Spring 2009 Events
Spring 2009 Events
Dates, locations, and times subject to change. Additional events will also be added. Any changes will be reflected in announcements, the Web site, and the events calendar.
April
Through April 29
Loaded: Hunting Culture in America
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Ever since our prehistoric ancestors painted hunting scenes in the caves of Lascaux—thought to be among the first examples of Western artistic practice—the act and phenomenon of the hunt has been a significant cultural force. In contemporary America, where people no longer need to hunt for survival, hunting culture has evolved to become an aesthetic and a lifestyle choice. Many contemporary artists have gravitated toward either the aesthetics or the cultural/social phenomena of hunting as the subject of their work, giving us objects, images, and spaces that range from kitsch to realism and hard-edged social commentary. Loaded: Hunting Culture in America will take a deliberately ambivalent view toward the morality of hunting and address the subject as social, cultural, and artistic phenomenon, ideally nudging viewers to question their own preconceptions regarding hunting. Curated by Ann Weins and Audrey Michelle Mast and organized by the Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces Glass Curtain Gallery.
Friday, April 3, 7 to 11 p.m.
Appalachian and Roots Music Fest
Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
The Topless America Project and Critical Encounters present the music inspired by the Appalachian region and coal mining in an ongoing conversation about mountaintop removal coal mining.
Saturday, April 4, 10 a.m. to 12 noon
Do-it-Yourself Green Home and Garden Series
Ecology of Design: Mark Iverson
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue
Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Monday, April 6, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Subhankar Banarjee: photographer, activist, educator lecture and photo discussion
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Indian born artist-educator-activist Subhankar Banerjee uses photography to raise awareness about issues that threaten the health and well-being of our planet. Since late 2000, he has focused all his efforts on indigenous human rights and land conservation issues in the Arctic. His ongoing project, Land-as-Home, has been instrumental in the conservation efforts of the ecologically and culturally significant areas of the American Arctic, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Teshekpuk Lake wetlands, Utukok River uplands, and Beaufort and Chukchi seas. He works closely with the Gwich'in and Inupiat indigenous communities of Alaska and the Canadian Yukon, and most recently with the Yukaghir and the Even indigenous communities of Siberia. Mr. Banarjee discusses his photographic and written work in the circum-arctic regions of North America in this public conversation. Sponsored by Depts. of Science and Math, Photography, Schools of Fine and Performing Arts, School of Liberal Education, Center for Teaching Excellence, and Critical Encounters.
Tuesday, April 7, 4 to 6 p.m.
Jeanne Gang, Studio Gang Architects
Ferguson Auditorium
Jeanne Gang leads Studio Gang Architects, an architectural practice whose work has been noted for its innovation and is recognized as a design leader. Through exploration and research early in the design process, Ms. Gang’s work has staked out new creative territory in materials, technology, and sustainability. In her presentation, Ms. Gang will discuss nature as a tool and examine its influence in her work.
Tuesday, April 7, 12 to 1:30 p.m.
Cultural Journey Series: “Classification through Genderations” with Ames Hawkins
Hokin Annex, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Come hear one person’s experience around their cultural identities as we explore the deeper questions around our own cultural background and stories. Come for the story, stay for the conversation. Light lunch served.
Thursday, April 9, 5 to 7 p.m.
A Lens on Human|Nature II: Photo Show Opening Reception
Faculty Center, 8th floor, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Join the contributing artists and others to celebrate this show’s opening.
Tuesday, April 7, 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Critical Encounters: Second Story
2nd Floor Auditorium, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
This performance series produces stories that are crafted in the same way to your best friend over a good glass of wine: 1st person narratives. This show will feature narratives built around environment, nature, and the essence of human nature. For more information: www.storiesandwine.com
April 9 through Manifest
A Lens on Human|Nature II: Photo Show
Faculty Center, 8th floor, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Following on the heels of the successful student show in the fall, this call for faculty and staff work will offer reflection, inspiration and action within the natural world.
Thursday, April 9, 11 to 12:30 p.m.
Salon Series Selection: Ecotopia
3rd Floor East, Library, 624 S. Michigan Ave.
Student Kevin Gosztola facilitates this salon examining the re-release of this science fiction novel thirty years after its initial release. We'll examine the breakaway country of Ecotopia formed when Northern California, Oregon, and Washington break away from the U.S.
Thursday, April 9, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
What Other Americans Can and Can’t Learn from Native American Environmental Ethics
Room 109, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
By Dave Aftandilian, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Texas Christian University. Since at least the 1960s, environmentalists and others in the U.S. have been seeking solutions to our environmental crisis in the teachings of Native Americans, the first peoples in North America. Their long traditions of concern for the Earth offer us alternative models for ways in which we might interact more sustainably with lands, plants, and animals. However, what is often overlooked in these calls for us to "listen to the Indians" is whether most contemporary Americans are really equipped to hear what native peoples have to say, and to incorporate their wisdom into our lives and hearts deeply enough to change the ways we live on the land.
Reception: Tuesday, April 13, 5 to 7 p.m.
Exhibition: Tuesday, April 13 through May 10
Topless America Appalachian Art Show & Premiere of New Work by Doug Lofstrom
Columbia College Library, 624 S. Michigan Ave., 2nd floor
Critical Encounters and Topless America—a group of students, artists, and activists who document the fight against mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachian Mountains—present an art show and follow-up discussion about last fall’s showing of Mountaintop Removal. Refreshments will be served during the reception.
The artwork includes a piece by artist Jeff Champman-Crane entitled The Agony of Gaia, as well as other works by Appalachian artists. Jeff and Gaia have traveled throughout Kentucky to educate others about the horrors of mountaintop removal.
Doug Lofstrom, Music Department faculty, has composed an original musical work, Mountaintop Breakdown, that will premiere during the reception. This original work continues the celebration of Doug’s milestone birthday year. Learn more about him from the exhibit about his career feature on the first floor of the Library.
Tuesday, April 14, 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Sustainable Architecture Lunchtime Lecture Series
Tryon Farm: A Unique Conservation Community in LaPorte County, Indiana
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue
Edward J. Noonan, Chairman, Chicago Associates Planners and Architects. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation,
On an old dairy farm near Chicago, architect-developer Ed Noonan is designing simple, affordable contemporary houses using sustainable materials and techniques. The houses are grouped in settlements so that two-thirds of the 170 acres will remain open, providing long protected views, habitat for flora and fauna, and the opportunity to restore prairie and to farm organically.
Wednesday, April 15, 6:30 p.m.
