Friday, April 29, 2011

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Calling all fashion designers and textile fanatics!


Are you a fashion designer, installation artist or have the ability to sow?
CONTACT Nastasha Daniels to get involved with the next HumanEarth exhibition!

Please also contact if you have any old clothing, fabric, off-cuts, or anything else related that can be used and repurposed.

For more information on the HumanEarth exhibitions, have a look at www.humanearth.ecojunki.co.za


Julia Ramsey



The embrace by Boxi


This website is worth a look: seedandsew.com.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Come and celebrate tree planting!

WHERE DO THE ENVIRONMENT AND ARTS INTERSECT?

The world of art has always played an important role in stimulating thought and generating dialogue and now it has a crucial role to play in environmental awareness.

Business and Arts South Africa (BASA) believes that the arts can effectively bring creativity into the heart of environmental practices and actions and has introduced a new category – the Arts and Environment Award – into its annual awards. It will reward business support of arts and culture projects which contribute towards the sustainability of the environment.

According to BASA CEO Michelle Constant:
“The issue of sustainability is a growing one, and if the arts can be used to drive change in the individual user and larger corporates, it means a more holistic approach to the world around us.”

In the past year, there have been a number of impressive arts projects which played a vital role in green issues. The 2010 Philippi South African Education & Environment Project (SAEP) Arts and Environment Festival, funded by the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund, was a celebration of the work of township high school youth completed through SAEP’s Arts and Environment Outreach Programmes. This Cape Town festival incorporated learners' achievements in these programmes in a two day celebration of culture and community. The festival culminated with the unveiling of a life-size giraffe sculpture made out of recycled wire and plastic cans and bottles by the SAEP Environment Club. The event also sought to bring both arts and the environment into township communities.

Spier’s annual Infecting The City Public Arts Festival involves transforming public spaces of Cape Town into works of art that will help urban dwellers view the city from a different perspective. It also focuses on forgotten natural resources and seemingly useless waste which is given a new life.

Johannesburg was the home of Tomorrow’s Joy by Usha Seejarim and Hannelie Coetzee from Such Initiative. It was commissioned by the Johannesburg Arts Alive International Festival, and is owned by the City of Johannesburg. The massive mosaic using nearly 100 000 bottle tops and erected in Newtown’s Mary Fitzgerald Square,depicted a band of children happily running across a playing field. Its aim was to change perceptions about recycling while beautifying the environment and instil a culture of eco-consciousness and a recycling awareness within Joburg society.



Tomorrow’s Joy” by Such Initiative commissioned by Arts Alive



Constant urged all business, whether they are big corporates or small operations, who have supported arts and culture projects which contribute towards the sustainability of the environment to enter this year’s awards. She also encouraged business to look at sponsoring such projects.

The BASA Awards recognise and encourage excellence and innovation in the field of business support for the arts. Imaginative, innovative and cost-effective partnerships between business and the arts are highlighted, demonstrating the potential for synergy, the window of mutual opportunity and the far reaching benefits for business, for the arts, and for all South Africans.
The closing date for entries for the BASA Awards is May 20, 2011.

The easy-to-use online nomination system can be accessed on the BASA website at www.basa.co.za. The awards section features guidelines, rules and regulations and online nomination forms. Those requiring more information can also call the BASA offices on 011 832 3042/3039 or email info@basa.co.za.

The BASA Awards are supported by Business Day and Anglo American and the results are audited by Grant Thornton.

Show your commitment on Friday

Saturday, April 16, 2011

CALLING ALL ECO-CONSCIOUS ARTISTS

Competition: Communicating the future - explaining climate change through graphics

The Minor Foundation for Major Challenges invites you to participate in a competition that aims to select an extraordinarily good way of communicating the issue of man-made climate change.

The competition aims to inspire participants that have the ability to communicate a complex message in a way that might surprise or even awaken people.

If you can illustrate man-made climate change, its causes or consequenses in a way that brings the response

  • Aha!
  • So this is what it is all about!
  • Something has to be done about it!
  • We have to reduce our emissions of CO2!

