Umwelt & Land Art

Rock Songs starts as a walk of a few miles between the valley of the river Tywi/Towy and the heights of Y Mynydd Du/Black Mountain in Wales. It takes millions of years, meeting along the way the rocks and water that have formed the land, together with the trees, red kites, and otters who pass through. Humans crowd in as well--saints, drovers, Romans, bikers, and tourists. The great zen monk, Dogen, is also walking and learns that mountains themselves walk, if you know how to look. Rock Songs began as a one-man movement performance of a river by Nick Sales and has become a book of poetry, reflection, ecology, and zen reflection. It's illustrated with extensive photography by Steve Hopkins and beautifully designed by Christopher Binding.

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poetry and photography Nine one-page poems about the fleeting nature of time and relationships by Barry Wallenstein and thirty-four small contrapuntal surreal photographs by Barbara Rosenthal.Barry Wallensteins poetry lures us into his jazz-rhythmed territory by pointing his personal compass straight toward our own active places. Once there, we meet up with our own demons and devines on the odd-numbered pages, while Barbara Rosenthal’s photographs on the even pages wrench the steering wheel right out from our moving, reeling stops at stop signs, and drive us into our own deeper dreams and nightmares. This is a book of unpretentious poetry and unmanipulated photographs that seems so straightforward and beautiful and easy to ease into the times and places and people we meet here, but as we travel through it, turning pages, re-reading, looking and reading and looking and reading again, we recognize everyone and everything and every place, as one we’ve visited on our own, but never known its reality, and its shared signifcance to us all, till now.

Wall or no wall? View the US-Mexico borderland saga through the eyes of artists who've lived it, including some of the children held in detention camps. More than 100 artworks represent a variety of mediums, from large paintings to mixed-media collage, neon, photography, and sculpture. Based on a traveling exhibit by members of the El Paso-based Juntos Art Association, the images explore the region's animal and plant ecosystems, food and religious culture, and history. The artists reflect deep roots both north and south of the border and the inherent mestizaje, a blend of indigenous, Mexican, and American heritage across the length of the bicultural, binational landscape. Their work makes vibrant personal and political statements that speak constructively about how to move forward in this fraught region. Combined with accompanying essays, this book shares a rare, close-up view of the US-Mexico crossroads at a critical point in US history.

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WORLDBENDING is about the end of the world as we know it, how we got here, who we will share new worlds with, and what we might do about making survival plans? Better still, it goes beyond survival and considers how we might enjoy a meaningful life in the future.WORLDBENDING is an aesthetic look at the philosophy of how we build, bend and break worlds. It applies design theory and Speculative Realism, also known as 'Object Oriented Ontology' to the myths and legends behind our creative technology. In the words of the author this 'Thing Related Reality' is essential for humanity and the nonhuman majority to survive. We need creativity to think about thinking and a Speculative Design approach to building better worlds and alternate futures. WORLDBENDING is an art form that creatively questions the past, present and future.A survey published in 2015 found that: Almost 80% agreed 'we need to transform our worldview. This is a speculative art form, WORLDBENDING not just for ourselves, but also for the nonhuman majority, with the aspiration to make better worlds together. It is a utopian look at world building, it is not, however, a blueprint with step by step instructions. Individually we are all world builders, yet this is not an exclusive human talent. WORLDBENDING discusses how you might go about building better worlds and will explore ways that we can be more receptive to new creative forces that can open up those future worlds. At the same time we must be wary of the cognitive restraints and hidden controls - historically created, and that currently exist in our culture and computer technology. World building is a massive transdisciplinary task. If we want to move beyond the dangerous limitations of the spurious complexity in this world, we require a co-design approach that engages all of those who will co-exist in the worlds of the future. This leads us to consider the exciting possibilities of creative collaboration amongst both humans and nonhumans. Before we materially construct anything, we must aesthetically take action, imaginatively and creatively engaging with both the organic and inorganic things all around us - we must get over the guilt of the damage we have caused and fall in love with ourselves and the others who share these worlds.

In 21st century, the contradiction between resources environment and economic and social development has become an important bottleneck for China's comprehensive construction of a well-off society and the realization of sustainable development. As a result, China's economic and development relations have entered an important period of strategic transformation. Taking the scientific concept of development as the guide, building a harmonious society as the goal, building an ecological civilization and resource-saving and environment-friendly society as the path, transforming the economic growth mode, saving energy and reducing emissions into other major actions, for the environment and development Strategic transformation builds a clear roadmap. It is precisely in this new situation and new stage of China's economic and social development that China's circular economy development has basically completed the first leap from concept to national decision-making from the turn of the century to 2005. Since 2006, it has quickly entered the stage of comprehensive pilot demonstration; with the "Circular Economy Promotion Law" as a symbol, it began to enter the overall promotion stage in 2009. Comprehensive pilot demonstration and overall promotion mean the second leap in the development of China's circular economy. China's economic policy is paying more and more attention to the development of recycling and the protection of the ecological environment.As a result, the relationship between China's economy and development has entered an important period of strategic transformation. Taking the scientific concept of development as the guide, building a harmonious society as the goal, building an ecological civilization and resource-saving and environment-friendly society as the path, transforming the economic growth mode, saving energy and reducing emissions into other major actions, for the environment and development Strategic transformation builds a clear roadmap.In this new situation and new stage of China's economic and social development, China's circular economy development has basically completed the first leap from concept to national decision-making from the turn of the century to 2005. Since 2006, it has quickly entered the stage of comprehensive pilot demonstration; with the "Circular Economy Promotion Law" as a symbol, it began to enter the overall promotion stage in 2009. Comprehensive pilot demonstration and overall promotion mean the second leap in the development of China's circular economy. China's economic policy is paying more and more attention to the development of recycling and the protection of the ecological environment.

Sant Khalsa is an artist and activist whose projects develop from her impassioned inquiry into the nature of place and complex environmental and societal issues. Her artworks create a contemplative space where one can sense the subtle and profound connections between themselves and the natural world. The subject of trees has been a focus in Sant Khalsa’s creative work for nearly five decades. Prana: Life with Trees is the first in depth survey of Khalsa’s intimate connection with trees – her explorations, observations, perceptions and interpretations. Her unique perspective is expressed through a style that encompasses the documentary, subjective and conceptual. Her work evokes a meditative calm to what we often experience as a chaotic and conflicted world. Khalsa is concerned with both the micro and macro aspects of forests: what is seen and unseen; historical, scientific and spiritual; and personal and universal. She is mindful of our symbiotic relationship with trees and forests, grounded in the life-sustaining connection through the breath (exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen). Her beautiful, distinctive and sometime disquieting works express the cycle of life (birth, life, death, and rebirth), the destruction and memory of the forest, as well as the promise of new growth. The book includes her earliest landscapes (self-portraits and photographs of orange groves); images of trees from her three decades photographing in the Santa Ana Watershed and other locations in the American West; and mixed-media sculptures and installation works inspired by her research on air quality and life-changing experience planting more than a thousand trees in 1992 as part of the reforestation of Holcomb Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains. In her recent color photographs, we witness the fruits of her activism, a healthy, thriving and hopeful forest eco-system. Sant Khalsa’s artworks are widely exhibited internationally, collected by prestigious museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Nevada Museum of Art and Center for Creative Photography in Tucson and published in numerous art books and periodicals. Khalsa is a recipient of prestigious fellowships, awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, California Council for the Humanities and others. She is a Professor of Art, Emerita at California State University, San Bernardino and resides in Joshua Tree.