World Listening Project
Ferguson Hall 600 Michigan Ave. Chicago IL
Listening means paying attention. If you want to change the world, you need to listen to it. The Art + Design Department is proud to present the World Listening Project, who will talk about its current local and international efforts and discuss opportunities for designers and artists to participate in the unrealized potential that lies in the field of acoustic ecology in order to more fully realize an effective and creative response to an all too often neglected part of human experience and knowledge—the world of sound and our ability to listen. The panel discussion’s participants include Eric Leonardson, Jesse Seay, Chad Clark, Brett Balough, and Dan Godston.
Thursday, April 16, 6:30 to 8 pm.
Photography Department Visiting Lecture Series: Frank Gohlke
2nd floor, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
A Visiting Artist lecture series presented by Columbia’s Photography Department, which seeks to enliven the contemporary cultural discourse through regular lecture presentations by nationally and internationally recognized artists/photographers. The program is the longest running continuous lecture series devoted to photography in the country. This series of artists’ work grapples with the relationship of man and the natural world.
Thursday, April 16, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Mulch Thief: Ephemeral Memorials for Human|Nature
Hokin Auditorium, 1st floor, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Shaun Slifer is a multidisciplinary artist currently working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Slifer has strung experimental tin can phones over massive urban ravines, embedded bronze casts of coyote tracks in asphalt roads, surreptitiously installed historical memorials, and obsessively catalogs and re-edits Hollywood animal-attack-themed horror and sci-fi movies. He works collectively with the Howling Mob Society (Pittsburgh) and the Justseeds Collective (US/Canada), researches obscure and oft-buried radical histories, and is an organic gardener and decent bicycle mechanic. In this conversation, Shaun will talk about the art residence he is doing at Columbia this spring.
Monday, April 20, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Listening to the Planet: the Sounds of Human|Nature
Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
This day-long event will showcase field recordings from nature from around the world, “Natural Tendencies” readings, and a Human|Nature inspired Essay Smash. Sponsoring departments include New Millennium Studies and English, among others.
Monday, April 20, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
From the Microscope to the Macro-scope:
Applying Biomimicry to the Built Environment.
1104 S. Wabash, Film Row Cinema, Columbia College Chicago.
Biomimicry is a relatively new science that studies nature’s systems and processes and then imitates or takes inspiration from them to solve human problems. Sustainable design leaders from global architectural firm HOK discuss how biomimicry applies to architectural design and outline project lessons from HOK’s alliance with the Biomimicry Guild. HOK architects Tim Gaidis and Mary Ann Lazarus in association with Chicago Architecture Foundation.
April 21 to 26
Talkin’ Back: Chicago Youth Respond
Museum of Contemporary Photography, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago youth add their voice to the Human|Nature discussion with 1,000-picture installation, 1000 Words/1000 Pictures, that creates a collective voice of words and images from the 200 youth participants from schools throughout Chicago who took 1,000 snapshots interpreting the theme Human|Nature. Participating students will also generate 1,000 descriptive words in response to the photograph, In Between (2006) by Amy Stein, from the MoCP’s Permanent Collection. Sponsored by the Center for Community Arts Partnerships and the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, Talkin’ Back: Chicago Youth Respond is the sixth annual exhibition of photography and creative writing that showcases the work of Chicago youth who respond to major issues and ideas impacting our communities with riveting personal reflection and aesthetic expression.
Tuesday, April 21, 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Achieving LEED Platinum at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Ave.
Using the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation as an example, this lecture by Helen J. Kessler and Julie Dorfman addresses the process for achieving the highest Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design rating—LEED Platinum. Kessler and Dorfman highlight the synagogue's green features—including cabinets made of pressed sunflower seeds, a storm water detention garden, and energy efficient sinks—and discuss the congregation's unwavering commitment to long-term sustainable practices. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation/Chicago Architecture Foundation and Human|Nature co-programming.
Wednesday, April 22 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Sailing Spaceship Earth: Buckminster Fuller’s Environmentalism
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue.
The life mission of R. Buckminster Fuller—creator of the geodesic dome and the Dymaxion car—was to create design solutions that benefited humanity while consuming the fewest resources. This talk considers Fuller’s contradictory vision of the environment, technology, and politics, and coincides with the exhibition, Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe, on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art March 14 through June 21, 2009. With Sean Keller, Professor of Architectural History and Theory, Illinois Institute of Technlology
Wednesday, April 22, 12 noon
Greenest Columbia Student/Faculty announcement
Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
We looked far and wide to identify the Columbia student, faculty, and staff members who are making the biggest impact with the smallest carbon footprint. Our winners are announced on Earth Day at our Environmental Fair (10 a.m to 7 p.m.). Join Critical Encounters and the Recycling Program as we welcome local and national environmental organizations to campus for this environmental awareness fair. Co-sponsored by Recycling Center.
Wednesday, April 22, to Thursday, April 23
Critical Encounters Virtual Symposium
This virtual symposium will occur simultaneously on multiple continents and will explore the concept of wealth and new wealth in a global conversation.
Thursday, April 23, 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Green Office Challenge: Greening your Office: Tips on How to Make Your Workplace Eco-friendly
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue.
This brown bag lunch series examines ways to create a “green” office. Topics include energy conservation, waste reduction, green transportation, and property management engagement. The series is designed for Green Office Challenge participants, but the program is open to the public. The Green Office Challenge is an invitation to property management firms and building tenants in the central business district to “green” their operations. The vision is to develop a collective sense of action backed by a suite of support tools and Mayoral recognition. Critical Encounters: Human|Nature with Chicago Architecture Foundation and City of Chicago.
Thursday, April 23, 2 to 4 p.m.
What is Human|Nature? Symposium
Hokin Annex, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Hear various Columbia College Faculty members consider the essence of human nature in this two-hour symposium. Tentative participants include: Ann Gunkel, Ames Hawkins, Jafaar Aksikas, Rami Gabriel, Thomas Greif, and Stephen Asma. Conversations will explore whether sex/gender is natural or constructed, whether Marxism accepts or rejects a notion of human nature (and what the implications are), ideas regarding post-humanism (trans-humanism) among others.
Thursday, April 23, 5 to 7 p.m.
Talkin’ Back: Chicago Youth Respond Opening Reception
Museum of Contemporary Photography
600 S. Michigan Ave.
Thursday, April 23, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Future Perfect: In Progress
Ferguson Auditorium, 1st floor, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Judy Natal will discuss her current project, Future Perfect as part of the ongoing Critical Encounters Human/Nature series. Her work examines the complex contradictions between our nostalgic longings for the natural, pristine world while we methodically corral its wildness and manufacture the artificial in its place. This three part project photographed at the Springs Preserve in Las Vegas, the Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona and the geothermal features, both man-made and natural, of Iceland, explores how distinctions are blurring between natural environments and human-made landscapes, creating pseudo-natural environments that become models defined by science and technology and orchestrated by man-made forces. Natal is interested in drawing complex pictures that balance issues of sustainability of natural resources and ecological systems, while building hybrid future cultures. The sites she photographs are improbably harsh, and function both as oasis and mirage.
