny, literally? Sometimes wemight need a cup of tea or to buya postcard to send you some ofour news”. Vinoba said “not apenny. If you really want to

Satish Kumar

Teacher, Writer,

Activist. Editor of

Resurgence

magazine and

visiting fellow at

Schumacher

college

experience emergence you have tojust trust, trust in your heart, trustin people, trust in the universe.The universe provides. Did youplan what you were going to dowhen you were born? Noplanning, just trust. Conviction?Yes. Action? Yes. Preparation? Yes.Planning? A little bit. Leave 80%to emergence and see whathappens.” We took the advice ofour Guru and started walking fromthe grave of Mahatma Gandhi inIndia. We walked for two and ahalf years through Pakistan,Afghanistan, the deserts of Iran,the mountains of the Caucasus,the snow covered villages of Russiaand concrete jungles of Europeand America and ended up againat the grave of Mahatma Gandhi.Now if you were to ask me whatwas the outcome? Nothing. But if I

had been for two and a half yearsat university I would not havelearned what I learned by walkingto those four nuclear capitals.

Of course in two and a halfyears when you are walkingthrough so many countries you dohave a few days when you don’t

get food. On those days I said tomyself this was my opportunity tofast and not to complain, andwhen I did not get shelter I saidthis was my opportunity to sleepunder the stars and gaze at thewonder of the cosmic panorama. If you are on the path ofemergence, then you are notwalking in the landscape ofcomplaining, you are walking inthe landscape of celebration.

Art, poetry, music, dance andtheatre are all about celebration.Emergence is celebration and wehave forgotten how to celebratelife. The greatest art is the art ofliving. If you are prepared foremergence, you are an artist, andif you are prepared for outcome,profit and achievement, you are abusinessman – that’s thedifference. Emergence had nothingto do with success. If you are anartist you are not seeking success.You are seeking fulfilment, you areseeking self-realisation. You willfind and discover who you are. It’s the power of transformation.I would like to see us live likeartists without seeking success,profit, outcome or achievement.

Our business has become ugly.Our industrial estates and businessparks have become ugly becausethey want to make a profit, theyare not interested in the process ofmaking something beautiful andseeing what emerges. The sense ofbeauty has got lost in our society.How are we going to transform asociety which has becomeobsessed with profit and successinto a society where fulfilment,self-realisation, happiness,kindness and emergence haveintrinsic value?

You are proclaiming somethingrevolutionary with emergence, youare saying we are not going afterprofit and success – we wantquality of life, to live well, to treadlightly on the earth, to be kind toeach other and to animals, treesand rivers. Kindness has gonecompletely out of the picture. We think that the natural word isat our service. We can cut downthe rain forests, pollute rivers, dig

emergence 3 CAERNARFON

Emergence - A Way of Life

For more information about Satish’s work at Schumacher College and Resurgence Magazine visit www.schumachercollege.org.uk andwww.resurgence.org.

30

“If you really want to experience emergence you have to justtrust, trust in your heart, trust in people, trust in the universe.”

miles and miles deep into the seain the Gulf of Mexico, put animalsin factory farms, as long as itmakes a profit. This has to change.In the last two hundred years wehave used more fossil fuel thanthe entire history of human kind.We are living wasteful, extravagantlives based on profit, domination,subjugation and exploitation ofeach other and of nature.

It’s a wonderful concept,emergence. It’s ancient wisdomand it’s important to revive it. We have to renew it and say “I’m going to live my life based onemergence – not driven, pushedand forced by the forces of societyto live a very materialistic life.”

You can say “I’m going to doeverything in my life like anartist”, like Joseph Beuys.

Change has to come on ahuman scale. Don’t worry ifovernight the whole society doesnot change. We have to createsmall pockets of sustainable livingwith a little bit less money andmore creativity. We have to createthese places ourselves and peoplehave to take responsibility andbecome the leaders in theircommunity. We have to stand up,we have become too timid and wesay “Oh somebody will change it,some government or somemedia… why doesn’t business doit?” It’s the people who will create

change. It is not easy, but changewill emerge if we work like anartist.