Then please, consider participating in our competition and share your submission with us!



The Minor Foundation for Major Challenges is a non-profit foundation that supports information and public-opinion-forming aimed at limiting human induced climate change. The foundation recognizes that there is a need for downloadable graphic presentations available on the Internet which can be used for communicating the climate problem to the general public. Many organisations working with the climate issue have their own sets of graphs, diagrams and slides with their own logos used by their representatives during presentations. The foundation wishes to provide similar tools, but free to use by anyone who is interested and who wants to help spread knowledge about human-made climate change - its causes, effects and the fact that we have means to combat climate change. Main focus should be put on explaining the fundamental knowledge on man-made climate change.

The Minor Foundation for Major Challenges is envisioning a set of graphic, electronic presentations that can be downloaded for free. The presentations may contain static displays of graphs, figures, diagrams or other visual representations that explain different aspects of the issue. Animations, interactive applications, and formats open for the user to modify are also relevant. There are certainly many thinkable and unthinkable ways of creating such graphics, and in line with the Foundation's general policy, we are open for new, experimental ways of communicating the causes and challenges related to climate change. Conventional or radical in form and content - we welcome proposals for the development of graphic presentations that would be applicable to - and have effect on - a wide audience. Any text - written or spoken - should be in English, as this is an international competition with an international audience.

Proposals should be submitted through a dedicated web form at www.minor-foundation.no within May 1 2011.

A jury will pick three concepts from the submitted ideas that will have the opportunity to be developed, through receiving a sum of 100.000 Norwegian kroner each from The Minor Foundation for Major Challenges. The winner in this competition will receive a sum of 500.000 Norwegian kroner that is meant to finance the completion and implementation of the idea.

The Minor Foundation for Major Challenges will be copyright owner with the rights to distribute and communicate all final three submissions.

To learn more: http://www.minor-foundation.no/competition/


Strijdom van der Merwe


Janet Botes, Our Legacy


Antti Laitinen, Its My Island


ALSO read more about a callout for artists by Virginia MacKenny from UCT, for artists who work with a focus or awareness of environmental issues and climate change. Read about it on the COPART blog: dontcopoutcopart.blogspot.com/2011/04/calling-all-copartists-sadc-country.html

Monday night in Newlands, Cape Town

Friday, April 15, 2011

HumanEarth.2 photos

Here's some photographs from the HumanEarth exhibition. Well done to Nastasha Daniels, and all the artists involved!











If you're in Potch before the 2nd of May, go and check it out!!
At the NWU (North West University) Botanical Garden Gallery.
Viewing hours: Monday to Friday 10am to 4pm

Contact: Elani Willemse
Tel 018 299 2753
Email: 20049820@nwu.ac.za

See more photos here

25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear disaster

Illustration: Matt Davidson

Illustration: Matt Davidson
Found here (read more about nuclear in Australia)


MEDIA RELEASE: 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear disaster

A Salute to Radiation workers everywhere. - Japanese Consul to receive
messages of condolence and concern from local anti-nuclear groups.

The ongoing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi plant could not have come at a
more poignant moment. While the world's attention is focused on this
unfolding catastrophe we must remember to contextualise current events in
light of the past. The 26th of April, 46 days after the start of the ongoing
Fukushima nuclear crises, marks the 25th year after at similar disaster in
Chernobyl, Ukraine. How tragic to witness, 25 years on, a repeat of the
desperation that drives men and women into a working environment that they
know will kill them, with Chernobyl now being assessed as being responsible
for nearly a million deaths, and with the total fuel at Fukushima many times
that of Chernobyl. 1,760 tons of nuclear fuel versus just 180 tons at
Chernobyl, implying a potential impact some 10 times greater from the
current disaster is, but which is becoming more difficult to quantify as the
Fukushima accident is already ranked as a level 7 disaster which is where
the scale for such events ends.

