May 26 – June 6, 2008

A choice of weeks is available – see details of the timetable below. Can be taken as a one or two week course.

Susan Derges, Lynne Hull, James Marriott

Participants will discuss the relationship between art and the natural world. The course will involve exploration, discovery and creative practice in landscape.

Course Overview

Nature in all its beauty and complexity has been an integral part of art from the first images and artefacts ever created by humans. Recent years have seen a resurgence of its importance for artists, not just as inspiration but as the actual medium within which they work.

Susan Derges will introduce participants to the unique way she works within the landscape to create works of art, and help them make their own art inspired by the woods and gardens around the College and the wilds of Dartmoor.

James Marriott will work with participants to explore together distinct dimensions that we inhabit: the life-world of the Robins and the life-world of the petro-chemical industry. The group shall endeavour to hear and understand more fully what it means to inhabit both these realms, to recognise how one impacts upon the other and to see how we can change this relationship.

In the second week, Lynne Hull will work with the group to create, within the College grounds, a piece of “trans-species” art which restores habitat damaged by human impact while encouraging humans to understand wildlife needs and to shift attitudes toward other species.

The course is suitable for artists of all kinds who wish to find new ways of working with nature and for educators seeking to find creative ways of helping people to value and understand art in nature.

Teachers

Susan Derges is a photographer who uses the natural world as her darkroom to create images of water flows and the night sky around her Dartmoor home. She has created a major commission for the Eden Project’s new Education Resource Centre in Cornwall and has exhibited her work around the world.

Lynne Hul has pioneered “trans-species” art, creating sculpture installations as wildlife habitat enhancement and eco-atonement for human impact. She has worked in the American West and eight other countries with a variety of wildlife agencies. Currently she is working on Migration Mileposts, linking communities in the Americas who share migratory birds.

James Marriott is a writer, artist, activist and naturalist. He is a Co-Director of PLATFORM, which since 1983 has brought together artists and activists to create projects and campaigns that help the struggle for ecological & social justice in London, PLATFORM’s home, and distant elsewheres impacted by that metropolis.

Timetable/Course content

Week 1: May 26-30, 2008

Monday Arrival by 1pm. Introduction to each other and College; Gaia theory and Schumacher philosophy.

Tuesday & Wednesday
Susan Derges: Susan’s artistic practice has involved cameraless, lens-based, digital and reinvented photographic processes as well as video. The metaphors her work has been concerned with encompass subject matter informed by the physical and biological sciences as well as landscape and abstraction. She will talk about the inspiration for her work and recent projects she has been involved with. On Wednesday, participants will visit her studio in the Taw Valley (north Dartmoor) and work in the surrounding landscape.

Thursday & Friday
A Robin Hears the First Combustion Engine

James Marriott: For over a century now Robins have woven the fabric of their song across the fields, rivers and woods in competition with the thunder of pistons. Perhaps between 7 and 10 generations of Robins have had to communicate through this cacophany. James Marriott will work with students to explore together these two distinct dimensions that we inhabit: the life-world of the Robins and the life-world of the petro-chemical industry. We shall endeavour to hear and understand more fully what it means to inhabit both these realms, to recognise how one impacts upon the other and to see how we can change this relationship. Change it both as consumers of oil & gas – the fuel that brings us together in this place – and as producers of oil & gas – how each of us plays a role in driving forward the extraction of petroleum geology, from deep beneath the Earth, and its excretion into the atmosphere, high above our heads.

Week 2: June 2-6, 2008

Trans-Species Art
Lynne Hull: Lynne’s sculpture and installations provide shelter, food, water or space for wildlife, as eco-atonement for their loss of habitat to human encroachment. Her current projects link communities from Canada to South America through their shared wildlife. Some raise human awareness of our trans-species relationship and harmonious ways to live that relationship in the landscape. While assisting wildlife, when possible projects are also designed with components of sustainable economic development for humans. Lynne will work with the group to create a piece of trans-species art within or near the grounds of Schumacher College.

She comments on her work: “I believe that the creativity of artists can be applied to real world problems and can have an effect on urgent social and environmental issues. I am increasingly aware that the greatest challenge faced by other species is the need for change in human values and attitudes toward conflicting rights, wants, and needs. I hope my work offers models for equitable solutions.”

Departure after lunch on Friday.

Can be taken as a one or two week course.

Course Fees

For businesses: One week £1,100 Two weeks £1,700
For individuals, NGOs & Educators: One week £900 Two weeks £1,400
These include accommodation, food, field trips and all teaching sessions.

How to make an application – click here

For further information about Schumacher College please see About the College

New feature – reserve your place now

To provisionally reserve a place for 5 days, email us your contact details and the name of the course admin@schumachercollege.org.uk

We will hold the place for five working days for reservations – three weeks before a course or earlier. After five days we will automatically offer your place to someone else if we have not received your application.