If we can go away from thisconference with that resolve, yourconference is a success. You don’tneed any other evaluation. As long as you have this resolutionto live like an artist, things willemerge. It is not rocket science.You recognise in your heart andyou know it already. This is just areminder. I’m so glad they askedme to be the last speaker so I havethe opportunity and privilege togive you this message - “Let’s goaway with the courage to live likean artist."

31

“Change has to come on a human scale. Don't worry if overnight the whole society does not change. We have to create small pockets of sustainable living

with a little bit less money and more creativity.”

Guest Speaker Paul Allen holdsan Honours degree inElectronic and ElectricalEngineering from LiverpoolUniversity. Paul joined theCentre for AlternativeTechnology in 1988,responsible for design,development, production of awide range of renewableenergy systems. In 1997, Paulbecame the DevelopmentDirector and is currently CAT’sExternal Relations Director,heading the ground-breakingZero Carbon Britain strategyprogramme, liaising directlywith key policy-makers inGovernment, business, publicsector and the devolvedassemblies to disseminate thefindings of their evidence-based scenario developmentwork.

Guest Speaker Tom Andrews isthe Founder and ChiefExecutive of People United. He has worked for 17 years inthe arts, education andcommunity sectors, bringingpeople together, promotingunderstanding and initiatingnew ideas. He is a fellow of theClore Leadership Programmeand the RSA. In addition, he isa regular mentor for culturaland community leaders, is amember of executive cultureadvisory team for CanterburyCity Council, and the nationalengagement advisory group forArts Council England.

Guest Speaker Dr Jean Boulton

is Visiting Fellow at Cranfieldand Bath and BristolUniversities. Trained as aphysicist, Jean speaks andwrites about the connectionbetween science and the artsand spirituality, in particularfocusing on complexity andevolutionary theory and howthese ideas help us to workwith issues of sustainabilityand resilience. She helpsorganisations transform andalso has a keen interest insocial policy.

Guest Speaker Huw Charles

is a career civil servantcurrently working as a policyofficer in the WelshGovernment's SustainableDevelopment Branch. He hasdone so for the past 5 years,helping to develop the currentSustainable DevelopmentScheme, One Wales: OnePlanet and now managing theSustainable DevelopmentCharter network. Before thistime he worked in thePlanning Inspectorate leadingthe admin team responsiblefor Access Mapping ("Right toroam") appeals. Other roleshave involved working in theAppeals Service, developing itsWelsh language scheme andsupporting tribunals formedical, child support,disability and social securitybenefit claims.

Gillian Clarke is a central figurein contemporary Welsh poetryand is Wales' third nationalpoet. Brought up speakingonly English, Gillian learnt tospeak Welsh as an adult.Gillian has embraced asustainable lifestyle andcurrently runs an organicsmallholding in Ceredigionwhere she and her husbandraise a small flock of sheep andcare for the land according toorganic and conservationpractice. The Welsh landscapeis a shaping force in her work.

Guest 'Pecha Koocha' Artist

Alan Dix has worked as atheatre maker and artsconsultant for over 30 years. He managed the £2Mmillennium programme inGreenwich, has supportedorganisations and artiststhroughout the UK in theproduction of new work. Hehas collaborated with TippingPoint on their commissionsprogramme and is currentlyworking on the development ofMy Last Car – an examinationof our conflicted relationshipwith the automobile.www.509arts.co.uk.

Guest Exhibiting Artist and

Welsh Artist of the Year 2011

Paul Emmanuel studied atWGIHE and Goldsmiths. He has worked and exhibitedinternationally and has beenBritish Council InternationalResident Artist on twooccasions and awarded WalesArts International funding forprojects in China, Taiwan andthe USA. He had a soloexhibition of his ‘fleecepaintings’ in Oriel Myrddin,Carmarthen in January 2011.