Friday, April 24, 12 noon to 1 p.m.
BIG: Blacks in Green: Naomi Davis, founder of BIG and Daughters Trust/ The Village Builders.
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue.
Blacks in Green (BIG) is an environmental organization whose vision is to create “self-sustaining African diaspora communities” and foster black participation in the new green economy. Founder Naomi Davis presents BIG’s core teaching, Oasis-Making, which defines the sustainability challenge of African American communities, and discusses the organization’s green economic development. Presented by Critical Encounters and the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Saturday, April 25, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Urban Environmental Journalism Workshop
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave and other Columbia locations
High school and college journalism students learn about urban environmental journalism with keynote speaker and breakout groups followed by writing workshop. Sponsored by Journalism and Science and Mathematics Departments and Critical Encounters: Human|Nature.
Wednesday, April 30th, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
3rd floor east, Columbia College Library, 624 S. Michigan Ave.
Anne Marie Ann Mitchell (Marketing Communication) facilitates this conversation about how the Green Ethic is making its way into business for profit using a text from her Communicating Social Change class.
May
Monday, May 11 through Friday, May 15
Dormitory Move-Out Donation Drive
Columbia College Residence Halls
Our second annual donation drive will focus on reclaim food, clothing, and books from students leaving thier dorms for the summer. Why landfill your unwanted stuff when people are more than happy to reuse it?
Past Events
Tuesday, Jan. 13, 12 noon to 1 p.m.
Architecture Lunchtime Lecture Series: South Chicago LEED ND Initiative
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Ave.
The U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) latest product, currently in the pilot phase, is Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED ND). This new initiative builds on the previous USGBC green building systems, but takes it to the overall neighborhood level. LEED for Neighborhood Development communities are locations that are closer to existing town and city centers, areas with good transit access, infill sites, previously developed sites, and sites adjacent to existing development. The City of Chicago is sponsoring one of the largest LEED ND projects in the country called the South Chicago LEED ND initiative (at the former U.S. Steel site). Please come to learn more about this exciting sustainable development initiative that will serve as a model for urban development now and for the future. Marilyn Engwall, Project Manager, City of Chicago. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Saturday, Jan. 24
Reducing Global Climate Change One Day at a Time: Sustainable Practices for Everyone
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Ave.
Do-it-Yourself Green Home and Garden Series
Kevin Pierce, AIA, Director of Sustainable Design, Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2:30 p.m.
Cuba: Art, Identity, Gender and Revolution
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave, 8th floor.
This round table discussion, produced by the Cultural Studies department, features an in-depth conversation about how identity, gender and revolution emerge from the art of Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons. Panelists will respond to the work of Campos-Pons in the Glass Curtain exhibit and reflect on what her work tells us about both historical and contemporary Cuba. Joining the artist in this round table are Columbia College's Carmelo Esterrich (Director of Latino/Hispanic Studies), Teresa Prados-Torreira (Director of Women's and Gender Studies), Stephanie Shonekan (Director of Black World Studies), and Heather Shirey, Assistant Professor, Art History, University of St. Thomas (Saint Paul). This program is presented by Black World Studies, Latino/Hispanic Studies, and Women and Gender Studies Programs, and is sponsored by the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences and is open to Columbia community and the public.
Wednesday, Jan. 28, 6:30 p.m.
Art Talks Lecture with Emiliano Godoy
623 S. Wabash Ave., Room 203
Art Talks Lecture with Emiliano Godoy, one of the curators of Criteria at A+D Gallery.
Thursday, Jan. 29, 5 to 8 pm.
Criteria, opening reception
A+D Gallery, 619 S. Wabash Ave.
Thursday, Jan. 29, 5 to 8 p.m.
Life Has Not Even Begun: New Work by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons Opening Reception
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
February
January 15 through February 28
Criteria
A+D Gallery, 619 S. Wabash Ave.
Curated by Emiliano Godoy and Jimena Acosta, Criteria explores the ethics and politics that embody contemporary notions of sustainability. This exhibition will examine the utopia behind efforts to modify and push late capitalist consumption patterns as well as address the current contradictions between industrial and natural landscapes. Criteria will juxtapose critical and disenchanted views with poetic and symbolic discourses, using art as a lens through which our unsustainable systems of production and consumption can be evaluated from an ethical perspective. The work in the exhibition will pierce skepticism and challenge our preconceived notions on environmental and social trends.
January 26 through March 6
Life Has Not Even Begun: New Work by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
One of the most important artists to emerge from post-Revolutionary Cuba, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons creates multimedia installations, large-scale Polaroids, sculpture, painting and performance that investigate history and memory and their roles in the formation of identity. Drawing from her personal narrative as an Afro-Cuban woman living in the United States, Campos-Pons' work transcends individual experience to explore cross-cultural, universal phenomenon. Issues such as cultural hybridity, displacement, ties to family and home, and the dualities present in each individual are themes that continue to permeate her work. In this new body of work, Life Has Not Even Begun captures the anticipation and tension inherent in exploring the unknown. From the artist re-discovering her Chinese ancestry, to her intensive study of midnight-blooming flowers, to the unexposed horrors of war, to the future of an imagined peaceful world, each work in this exhibition makes its own unexpected revelation. Life Has Not Even Begun is curated by Neysa Page-Lieberman, Director, DEPS. A fully illustrated catalog accompanies this exhibition.Organized by the Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces Glass Curtain Gallery.
Saturday, February 28
Do-it-Yourself Green Home and Garden Series:
Being Green with Lighting
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue
Scott Shellberg, Evergreen Oak Electric/Crest Lighting Studios. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Time/Date/location TBD
Human|Nature Town Hall
Columbia faculty and administrators convene and lead a Town Hall format forum where they share what Columbia is doing to make the world a better place. They also take your ideas on how Columbia can be earth-friendlier. Bring your questions, ideas, and suggestion.
March
Monday, March 2, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
American Society's Treatment of its Deaf Citizens and Children
Hokin Hall, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Featuring the Superintendent of the Indiana School for the Deaf, this presentation will focus on how American society views a deaf person in relation to the services that are provided, interpersonal relationships that are expected to maintain, resources expended on deaf people, invasive technology that is expected for deaf people, approaches to human rights that are simultaneously offered and encouraged and denied and hidden. The presentation will focus on answering several questions: How does society care for deaf children? How does this relate to overarching beliefs of society? What societal beliefs are deaf children then raised with? This thought provoking look at how society spends resources on a particular group that is often overlooked.