Our hearts must go out to the "Fukushima 50". Four teams of 50 brave workers
who, on a daily basis, expose themselves to massive quantities of radiation
to help avert a total meltdown. Instead of learning lessons from the
Japanese experience before we aggressively pursue more nuclear options in
South Africa, government approved the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP2) (that
will make nuclear power the single biggest contributor of new future
capacity to our national grid), within the first week of the Fukushima
disaster. This, when almost every other country with new nuclear build plans
are taking a step back, and indeed, reducing and cancelling such plans, as
in China and Germany.

"South Africa has an array of alternative, renewable energy supplies that
are cheaper, create more jobs, contribute less to climate change and don't
leave us with a multi-100,000 year waste legacy, said Muna Lakhani,
Earthlife Africa's Cape Town anti-nuclear spokesperson. "It is time that we
reawaken the spirit of the Struggle and remind ourselves that we do have the
power to shape our future."

"Around Fukushima Daiichi Station, on March 23rd, they measured 400
millisieverts - that's per hour. With this measurement (Chief Cabinet
Secretary) Edano admitted for the first time that there was a danger to
health, but he didn't explain what this means. All of the information media
are at fault here I think. They are saying stupid things like, why, we are
exposed to radiation all the time in our daily life, we get radiation from
outer space. But that's one millisievert per year. A year has 365 days, a
day has 24 hours; multiply 365 by 24, you get 8760. Multiply the 400
millisieverts by that, you get 3,500,000 the normal dose. You call that
safe? And what media have reported this? None. They compare it to a CT
scan, which is over in an instant; that has nothing to do with it," said
Hirose Takashi, well known author on the nuclear industry.

Independent scientists are warning, contrary to statements from the talking
heads on corporate media outlets who say Japan is not Chernobyl, that the
levels of radioactive material being released in from Japan's nuclear
fallout already rivals Chernobyl levels as at the end of March.



In a more local vein, Earthlife Africa's Cape Town branch secretary, Gray
Maguire, said: "Six months after 90 Koeberg workers were contaminated by
radioactive Cobolt-51, our leaders have yet to announce the names of the
members of the panel of inquiry supposedly convened to look into the
accident. What confidence do we have that even the current problems can be
resolved, far less the imposition of even more nuclear radiation, when the
alternatives are cheaper and create more decent work for our people?"

To this end, members of the media and of the public are invited to a number
of events in the run up to Chernobyl Day (26th April). Earthlife Africa Cape
Town will be hosting a number of events to raise awareness about the
outcomes of our recently approved IRP2; information linked to the global and
local nuclear industry and a way forward.

* 18th April - Monday (12:00pm to 14:00pm - Pier Square, Heerengracht Street, Cape Town, with handover at 1:00pm). - A demonstration of concern about the events at Fukushima, a commemoration of the legacy of Chernobyl, a protest against the IRP2 and the submission of statement of solidarity, of condolence and concern, to the Japanese Consul in sympathy with their plight. Activities include an art installation, music and related activities.

* 21th April - Thursday ( 12:45pm to 14:00pm at 6 Spin Street Cape
Town) "Investigating South Africa's nuclear goals" - by Gray Maguire -
Earthlife Africa Branch Secretary.

* 21st April - Thursday (6:15pm at the Labia on Orange) Screening of
the documentary "The Nuclear Comeback" with a facilitated discussion
afterwards.


This media release was written and issued by Earthlife Africa Cape Town:
Contact:
Muna Lakhani - 083-471-7276 or muna@iafrica.com
Gray Maguire - 084-3355778 or graymaguire@gmail.com

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Film Screening, Cape Town

The Nuclear Comeback, a documentary about nuclear power, will be shown at the Labia on Orange cinema in Cape Town on Thursday 21 April at 6:15pm.



As part of the international commemoration of the 25
th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster and in light of recent events in Japan, While You Were Sleeping and Earthlife Africa Cape Town invite you to a once-off screening of the documentary The Nuclear Comeback.

The world's electricity consumption is expected to double in the next 25 years and the nuclear industry claims that nuclear power is the only large-scale method of power production that can reliably replace coal, gas or oil-fired power plants. But many people have an inherent fear of nuclear power. Is it time we learned to love the split atom? Or is there a risk that we might be jumping out of the carbon frying pan and into the plutonium fire?