Guest Speaker Menna Elfyn isan award-winning poet andplaywright who writes withpassion of the Welsh languageand identity. She is the bestknown and most translated ofall modern Welsh-languagepoets. Author of over twentybooks of poetry includingAderyn Bach Mewn Llaw(1990), winner of a Welsh ArtsCouncil Prize; children’snovels and educational books,numerous stage, radio andtelevision plays, she has alsowritten libretti for US and UKcomposers. She received aCreative Arts Award in 2008, isDirector of the MastersProgramme in Creative Writingat Trinity University,Carmarthen and is LiteraryFellow at Swansea University.

Guest Speaker Eluned Hâf isDirector of Wales ArtsInternational, theinternational arm of ArtsCouncil of Wales. Eluned sitson the Management Board ofArts Council as well as theWelsh Government’s ArtStrategy Board. A journalist bytraining, Eluned has workedfor BBC Wales, Reuters, ITVregions and S4C. She speaksfive languages and worked as apress officer in the EuropeanParliament.

Guest Speaker Judith Knight isco-director and founder ofArtsadmin, a unique producingorganization for contemporaryartists working in theatre,dance, live art and visual arts.Artsadmin has also developeda range of services for artistsand young people including afree advisory service, bursaries,and mentoring anddevelopment programmes.Judith is a member of theJulie’s Bicycle theatre groupand is on the Advisory Boardof IETM.

Guest Speaker Satish Kumar isan Indian, currently living inEngland, who has been a Jainmonk and a nucleardisarmament advocate, andhas been the editor ofResurgence magazine for over30 years. He is also thefounder of SchumacherCollege, an internationalcentre for ecological studies,and of The Small School. His most notableaccomplishment is a “peacewalk” with a companion tothe capitals of four of thenuclear-armed countries -Washington, London, Parisand Moscow, a trip of over8,000 miles. He insists that reverence fornature should be at the heartof every political and socialdebate.

Guest Speaker Eric Maddern

was born in Australia but cameto Britain with his family aged11. A storyteller, author andsinger-songwriter, he iscurrently touring storytellingand music shows to inspireaction to protect the Earth forfuture generations. For the last25 years, Eric has lived inFachwen near Llanberis where,he has created the Cae MabonEco-Retreat Centre which hostsretreats and workshops withthemes of healing andcreativity.

Guest Speakers and Contributors

32

World Café Facilitator Jenny

Mackewn regularly leads,facilitates and catalysessustainable change incorporate, community andacademic settings. She is acreative-catalyst in nowhereand is a visiting fellow at theCentre for Action Research inProfessional Practice (CARPP)where she was director of aunique programme infacilitation as a form of actionresearch. She has written achapter in the Sage Handbookof Action Research onfacilitation and leadership asforms of action inquiry, and isa national trainer for theTransition Towns and Citiesmovement. She is currently co-creating a programme aboutdeveloping resilience inorganisations.

Guest Speaker John E. McGrath

is Artistic Director of NationalTheatre Wales. Previously Johnwas Artistic Director of ContactTheatre in Manchester. Johntrained in New York, where hewas also Associate Director ofMabou Mines. In 2005, he wasawarded the NESTA CulturalLeadership Award.

Guest Speaker Lucy Neal is anindependent producer, artistand educator with 30 years’experience. From 1981 – 2005she was Co-Founder andDirector of the LIFT Festival(London International Festivalof Theatre). She is initiator andco-chair of Transition TownTooting, co-author of MMM’sSustainable Ability report forthe Paul Hamlyn Foundation,and co-founder of Taking UpSpace, a CLP funded network,looking at the transformativerole of the arts in systemicchange within communities.She was awarded the OBE forservices to drama in 2005.

Guest Artist Martin Powell is ayoung poet, activist and lyricistfrom Devon. After uploading aselection of his spoken wordvideos onto Youtube, Martin’spoem “Global Warning” wassubsequently used to open theCNN debate on ClimateChange in Copenhagen. He now plans to use his poetryto raise awareness on the majorpolitical, social and ecologicalissues of our time.

