emerging creatives student summit
#a2ruH20
The Great Big Context of Climate Disruption
Human-driven climate disruption poses extreme risks in the coming decades. Indeed some people, societies, species, and ecosystems have already experienced significant, even catastrophic consequences. Recognition of the scale and immediacy of this malady is now driving a new era of mitigation strategies. Climate disruption, however, is not a single ailment that can be treated in isolation.
Rather, it is one of a family of existential afflictions, including a massive and accelerating loss of biodiversity, acute ecological overshoot, and intensifying social inequities - emergent from the same underlying pathology. And while some climate mitigation pathways address multiple symptoms synergistically, others exacerbate them.
We find ourselves at a crossroads, in need of a map clearly depicting the landscape and a compass to guide us. In this talk I’ll introduce one such map - a framework of ‘planetary boundaries’ ... and one such compass - the concept of a safe operating space for all people. What yet remains is the active participation of a broad spectrum of society to keep the full suite of so- called “wicked” socio-environmental problems clearly in focus as we plot a course forward.
Understanding Earth’s complex climate system, to the level that we do, stands as one of humankind’s great scientific achievements. What we now do with this understanding stands as one of humanity’s great societal challenges. In this series physicist and climate change educator Dr. Robert Davies overviews the science of this critical public issue.
Planned for the summers of 2017 and 2018, Water works will use a series of bold site-specific performance events across the Gallatin Watershed to focus on drought and threats to water security in the face of the rapid population growth and environmental shifts predicted for the coming decades. WaterWorks will address the region's future around water and land use planning and management systems. Funded by ArtPlace.
Attendees will get to hear a special presentation from Dr. Jack Putz, Distinguished Professor of Biology at University of Florida during a field trip to Sweetwater Wetlands Park.
A thoughtful piece by Dr. Jack Putz from a Florida Native Plant Society publication.
Sea Level Rise
a2ru supports interdisciplinary research, curricula, programs, and creative practice between the arts, science, and other disciplines. We recognize the world's most pressing, complex, and open-ended challenges resist singular approaches and require collaborative interdisciplinary resolutions. a2ru invites Emerging Creatives Student Summit attendees to submit funding requests for interdisciplinary team projects that address a social, community, societal, or real-world problem.
June 23, 2017
Athens, GA; Tucson, AZ; and Iowa City, IA—Two interdisciplinary student teams were awarded Student Challenge Grants by the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) to pursue projects on water sustainability: “Let Water Be Water” was awarded $3,000 plus travel support and will explore immediacy, transparency, and relevance by animating environment impact data sets. The team includes Dorsey Kaufmann, first year MFA in Illustration and Design at the University of Arizona; Nima Hamidi, a PhD candidate in music from the University of Iowa; and third year undergraduate in Computer Science, Addison Kaufmann, also from the University of Arizona.
“Alliance for Arts + Rights of Nature” was awarded $3,500 plus travel support and will explore the inherent rights of nature and address the questions: Does nature possess inherent rights? How can a legal framework grant a natural entity personhood? What role can art play in exploring this line of inquiry?The project will integrate policy and action through artistic methods. Team members include Berea Antaki, first year MS in Textiles and Merchandising at the University of Georgia; Carla Cao, first year, MS in Music Composition at the University of Georgia; Iva Dimitrova, fourth year BS in Mass Media Arts at the University of Georgia; Nima Hamidi, PhD candidate in Music Composition at the University of Iowa; and Suzie Henderson, fourth year BS in Ecology at the University of Georgia.
Teams will work over the course of the summer and will present on their projects at a gathering of research university administrators, faculty, staff, and students this fall at the 5th Annual National a2ru Conference: Arts in the Public Sphere: Civility, Advocacy, and Engagement November 1-4, 2017, hosted by Northeastern University, with co-host a2ru partners including Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Tufts University.
Student teams competed for grants to continue promising collaborations started at the 2017 a2ru Emerging Creatives Student Summit: WATER: New Directions Through Arts and Science hosted by the University of Florida in February 2017. The summit convened interdisciplinary teams from various a2ru partner research universities to address issues around the theme of water.
Many thanks to our faculty advisors at the summit from a2ru partner universities including Penn State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Iowa State University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Virginia Commonwealth University, James Madison University, University of Colorado Denver, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of North Texas, Utah State University, University of Michigan, and the University of Florida, with special thanks to challenge grant reviewers, Laura Chessin from VCU and Mary Pat McGuire from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
If your institution has interest in helping foster the next crop of innovative projects by hosting the 2018 a2ru Emerging Creatives Student Summit, please contact Maryrose Flanigan.
Student Challenge Grant
Performance project cultivated by the Fry Street Quartet, composers Laura Kaminsky and Libby Larsen, with physicist/climatologist from Utah State University, Rob Davies. Rob Davies will be joining us in Florida on a panel to present his work and to inspire and work with the student teams throughout the summit!
RESOURCES.
2017 Class of a2ru Emerging Creatives