Wednesday, March 4th, 12:30 to 2 pm.
Environmental Racism: Community Concerns, Artistic Answers
Collins Hall, Room 602, 624 S. Michigan Ave.
Do you know how oppression and the environment are connected? Do you want to make a stand against this type of injustice as an artist? Come to this panel discussion to learn more about environmental racism and how artists can be part of the solution. Panelists include Orrin Williams (President, Center for Urban Transformation); Nadine Bopp (Co-coordinator, Chicago Greenside Map); Mick Dumke (Associate Editor, Chicago Reader).
Wednesday, March 4, 4:30 to 6 p.m.
Ecopoetics conversation and reading
Hokin Lecture Hall, Rm. 109, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Featuring Dr. Jonathan Skinner, Bates College. This talk offers an introduction to the site and practices of ecopoetics, focusing on sound and visual poetry, as well as on innovative approaches to writing in relation to environment: from Emily Dickinson's hummingbird to Objectivist species studies to contemporary Mayan sound poetry, Cage-inspired Scottish herbiaries and the procedural work of North American writers like Juliana Spahr, Kenneth Goldsmith and Julie Patton. Along the way, through slides and recordings, Skinner presents some highlights from the journal ecopoetics. He will end the talk with a reading from his own work.
Wednesday, March 4, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Red, Blue, and Green: The Politics of Human|Nature
Ferguson Auditorium, 1st floor, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Join faculty Louis Silverstein, Rob Watkins and Sandra Allen, and representative John Moore from the Environmental Law & Policy Center, to discuss political strategies to keep environmental concerns on the public agenda. The panel will explore how to effectively approach both policy makers and the public at-large to keep them focused on creating alternatives to current United States policies of control and conquest over the environment. Conquest and control has resulted in disastrous effects on the environment and poses threats to all life forms including ourselves. The panel also will discuss the way policy makers shape conversations about energy, exploring whether these are economic or national security questions as well as the role and limits of market-based solutions to environmental issues. There will be a Q/A session with the panel.
Tuesday, March 10, 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Sustainable Architecture Lunchtime Lecture Series:
LEED for Schools
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Ave.
Approximately 20% of the population goes to school every day either to learn or to work. Recognizing the impact that improving our school buildings has not only on the environment for learning, but also on the health of a large portion of the population, the USGBC has tailored its LEED Green Building Rating system for school construction. This presentation by Joseph F. Clair, Director of Campus Energy and Sustainability, Illinois Institute of Technology, will review LEED for Schools, the updates in LEED 2009, and how these have been applied in the Chicago building market. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Wednesday, March 11, 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Greensburg screening
Ferguson Auditorium, 1st floor, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Join Columbia alumnus Brian Schodorf as he screens his documentary on Greensburg, Kansas, a town devastated by a tornado that destroyed 95% of its buildings and its subsequent efforts to rebuild.
Tuesday, March 12, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Photography Department Visiting Lecture Series: Richard Renaldi
2nd floor, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
Richard Renaldi joins the lecture series, presented by Columbia’s Photography Department, which seeks to enliven the contemporary cultural discourse through regular lecture presentations by nationally and internationally recognized artists/photographers. The program is the longest running continuous lecture series devoted to photography in the country. This series of artists’ work grapples with the relationship of man and the natural world.
Wednesday, March 18, 12:30 to 2 p.m.
Manifest Destiny, Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape
Room 703, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Art and Design Department Professor Amy Mooney facilitates this Salon Series Selection. Join her upper-level art history class and P.J. Brownlee, curator of this museum exhibit, to discuss the text and images detailed in this museum catalog text.
March 18 through April 29
Loaded: Hunting Culture in America
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Ever since our prehistoric ancestors painted hunting scenes in the caves of Lascaux—thought to be among the first examples of Western artistic practice—the act and phenomenon of the hunt has been a significant cultural force. In contemporary America, where people no longer need to hunt for survival, hunting culture has evolved to become an aesthetic and a lifestyle choice. Many contemporary artists have gravitated toward either the aesthetics or the cultural/social phenomena of hunting as the subject of their work, giving us objects, images, and spaces that range from kitsch to realism and hard-edged social commentary. Loaded: Hunting Culture in America will take a deliberately ambivalent view toward the morality of hunting and address the subject as social, cultural, and artistic phenomenon, ideally nudging viewers to question their own preconceptions regarding hunting. Curated by Ann Weins and Audrey Michelle Mast and organized by the Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces Glass Curtain Gallery.
Wednesday, March 18, 5 to 8 p.m.
Loaded: Loaded: Hunting Culture in America Opening Reception
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Wednesday, March 18, 5 to 8 p.m.
Dressed to Kill: Student Response Fashion show
Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Urban chic meets outdoor woodman. Animal prints, furs, camouflage and gun culture have all been seeping back into contemporary fashion. This show explores the infiltration of hunting into the urban fashion world.
Saturday, March 21, 6 to 7:15 p.m.
HumaNature Lecture with Peter Goin
Ferguson Auditorium, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
This HumaNature lecture is an attempt through photography to focus public debate on how nature is culturally perceived—and managed. The premise of HumaNature is that nature is an illusion created by culture. Nature is a fiction dramatically reinforced through a tradition of environmental management. Does a plastic tree satisfy our cultural need for visible biota? Can—and should—an ocean beach be artificially maintained as a vast expanse of fine sand? Can we control the weather? Does "nature" have value because of the increasing demands of the urban environment? Are human-made rocks better than the real thing? These and other questions resulted in a major series of 16"x20" color photographs and a book that interprets and documents the ever-increasing management of nature. Photographed sites include images of human-made flies; albino rainbow trout; pristine, human-made lakes; artificial forests; man-made waterfalls; a human-made tornado; human-made trees and rocks; and artificial beaches—all constructed and disguised as "nature." Additional photographs include controlled burns, designer forests, and managed wildlife, among many others. A creative essay incorporating the history and idea behind the management of nature accompanies the published photographs.
Time/Date/Location TBD
Flow Screening
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Water is the sleeping giant issue of the 21st Century and we all need to wake up about it. FLOW opens our eyes about the greatest threat of our time—the global water crisis. It is a compelling and passionate film. Its engaging narrative will grip the viewer." Join us for a screening of this landmark documentary.
Wednesday, March 25th, Time TBD
Southern Graphics Conference: "Global Print"
The keynote speaker on the opening night of the conference will address the themes of Human|Nature in a talk entitled “Global Print.”