Philip Ralph, Contributing

Delegate, is a writer andperformer. He trained at RADAand is an associate artist withVolcano Theatre Company. He wrote the verbatim/documentary play Deep Cut,which won the AmnestyInternational Freedom ofExpression Award, Fringe Firstand Herald Angel Awards atthe Edinburgh Festival 2008.This is currently indevelopment as a screenplaywith Michael Winterbottom'sRevolution Films. Philip is anArts Council Wales CreativeWales Award Winner and isworking on a series ofperformance experimentsentitled The One-Eyed ManProject. manoneeye.blogspot.com

Emergence Co-developer and

Organiser Fern Smith is Co-founder of Volcano TheatreCompany, based in Swansea.She has performed, directedand taught workshops for thecompany for over 20 years. She is also a qualified massageand craniosacral therapist. She was the Arts Council ofWales Fellow on the CloreLeadership Programme in2009/10.

Guest Speaker Axel Tangerding,trained as an architect and isthe founder of Meta TheatreMunich. He recently developeda theatre building for theSwedish theatre companyTeatermaskinen inRiddyrhyttan. Axel is involvedin various internationalnetworks such as IETM and ITI(having been in the board ofIETM and being now in theboard of ITI).

Emergence Co-developer and

Organiser Rhodri Thomas

Rhodri read EnvironmentalBiology at Essex Universitybefore training as an actor atthe Welsh College of Musicand Drama. He was a freelanceactor, writer, and producer forthirteen years before returningto university and gaining aMasters in EnvironmentalManagement. He hassubsequently worked for The University of Glamorgan,Environment Agency Walesand Forum For The Future. He is currently DevelopmentOfficer for Cynnal Cymru –Sustain Wales.

Guest Speaker Dr Ben Todd,Executive Director, ArcolaTheatre. Ben joined ArcolaTheatre in 2005 and has beeninstrumental in its growth anddiversification intoenvironmental sustainability.Ben holds a PhD inengineering from CambridgeUniversity and has worked inR&D, technical and strategyconsulting on both commercialand government projects,including at CambridgeConsultants and Rolls-RoyceFuel Cell Systems. As well asmanaging Arcola Theatre, he is Managing Director UK forHorizon Fuel Cell, developingnew markets and applicationsfor renewable energytechnologies.

Guest Speaker Alison Tickell

established Julie’s Bicycle in2007 as a not-for-profitcompany, to unite and lead themusic industry in tacklingclimate change. In 2010 Julie’sBicycle expanded its remit toinclude theatre and visual arts.Alison is Associate Professor atBuckinghamshire NewUniversity, a member of theEvents Supplement WorkingGroup for the Global ReportingInitiative, and a founderparticipant on the UnitedNations Music & EnvironmentProgramme, 2010. She is on theBoard of Sound Connections.

Guest Artist Bedwyr Williams'

work includes stand-upcomedy, sculpture andpainting, posters andphotography. His installation,text-based works and liveperformances explore subjectmatter ranging from growingup in Colwyn Bay with size 13feet, to a mini-bus crash withfour other artists-in-residence(in which he is the onlysurvivor). He makes workrelevant to a sense of place andbelonging but simultaneouslyrefuses to be compromised orpigeon-holed by provincialtastes or stereotypes.

Guest Speaker Dr Einir Young isActing Director of BangorUniversity’s Welsh Institute forNatural Resources (WINR) andHead of SustainableDevelopment. She is Directorof Synnwyr Busnes BusinessSense - a research &consultancy group specialisingin Sustainable Development,based within WINR. She takesa lead within BangorUniversity on sustainabilityissues, is a member of thesustainability implementationgroup, and chairs theUniversity’s SustainabilityForum. Einir is passionateabout developing Welshmedium capability and believeslanguage and culture are asmuch a part of sustainability as‘green’ issues.

33

Videos of all the presentationsare available to view on theEmergence Platform, CultureColony website atwww.culturecolony.com.

This document can bedownloaded from thefollowing websites:www.emergence-uk.org,www.sustainwales.com,www.volcanotheatre.co.uk,www.britishcouncil.org/walesand www.artswales.org.uk.

