The Park Spark project is an urban intervention that questions our waste infrastructure and engages people directly in re-imagining uses for waste products. Artist Matthew Mazotta has created a system that literally transforms dog waste into energy in a New York City park, avoiding waste to landfill. By turning a crank dog-owners power a methane digester and provide the fuel source for an adjacent gas lamp. This ‘eternal flame’ will burn until a member of the public suggests an alternative use for this ‘excess’ resource. Part education, part provocation and part solution, this innovative arts project reconnects people to their environment in a very tangible way.

Animal Wall by artist Gitta Gschewendter is a large-scale public artwork that provides 1000 apartments for bats and birds. Situated along a 50 metre wall, Animal Wall was commissioned as part of a new residential development in Cardiff, Wales, and mirrors the provision of the 1000 homes for humans. A direct response to the loss of natural habitat that housing developments are partially responsible for, the artwork contributes both practically and aesthetically to the needs of public space.

Live Forever is the work of artists Jenna Didier and Oliver Hess whose practice Infranatural seeks to tie the built environment to the natural pulse of a living city. A Los Angeles fire station is host to the public art work, which acts as a barometer of the county’s fire risk through a web of humidity & temperature sensors stretched across the facade like a a growing vine.  LED lights at each node flash across the building in shades of blue to red, making people aware of their environment, frequently warning them to take care with sparks and cigarettes.

Plunge is a new climate change-themed public artwork in the City of London by artist Michael Pinsky. Sited in three locations around key historic monuments, Plunge communicates future sea level rise through an elegant series of LED powered rings. Each ring shows where the Thames is expected to reach in the year 3111 if current carbon pollution trends continue. In the words of the artist, at one level the work places the viewer deep below the water’s surface, and at another level the work “suggests a protective shell, proposing that we have a chance to change this situation.”

Proposal by Pierre Proske

Carbon Arts is working in partnership with artist, Pierre Proske, to develop .Blush – a public media arts work on a large scale that responds to the energy performance of the built environment. The project, supported by an Australia Council for the Arts ‘Creative Australia’ grant, re-imagines a sustainable building with a skin that ‘blushes’ and changes hue based on the energy usage, with ‘freckles’ consisting of thermochomic and electrically activated discs. We will be working in partnership with the City of Melbourne, Synergetics, FMSA Architects and Jason Bond of the Environment Shop to research the location, scale, interpretation and technological design for this project. Our vision is to realise the .Blush buildings in the City of Melbourne by the end of 2013, so that with innovative visualisation of energy saving/consumption we can better preserve our resources and environment.

Nourish your vision for a sustainable future with an adventurous travelling cocktail party around the Melbourne Museum with artist Natalie Jeremijenko and chef Mihir Desai.

Mixing together art performance, science and modern cuisine, this one-night-only event will treat guests to three delicious, edible cocktails that each stylishly and humorously explore our gastronomic, economic and material interdependency on other creatures.

Discover the museum at night and a whole new perspective on food futures with the Cross Species Adventure Club.

Thursday 1 December 2011
6.00 – 8.00 PM Cocktails + Performance | Food + Drink available 8.00 – 9.00 PM
Melbourne Museum I 11 Nicholson St, Carlton VIC 3053
$45 Full Price | $35 for Museum Members
Tickets can be booked online by clicking here

DROUGHT AND FLOODING RAINS: THE DINNER

Artist Natalie Jeremijenko and chefs Mihir Desai and Pierre Roelofs create a sensory experience of edible artworks from a fragile land(scape).

Running for over a year in New York and Boston, the celebrated Cross(x)Species Adventure Club Supper Club, comes to Australia for the first time. Five+ paired courses will be served to adventurous palates exploring the unique properties of Australian ecology through modern cuisine techniques and inspired ingredients.

Wednesday 30 November 2011
7:00 – 9:30 PM
Arc One Gallery, 45 Flinders Lane, Melbourne VIC 3000
$140 I Limited seats available

The future of sustainable food lies in a complete rethink of how humans relate to the natural environment through collective engagement and cultural innovation.

Carbon Arts and Arena Project Space invite you  engage with New York based artist/engineer/activist Prof Natalie Jeremijenko, chef Mihir Desai and guest speakers to explore how we can use the creative potential of science, modernist cuisine and the imagination to connect food production to healthy ecologies.

Monday 28 November 2011
6.00 – 7.30 PM
Arena Project Space I 2 Kerr St Fitzroy, VIC, 3065
$10 Pay at the door I Drinks by donation

SOIREE OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS: Exploring the magic life of soils with Cocktails + Desserts

Pack your bags, we are off for a trip to Avoca, in country Victoria, to meet local experts and agricultural producers to explore our relationship to soils, top and bottom.

Put your feet in the earth, turn your eyes to the stars, and relax while enjoying a rich serving of after dinner treats designed to bring a whole new awareness to terroire and terra firma.

Carbon Arts is pleased to be collaborating with The Avoca Project (TAP) for this event. TAP is the initiative of established Australian artist, Lyndal Jones. The European house provides a home to exhibitions, symposia, projects and events that draw community attention to the historical causes and effects of climate change.

Saturday 26 November 2011
From 8.00 – 9.30 PM (onwards)
The Avoca Project I 16 Dundas St, Avoca, VIC, 3467 (2 hrs drive from Melb)
$35 – Dress Adventurous
Click here to book

Become an uFarmer at our AgBag workshop in Sydney, taste a biodiverse future with edible cocktails that are delicious to humans and non-humans, or take a trek to the Victorian countryside for a weekend of feral food foraging.

Book here for all events, by selecting from the listings to the left.

Download our full program here : xspecies program of events