April
Through April 29
Loaded: Hunting Culture in America
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Ever since our prehistoric ancestors painted hunting scenes in the caves of Lascaux—thought to be among the first examples of Western artistic practice—the act and phenomenon of the hunt has been a significant cultural force. In contemporary America, where people no longer need to hunt for survival, hunting culture has evolved to become an aesthetic and a lifestyle choice. Many contemporary artists have gravitated toward either the aesthetics or the cultural/social phenomena of hunting as the subject of their work, giving us objects, images, and spaces that range from kitsch to realism and hard-edged social commentary. Loaded: Hunting Culture in America will take a deliberately ambivalent view toward the morality of hunting and address the subject as social, cultural, and artistic phenomenon, ideally nudging viewers to question their own preconceptions regarding hunting. Curated by Ann Weins and Audrey Michelle Mast and organized by the Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces Glass Curtain Gallery.
Friday, April 3, 7 to 11 p.m.
Appalachian and Roots Music Fest
Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
The Topless America Project and Critical Encounters present the music inspired by the Appalachian region and coal mining in an ongoing conversation about mountaintop removal coal mining.
Saturday, April 4, 10 a.m. to 12 noon
Do-it-Yourself Green Home and Garden Series
Ecology of Design: Mark Iverson
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue
Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Monday, April 6, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Subhankar Banarjee: photographer, activist, educator lecture and photo discussion
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Indian born artist-educator-activist Subhankar Banerjee uses photography to raise awareness about issues that threaten the health and well-being of our planet. Since late 2000, he has focused all his efforts on indigenous human rights and land conservation issues in the Arctic. His ongoing project, Land-as-Home, has been instrumental in the conservation efforts of the ecologically and culturally significant areas of the American Arctic, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Teshekpuk Lake wetlands, Utukok River uplands, and Beaufort and Chukchi seas. He works closely with the Gwich'in and Inupiat indigenous communities of Alaska and the Canadian Yukon, and most recently with the Yukaghir and the Even indigenous communities of Siberia. Mr. Banarjee discusses his photographic and written work in the circum-arctic regions of North America in this public conversation. Sponsored by Depts. of Science and Math, Photography, Schools of Fine and Performing Arts, School of Liberal Education, Center for Teaching Excellence, and Critical Encounters.
Tuesday, April 7, 4 to 6 p.m.
Jeanne Gang, Studio Gang Architects
Ferguson Auditorium
Jeanne Gang leads Studio Gang Architects, an architectural practice whose work has been noted for its innovation and is recognized as a design leader. Through exploration and research early in the design process, Ms. Gang’s work has staked out new creative territory in materials, technology, and sustainability. In her presentation, Ms. Gang will discuss nature as a tool and examine its influence in her work.
Tuesday, April 7, 12 to 1:30 p.m.
Cultural Journey Series: “Classification through Genderations” with Ames Hawkins
Hokin Annex, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Come hear one person’s experience around their cultural identities as we explore the deeper questions around our own cultural background and stories. Come for the story, stay for the conversation. Light lunch served.
Thursday, April 9, 5 to 7 p.m.
A Lens on Human|Nature II: Photo Show Opening Reception
Faculty Center, 8th floor, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Join the contributing artists and others to celebrate this show’s opening.
Tuesday, April 7, 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Critical Encounters: Second Story
2nd Floor Auditorium, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
This performance series produces stories that are crafted in the same way to your best friend over a good glass of wine: 1st person narratives. This show will feature narratives built around environment, nature, and the essence of human nature. For more information: www.storiesandwine.com
April 9 through Manifest
A Lens on Human|Nature II: Photo Show
Faculty Center, 8th floor, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Following on the heels of the successful student show in the fall, this call for faculty and staff work will offer reflection, inspiration and action within the natural world.
Thursday, April 9, 11 to 12:30 p.m.
Salon Series Selection: Ecotopia
3rd Floor East, Library, 624 S. Michigan Ave.
Student Kevin Gosztola facilitates this salon examining the re-release of this science fiction novel thirty years after its initial release. We'll examine the breakaway country of Ecotopia formed when Northern California, Oregon, and Washington break away from the U.S.
Thursday, April 9, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
What Other Americans Can and Can’t Learn from Native American Environmental Ethics
Room 109, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
By Dave Aftandilian, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Texas Christian University. Since at least the 1960s, environmentalists and others in the U.S. have been seeking solutions to our environmental crisis in the teachings of Native Americans, the first peoples in North America. Their long traditions of concern for the Earth offer us alternative models for ways in which we might interact more sustainably with lands, plants, and animals. However, what is often overlooked in these calls for us to "listen to the Indians" is whether most contemporary Americans are really equipped to hear what native peoples have to say, and to incorporate their wisdom into our lives and hearts deeply enough to change the ways we live on the land.
Reception: Tuesday, April 13, 5 to 7 p.m.
Exhibition: Tuesday, April 13 through May 10
Topless America Appalachian Art Show & Premiere of New Work by Doug Lofstrom
Columbia College Library, 624 S. Michigan Ave., 2nd floor
Critical Encounters and Topless America—a group of students, artists, and activists who document the fight against mountaintop removal mining in the Appalachian Mountains—present an art show and follow-up discussion about last fall’s showing of Mountaintop Removal. Refreshments will be served during the reception.
The artwork includes a piece by artist Jeff Champman-Crane entitled The Agony of Gaia, as well as other works by Appalachian artists. Jeff and Gaia have traveled throughout Kentucky to educate others about the horrors of mountaintop removal.
Doug Lofstrom, Music Department faculty, has composed an original musical work, Mountaintop Breakdown, that will premiere during the reception. This original work continues the celebration of Doug’s milestone birthday year. Learn more about him from the exhibit about his career feature on the first floor of the Library.
Tuesday, April 14, 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Sustainable Architecture Lunchtime Lecture Series
Tryon Farm: A Unique Conservation Community in LaPorte County, Indiana
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue
Edward J. Noonan, Chairman, Chicago Associates Planners and Architects. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation,
On an old dairy farm near Chicago, architect-developer Ed Noonan is designing simple, affordable contemporary houses using sustainable materials and techniques. The houses are grouped in settlements so that two-thirds of the 170 acres will remain open, providing long protected views, habitat for flora and fauna, and the opportunity to restore prairie and to farm organically.
Wednesday, April 15, 6:30 p.m.
World Listening Project
Ferguson Hall 600 Michigan Ave. Chicago IL
Listening means paying attention. If you want to change the world, you need to listen to it. The Art + Design Department is proud to present the World Listening Project, who will talk about its current local and international efforts and discuss opportunities for designers and artists to participate in the unrealized potential that lies in the field of acoustic ecology in order to more fully realize an effective and creative response to an all too often neglected part of human experience and knowledge—the world of sound and our ability to listen. The panel discussion’s participants include Eric Leonardson, Jesse Seay, Chad Clark, Brett Balough, and Dan Godston.