Useful Links

Here are some organisationsand initiatives which activelypromote the links betweencreativity and sustainabledevelopment. All of these haveinspired or influenced us indeveloping Emergence andprovide a wealth ofinformation and resourceswhich you might find helpful.

Ashden Trust

Grant-making charityestablished in 1989 - one ofthe Sainsbury FamilyCharitable Trusts. Primarilysupports programmes focusingon climate change, sustainabledevelopment, or improvingthe quality of life in poorercommunities. Encompasses theAshden Awards and AshdenDirectory.www.ashdentrust.org.uk &www.ashdendirectory.org.uk.

British Council/ Long Horizons

A collection of personalreflections about art, artistsand climate change.Commissioned by the BritishCouncil and curated by Julie’sBicycle featuring contributionsfrom Antony Gormley, JayGriffiths, Professor TimJackson, Professor DianaLiverman and KT Tunstall.www.britishcouncil.org/climatechange-longhorizons-2.pdf.

Cape Farewell

The cultural response toclimate change, Cape Farewellhas brought together leadingartists, writers, scientists,educators and media for aseries of expeditions to hotspots of climate change.Together they have mapped,measured and been inspired bythis awesome environmentand have endeavoured to bringhome stories and artworks thattell how a warming planet isimpacting on the wildernessand us.www.capefarewell.com.

Cynnal Cymru-Sustain Wales

A networking organisationwhich enables people to learnfrom each other and discoverinteresting good practiceprojects in Wales. CC-SWworks with people andorganisations across a broadrange of issues - from climatechange to economy and fair-trade to health. Aims toincrease awareness ofsustainability issues and goodpractice examples, and raiseawareness of practicalresources encouragingsustainable living in Wales.www.sustainwales.com.

NEF

An independent think-and-dotank that inspires anddemonstrates real economicwell-being. NEF aims toimprove quality of life bypromoting innovativesolutions that challengemainstream thinking oneconomic, environment andsocial issues. Combinesrigorous analysis and policydebate with practical solutionson the ground and creates newways of measuring progresstowards increased well-beingand environmentalsustainability.www.neweconomics.org.

Schumacher Society

The Schumacher Societypromotes the wisdom andinsight of E.F. Schumacher toinspire a new generation whoare seeking relevant andpractical solutions to heal aworld in crisis and build asane, humane and ecologicalsociety.www.schumacher.org.uk.

Theatres Trust

The Theatres Trust is theNational Advisory Public Bodyfor Theatres, protectingtheatres for everyone. Weoperate nationally in England,Wales, Scotland and NorthernIreland promoting the value oftheatre buildings andchampioning their future. TT Actively explores andresponds to environmentaland sustainability issues facingperforming arts venues in theUK. www.theatrestrust.org.uk.

Tipping Point

Energising the creativeresponse to climate change.Through intense two-daygatherings taking place aroundthe world we aim toprecipitate intense dialoguebetween artists, scientists andothers close to the heart of theissue. We believe that, throughtheir creative work andthrough collaborations withscientists, artists can play animportant role in exploringthe cultural, societal andbehavioural shifts in a worldimpacted by climate change.www.tippingpoint.org.uk.

Emergence would like to thank

the following:

Claudine Conway of VolcanoTheatre, Gwenllian Evans ofCynnal Cymru and MarionMcCartney for proof reading,Marega Palser and GeralltLlewelyn for photos. Thanks to venue partnersJames Tyson and all staff atChapter Arts Centre, SybilCrouch and all staff at TaliesinArts Centre, Elena ApRobertand all staff at Galeri. Alsothanks to Jenny McKewn,Andrew Jones, Louise Wright,Rose Fenton, Angela McSherry,Lucy Neal and Siobahn Daviesfor inspiration, informationand support.

We would also like toacknowledge the followingorganisations for supportingthe Emergence conferences:Arts and Business, Centre ForAlternative Technology,Countryside Council forWales, Culture Colony, RSA,UE Solutions, WelshGovernment, VolcanoTheatre, Cynnal Cymru -Sustain Wales, Arts Council ofWales and British CouncilWales.

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