Given the South Africa government’s plans for a massive expansion of nuclear power in the country, it is crucial that we understand what we may be confronted with and what our alternatives are.

The Nuclear Comeback goes on a worldwide tour of the nuclear industry in search of answers. It visits some of the planet's most famous nuclear facilities, including the control room of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it investigates the state of 'the grand old lady' of commercial nuclear power, the UK's Calder Hall, and travels through a nuclear waste repository under the Baltic Sea, a uranium mine in Australia, and one of only two fuel recycling plants in the world.

The Nuclear Comeback poses the question of whether, by seriously considering the renewed development of nuclear power, we may now be gambling with the survival of our planet.

The screening will be followed by a facilitated audience discussion.

Tickets are R20 and can be reserved by calling The Labia at (021) 424 5927. This is a once-off screening and we strongly recommended that you reserve tickets to avoid disappointment.



This event is presented by Earthlife Africa Cape Town, the Labia and While You Were Sleeping, a Cape Town-based non-profit film collective committed to bringing progressive, non-mainstream documentaries with important social, political and environmental messages to South African audiences.


Contact:

The Labia:
021 424 5927

While You Were Sleeping:
Andreas Späth
084 772 1056
Andreas_Spath@yahoo.com
www.whileyouweresleeping.wordpress.com

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Rethink, Revise, Revive

Sometimes it's good to take a step away from things and look at it from a different perspective, considering improvements and planning your steps ahead. Looking at how Ecojunki originated and what it has become, it is great to see that there has been growth, support and interest. Thank you for your contribution in this!



Ecojunki started as a brand for art by one artist, and then grew into representing eco-art and recycled art by a variety of artists, and now it's a group, network or movement with projects and initiatives led by different members, such as the HumanEarth art exhibitions coordinated by Nastasha Daniels and recycled art workshops by Janet Botes. The next step is to guide it even further into something that really succeeds in making people more aware and connected to our place and inter-connectivenes with our environment, which will lead to more sustainable and responsible behavior and lifestyle choices.



Mostly this awareness-raising is done through creative media and art, but we need to refine and focus our activities and outputs. We need to form a slightly more structured system, in which members can contribute and get involved, or we need to integrate or merge with another organization in order to amplify and grow our reach and resources. YOUR opinion, suggestions and thoughts on how to proceed are needed!

Please vote in the poll to the right, and leave a comment to this post, or send an email to ecojunki@gmail.com. Your input is important and valuable, and there will be a reward for the three best suggestions received as comments or emails, up to 30 July 2011, 5pm.

Contributing to the fracking fight

TKAG (Treasure the Karroo action group) are the people who are spearheading the fight to stop fracking in the Karoo. They need funding!

Please go and donate now - if you're really strapped, donate R50 or R100.

TRUST ACCOUNT FACILITY WITH GRAAFF-REINET ATTORNEY AND FOCUS GROUP MEMBER - MR DEREK LIGHT. (most of you saw him on Carte Blanche)

1. ALL FUNDS TO GO INTO THAT ACCOUNT WITH REFERENCE 'TKAG'
2. EXPENSES OUT OF THE ACCOUNT WILL BE SIGNED BY TWO FOCUS GROUP MEMBERS.
3.ANY CONTRIBUTOR MAY VIEW THE STATEMENT OF ACCOUNT AVAILABLE FROM ME ONCE A MONTH
4. ACCOUNT DETAILS:

DEREK LIGHT TRUST ACCOUNT
FNB GRAAFF-REINET
523-000-15065
BRANCH CODE 210-216
swift code: FIRNZAJJ

You can download a copy of the PDF that was handed over to parliament here:
http://www.acutherapy.co.za/images/KarooPolicyObjection%205%20April%200903%20(FINAL).pdf

No idea what 'fracking' is? Have a look at the Treasure the Karoo Action Group blog, or www.fractual.co.za. Also have a look in the latest newspapers.

1..2..3..be the change!

Blog of the week: www.123bchange.blogspot.com