Thursday, April 16, 6:30 to 8 pm.
Photography Department Visiting Lecture Series: Frank Gohlke
2nd floor, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
A Visiting Artist lecture series presented by Columbia’s Photography Department, which seeks to enliven the contemporary cultural discourse through regular lecture presentations by nationally and internationally recognized artists/photographers. The program is the longest running continuous lecture series devoted to photography in the country. This series of artists’ work grapples with the relationship of man and the natural world.
Thursday, April 16, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Mulch Thief: Ephemeral Memorials for Human|Nature
Hokin Auditorium, 1st floor, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Shaun Slifer is a multidisciplinary artist currently working in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Slifer has strung experimental tin can phones over massive urban ravines, embedded bronze casts of coyote tracks in asphalt roads, surreptitiously installed historical memorials, and obsessively catalogs and re-edits Hollywood animal-attack-themed horror and sci-fi movies. He works collectively with the Howling Mob Society (Pittsburgh) and the Justseeds Collective (US/Canada), researches obscure and oft-buried radical histories, and is an organic gardener and decent bicycle mechanic. In this conversation, Shaun will talk about the art residence he is doing at Columbia this spring.
Monday, April 20, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Listening to the Planet: the Sounds of Human|Nature
Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
This day-long event will showcase field recordings from nature from around the world, “Natural Tendencies” readings, and a Human|Nature inspired Essay Smash. Sponsoring departments include New Millennium Studies and English, among others.
Monday, April 20, 6 to 7:30 p.m.
From the Microscope to the Macro-scope:
Applying Biomimicry to the Built Environment.
1104 S. Wabash, Film Row Cinema, Columbia College Chicago.
Biomimicry is a relatively new science that studies nature’s systems and processes and then imitates or takes inspiration from them to solve human problems. Sustainable design leaders from global architectural firm HOK discuss how biomimicry applies to architectural design and outline project lessons from HOK’s alliance with the Biomimicry Guild. HOK architects Tim Gaidis and Mary Ann Lazarus in association with Chicago Architecture Foundation.
April 21 to 26
Talkin’ Back: Chicago Youth Respond
Museum of Contemporary Photography, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Chicago youth add their voice to the Human|Nature discussion with 1,000-picture installation, 1000 Words/1000 Pictures, that creates a collective voice of words and images from the 200 youth participants from schools throughout Chicago who took 1,000 snapshots interpreting the theme Human|Nature. Participating students will also generate 1,000 descriptive words in response to the photograph, In Between (2006) by Amy Stein, from the MoCP’s Permanent Collection. Sponsored by the Center for Community Arts Partnerships and the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, Talkin’ Back: Chicago Youth Respond is the sixth annual exhibition of photography and creative writing that showcases the work of Chicago youth who respond to major issues and ideas impacting our communities with riveting personal reflection and aesthetic expression.
Tuesday, April 21, 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Achieving LEED Platinum at the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation in Evanston
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Ave.
Using the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation as an example, this lecture by Helen J. Kessler and Julie Dorfman addresses the process for achieving the highest Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design rating—LEED Platinum. Kessler and Dorfman highlight the synagogue's green features—including cabinets made of pressed sunflower seeds, a storm water detention garden, and energy efficient sinks—and discuss the congregation's unwavering commitment to long-term sustainable practices. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation/Chicago Architecture Foundation and Human|Nature co-programming.
Wednesday, April 22 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Sailing Spaceship Earth: Buckminster Fuller’s Environmentalism
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue.
The life mission of R. Buckminster Fuller—creator of the geodesic dome and the Dymaxion car—was to create design solutions that benefited humanity while consuming the fewest resources. This talk considers Fuller’s contradictory vision of the environment, technology, and politics, and coincides with the exhibition, Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe, on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art March 14 through June 21, 2009. With Sean Keller, Professor of Architectural History and Theory, Illinois Institute of Technlology
Wednesday, April 22, 12 noon
Greenest Columbia Student/Faculty announcement
Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
We looked far and wide to identify the Columbia student, faculty, and staff members who are making the biggest impact with the smallest carbon footprint. Our winners are announced on Earth Day at our Environmental Fair (10 a.m to 7 p.m.). Join Critical Encounters and the Recycling Program as we welcome local and national environmental organizations to campus for this environmental awareness fair. Co-sponsored by Recycling Center.
Wednesday, April 22, to Thursday, April 23
Critical Encounters Virtual Symposium
This virtual symposium will occur simultaneously on multiple continents and will explore the concept of wealth and new wealth in a global conversation.
Thursday, April 23, 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Green Office Challenge: Greening your Office: Tips on How to Make Your Workplace Eco-friendly
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue.
This brown bag lunch series examines ways to create a “green” office. Topics include energy conservation, waste reduction, green transportation, and property management engagement. The series is designed for Green Office Challenge participants, but the program is open to the public. The Green Office Challenge is an invitation to property management firms and building tenants in the central business district to “green” their operations. The vision is to develop a collective sense of action backed by a suite of support tools and Mayoral recognition. Critical Encounters: Human|Nature with Chicago Architecture Foundation and City of Chicago.
Thursday, April 23, 2 to 4 p.m.
What is Human|Nature? Symposium
Hokin Annex, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Hear various Columbia College Faculty members consider the essence of human nature in this two-hour symposium. Tentative participants include: Ann Gunkel, Ames Hawkins, Jafaar Aksikas, Rami Gabriel, Thomas Greif, and Stephen Asma. Conversations will explore whether sex/gender is natural or constructed, whether Marxism accepts or rejects a notion of human nature (and what the implications are), ideas regarding post-humanism (trans-humanism) among others.
Thursday, April 23, 5 to 7 p.m.
Talkin’ Back: Chicago Youth Respond Opening Reception
Museum of Contemporary Photography
600 S. Michigan Ave.
Thursday, April 23, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Future Perfect: In Progress
Ferguson Auditorium, 1st floor, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Judy Natal will discuss her current project, Future Perfect as part of the ongoing Critical Encounters Human/Nature series. Her work examines the complex contradictions between our nostalgic longings for the natural, pristine world while we methodically corral its wildness and manufacture the artificial in its place. This three part project photographed at the Springs Preserve in Las Vegas, the Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona and the geothermal features, both man-made and natural, of Iceland, explores how distinctions are blurring between natural environments and human-made landscapes, creating pseudo-natural environments that become models defined by science and technology and orchestrated by man-made forces. Natal is interested in drawing complex pictures that balance issues of sustainability of natural resources and ecological systems, while building hybrid future cultures. The sites she photographs are improbably harsh, and function both as oasis and mirage.
Friday, April 24, 12 noon to 1 p.m.
BIG: Blacks in Green: Naomi Davis, founder of BIG and Daughters Trust/ The Village Builders.
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue.
Blacks in Green (BIG) is an environmental organization whose vision is to create “self-sustaining African diaspora communities” and foster black participation in the new green economy. Founder Naomi Davis presents BIG’s core teaching, Oasis-Making, which defines the sustainability challenge of African American communities, and discusses the organization’s green economic development. Presented by Critical Encounters and the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Saturday, April 25, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Urban Environmental Journalism Workshop
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave and other Columbia locations
High school and college journalism students learn about urban environmental journalism with keynote speaker and breakout groups followed by writing workshop. Sponsored by Journalism and Science and Mathematics Departments and Critical Encounters: Human|Nature.
Wednesday, April 30th, 10 to 11:30 a.m.
Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage
3rd floor east, Columbia College Library, 624 S. Michigan Ave.
Anne Marie Ann Mitchell (Marketing Communication) facilitates this conversation about how the Green Ethic is making its way into business for profit using a text from her Communicating Social Change class.
May
Monday, May 11 through Friday, May 15
Dormitory Move-Out Donation Drive
Columbia College Residence Halls
Our second annual donation drive will focus on reclaim food, clothing, and books from students leaving thier dorms for the summer. Why landfill your unwanted stuff when people are more than happy to reuse it?
Past Events
Tuesday, Jan. 13, 12 noon to 1 p.m.
Architecture Lunchtime Lecture Series: South Chicago LEED ND Initiative
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Ave.
The U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) latest product, currently in the pilot phase, is Leadership for Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED ND). This new initiative builds on the previous USGBC green building systems, but takes it to the overall neighborhood level. LEED for Neighborhood Development communities are locations that are closer to existing town and city centers, areas with good transit access, infill sites, previously developed sites, and sites adjacent to existing development. The City of Chicago is sponsoring one of the largest LEED ND projects in the country called the South Chicago LEED ND initiative (at the former U.S. Steel site). Please come to learn more about this exciting sustainable development initiative that will serve as a model for urban development now and for the future. Marilyn Engwall, Project Manager, City of Chicago. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Saturday, Jan. 24
Reducing Global Climate Change One Day at a Time: Sustainable Practices for Everyone
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Ave.
Do-it-Yourself Green Home and Garden Series
Kevin Pierce, AIA, Director of Sustainable Design, Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2:30 p.m.
Cuba: Art, Identity, Gender and Revolution
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave, 8th floor.
This round table discussion, produced by the Cultural Studies department, features an in-depth conversation about how identity, gender and revolution emerge from the art of Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons. Panelists will respond to the work of Campos-Pons in the Glass Curtain exhibit and reflect on what her work tells us about both historical and contemporary Cuba. Joining the artist in this round table are Columbia College's Carmelo Esterrich (Director of Latino/Hispanic Studies), Teresa Prados-Torreira (Director of Women's and Gender Studies), Stephanie Shonekan (Director of Black World Studies), and Heather Shirey, Assistant Professor, Art History, University of St. Thomas (Saint Paul). This program is presented by Black World Studies, Latino/Hispanic Studies, and Women and Gender Studies Programs, and is sponsored by the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences and is open to Columbia community and the public.
Wednesday, Jan. 28, 6:30 p.m.
Art Talks Lecture with Emiliano Godoy
623 S. Wabash Ave., Room 203
Art Talks Lecture with Emiliano Godoy, one of the curators of Criteria at A+D Gallery.
Thursday, Jan. 29, 5 to 8 pm.
Criteria, opening reception
A+D Gallery, 619 S. Wabash Ave.
Thursday, Jan. 29, 5 to 8 p.m.
Life Has Not Even Begun: New Work by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons Opening Reception
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
February
January 15 through February 28
Criteria
A+D Gallery, 619 S. Wabash Ave.
Curated by Emiliano Godoy and Jimena Acosta, Criteria explores the ethics and politics that embody contemporary notions of sustainability. This exhibition will examine the utopia behind efforts to modify and push late capitalist consumption patterns as well as address the current contradictions between industrial and natural landscapes. Criteria will juxtapose critical and disenchanted views with poetic and symbolic discourses, using art as a lens through which our unsustainable systems of production and consumption can be evaluated from an ethical perspective. The work in the exhibition will pierce skepticism and challenge our preconceived notions on environmental and social trends.
January 26 through March 6
Life Has Not Even Begun: New Work by Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
One of the most important artists to emerge from post-Revolutionary Cuba, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons creates multimedia installations, large-scale Polaroids, sculpture, painting and performance that investigate history and memory and their roles in the formation of identity. Drawing from her personal narrative as an Afro-Cuban woman living in the United States, Campos-Pons' work transcends individual experience to explore cross-cultural, universal phenomenon. Issues such as cultural hybridity, displacement, ties to family and home, and the dualities present in each individual are themes that continue to permeate her work. In this new body of work, Life Has Not Even Begun captures the anticipation and tension inherent in exploring the unknown. From the artist re-discovering her Chinese ancestry, to her intensive study of midnight-blooming flowers, to the unexposed horrors of war, to the future of an imagined peaceful world, each work in this exhibition makes its own unexpected revelation. Life Has Not Even Begun is curated by Neysa Page-Lieberman, Director, DEPS. A fully illustrated catalog accompanies this exhibition.Organized by the Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces Glass Curtain Gallery.
Saturday, February 28
Do-it-Yourself Green Home and Garden Series:
Being Green with Lighting
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Avenue
Scott Shellberg, Evergreen Oak Electric/Crest Lighting Studios. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Time/Date/location TBD
Human|Nature Town Hall
Columbia faculty and administrators convene and lead a Town Hall format forum where they share what Columbia is doing to make the world a better place. They also take your ideas on how Columbia can be earth-friendlier. Bring your questions, ideas, and suggestion.
March
Monday, March 2, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
American Society's Treatment of its Deaf Citizens and Children
Hokin Hall, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Featuring the Superintendent of the Indiana School for the Deaf, this presentation will focus on how American society views a deaf person in relation to the services that are provided, interpersonal relationships that are expected to maintain, resources expended on deaf people, invasive technology that is expected for deaf people, approaches to human rights that are simultaneously offered and encouraged and denied and hidden. The presentation will focus on answering several questions: How does society care for deaf children? How does this relate to overarching beliefs of society? What societal beliefs are deaf children then raised with? This thought provoking look at how society spends resources on a particular group that is often overlooked.
Wednesday, March 4th, 12:30 to 2 pm.
Environmental Racism: Community Concerns, Artistic Answers
Collins Hall, Room 602, 624 S. Michigan Ave.
Do you know how oppression and the environment are connected? Do you want to make a stand against this type of injustice as an artist? Come to this panel discussion to learn more about environmental racism and how artists can be part of the solution. Panelists include Orrin Williams (President, Center for Urban Transformation); Nadine Bopp (Co-coordinator, Chicago Greenside Map); Mick Dumke (Associate Editor, Chicago Reader).
Wednesday, March 4, 4:30 to 6 p.m.
Ecopoetics conversation and reading
Hokin Lecture Hall, Rm. 109, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Featuring Dr. Jonathan Skinner, Bates College. This talk offers an introduction to the site and practices of ecopoetics, focusing on sound and visual poetry, as well as on innovative approaches to writing in relation to environment: from Emily Dickinson's hummingbird to Objectivist species studies to contemporary Mayan sound poetry, Cage-inspired Scottish herbiaries and the procedural work of North American writers like Juliana Spahr, Kenneth Goldsmith and Julie Patton. Along the way, through slides and recordings, Skinner presents some highlights from the journal ecopoetics. He will end the talk with a reading from his own work.
Wednesday, March 4, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Red, Blue, and Green: The Politics of Human|Nature
Ferguson Auditorium, 1st floor, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Join faculty Louis Silverstein, Rob Watkins and Sandra Allen, and representative John Moore from the Environmental Law & Policy Center, to discuss political strategies to keep environmental concerns on the public agenda. The panel will explore how to effectively approach both policy makers and the public at-large to keep them focused on creating alternatives to current United States policies of control and conquest over the environment. Conquest and control has resulted in disastrous effects on the environment and poses threats to all life forms including ourselves. The panel also will discuss the way policy makers shape conversations about energy, exploring whether these are economic or national security questions as well as the role and limits of market-based solutions to environmental issues. There will be a Q/A session with the panel.
Tuesday, March 10, 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Sustainable Architecture Lunchtime Lecture Series:
LEED for Schools
John Buck Lecture Hall at Chicago Architecture Foundation
224 South Michigan Ave.
Approximately 20% of the population goes to school every day either to learn or to work. Recognizing the impact that improving our school buildings has not only on the environment for learning, but also on the health of a large portion of the population, the USGBC has tailored its LEED Green Building Rating system for school construction. This presentation by Joseph F. Clair, Director of Campus Energy and Sustainability, Illinois Institute of Technology, will review LEED for Schools, the updates in LEED 2009, and how these have been applied in the Chicago building market. Presented by the Chicago Architecture Foundation.
Wednesday, March 11, 7 to 8:30 p.m.
Greensburg screening
Ferguson Auditorium, 1st floor, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
Join Columbia alumnus Brian Schodorf as he screens his documentary on Greensburg, Kansas, a town devastated by a tornado that destroyed 95% of its buildings and its subsequent efforts to rebuild.
Tuesday, March 12, 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Photography Department Visiting Lecture Series: Richard Renaldi
2nd floor, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
Richard Renaldi joins the lecture series, presented by Columbia’s Photography Department, which seeks to enliven the contemporary cultural discourse through regular lecture presentations by nationally and internationally recognized artists/photographers. The program is the longest running continuous lecture series devoted to photography in the country. This series of artists’ work grapples with the relationship of man and the natural world.
Wednesday, March 18, 12:30 to 2 p.m.
Manifest Destiny, Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape
Room 703, 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Art and Design Department Professor Amy Mooney facilitates this Salon Series Selection. Join her upper-level art history class and P.J. Brownlee, curator of this museum exhibit, to discuss the text and images detailed in this museum catalog text.
March 18 through April 29
Loaded: Hunting Culture in America
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Ever since our prehistoric ancestors painted hunting scenes in the caves of Lascaux—thought to be among the first examples of Western artistic practice—the act and phenomenon of the hunt has been a significant cultural force. In contemporary America, where people no longer need to hunt for survival, hunting culture has evolved to become an aesthetic and a lifestyle choice. Many contemporary artists have gravitated toward either the aesthetics or the cultural/social phenomena of hunting as the subject of their work, giving us objects, images, and spaces that range from kitsch to realism and hard-edged social commentary. Loaded: Hunting Culture in America will take a deliberately ambivalent view toward the morality of hunting and address the subject as social, cultural, and artistic phenomenon, ideally nudging viewers to question their own preconceptions regarding hunting. Curated by Ann Weins and Audrey Michelle Mast and organized by the Department of Exhibition and Performance Spaces Glass Curtain Gallery.
Wednesday, March 18, 5 to 8 p.m.
Loaded: Loaded: Hunting Culture in America Opening Reception
Glass Curtain Gallery, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Wednesday, March 18, 5 to 8 p.m.
Dressed to Kill: Student Response Fashion show
Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Urban chic meets outdoor woodman. Animal prints, furs, camouflage and gun culture have all been seeping back into contemporary fashion. This show explores the infiltration of hunting into the urban fashion world.
Saturday, March 21, 6 to 7:15 p.m.
HumaNature Lecture with Peter Goin
Ferguson Auditorium, 600 S. Michigan Ave.
This HumaNature lecture is an attempt through photography to focus public debate on how nature is culturally perceived—and managed. The premise of HumaNature is that nature is an illusion created by culture. Nature is a fiction dramatically reinforced through a tradition of environmental management. Does a plastic tree satisfy our cultural need for visible biota? Can—and should—an ocean beach be artificially maintained as a vast expanse of fine sand? Can we control the weather? Does "nature" have value because of the increasing demands of the urban environment? Are human-made rocks better than the real thing? These and other questions resulted in a major series of 16"x20" color photographs and a book that interprets and documents the ever-increasing management of nature. Photographed sites include images of human-made flies; albino rainbow trout; pristine, human-made lakes; artificial forests; man-made waterfalls; a human-made tornado; human-made trees and rocks; and artificial beaches—all constructed and disguised as "nature." Additional photographs include controlled burns, designer forests, and managed wildlife, among many others. A creative essay incorporating the history and idea behind the management of nature accompanies the published photographs.
Time/Date/Location TBD
Flow Screening
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash Ave.
Water is the sleeping giant issue of the 21st Century and we all need to wake up about it. FLOW opens our eyes about the greatest threat of our time—the global water crisis. It is a compelling and passionate film. Its engaging narrative will grip the viewer." Join us for a screening of this landmark documentary.
Wednesday, March 25th, Time TBD
Southern Graphics Conference: "Global Print"
The keynote speaker on the opening night of the conference will address the themes of Human|Nature in a talk entitled “Global Print.”