The Art and Sustainability FORUM brings together key thinkers in public art, sustainable practice, conservation, and design to discuss ways of amplifying the powers of public art in addressing the key pillars of sustainability. The forum is designed to accompany the David Greybeard public artwork to key sustainability congresses globally.

Art and design are working with responsible corporations and businesses to create change and raise awareness about some of the most pressing issues of our time: environment degradation, extinction of species and climate change. The multi-faceted role of contemporary art in highlighting environmental issues, expressing criticism towards unsustainable factors in society, and offering imaginative solutions for the achievement of sustainability arose as a movement which began in Berlin in 1989, a time artist Lisa Roet was residing in Berlin. This movement has slowly arisen as one of the most powerful modes of expression in the debate about climate change and extinction of species. Sustainable art is produced with consideration for a wider public impact and its reception in relationship to its environments. Humans place within nature is central to this discussion.

Please join forum convener Grace Leone (RMIT University), BA (Fine Art) alumnus and artist Lisa Roet, and forum panel members Pia Ednie-Brown (University of Newcastle, NSW), Matthew Selinske (RMIT University) and Michael Anderson (RMIT University) at the Art and Sustainability FORUM.

CONVENOR
Grace Leone
Artist | Designer | Curator | Educator
PhD Candidate| RMIT School of Architecture and Urban Design, Research Member|CAST Contemporary Art and Social Transformation (CAST), RMIT University
Grace Leone is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, educator and curator who lives and works in Melbourne, Australia. Leone incorporates a range of fine art disciplines with extensive architectural knowledge to create works that question the relationship between art, the body, perception and public space in evocative concepts. Her interventions concern the urban condition as understood through the reception of architecture’s language and image, while her object-based practice relates to a real time engagement between the body and city spaces. Leone is an educator and researcher in creative practice within the College of Design and Social Context at RMIT University, Australia.

WELCOME ADDRESS
Professor Ralph Horne
Deputy Pro Vice Chancellor, Research & Innovation
College of Design and Social Context, RMIT University, Australia.

SPEAKERS
Lisa Roet
Artist, Melbourne, Australia
David Greybeard, Artist, 2020
“Conservation and contemporary art can combine to create a new vehicle for change.”

Lisa Roet is a contemporary artist who for over three decades has been driven by the question ‘what is it to be human?’. Roet uses the image of the ape and monkey acting as the ‘mirror’ to humanity. Her extensive research into her subject matter and utilisation of a range of mediums and materials allows her work to explore environmental issues, genetic discoveries and the evolving place of humanity within nature.

Through an interdisciplinary approach to her artwork, Lisa has worked consistently with scientists, zoos, laboratories and museum archives worldwide, as well as field research in Borneo to develop her multi-faceted ongoing project. Roet’s work has been exhibited and curated in exhibitions worldwide including most recently large scale public installations in Beijing, Hong Kong, Holland and Singapore. These public installations depict newly discovered, yet highly endangered species of primates, and act as catalysts for discussions about the environment and humans place within our ever growing urban world.

Pia Ednie-Brown
Professor of Architecture, Creative Practice Research Director, School of Architecture and Built Environment, University of Newcastle, NSW.
”Art can help reconnect us to the life of the world, and remind us that we are never alone, even (and perhaps especially) in the absence of other humans.”

Pia Ednie-Brown is a Professor of Architecture at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her design practice, Onomatopoeia, works with diverse media, methods and milieu to explore creative ways of unsettling anthropocentrism (attending exclusively to human needs) and developing alternative, more ecologically inclined ways of practicing, such as in her project The Jane Approach (see: http://onomatopoeia.com.au/what-is-the-jane-approach) Through creative practice methods, her research has sought to articulate relations between creativity and ethics, aesthetics, innovation, emergence, ecological thinking, and emerging technologies. Her writing and creative works have been published in diverse national and international contexts.

Matthew Selinske
Postdoctoral Research Associate| ICON Science Research Group, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University.
“While it might not be our fault that our system consumes unsustainably, it is our responsibility to do something about it, to change both our behaviour and the unsustainable structures in society it supports. Contemporary art can help challenge these structures and reflect the change that is needed.”

Matthew Selinske is a research postdoctoral associate with the ICON Science Lab at RMIT University. Matthew is currently working on a range of research projects including examining the social dimensions and policy barriers of agri-environmental programs and prioritising conservation behaviour change.

Previously, Matthew worked in forest and prairie restoration projects in Minnesota and New York, and managed a protected area in West Africa, focused on primate conservation. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota College of Natural Resources and his MSc from Imperial College London. His research is supported by RMIT University, and the Australian Government’s National Environmental Science Program’s Threatened Species Hub.

Michael Anderson
Manager Utilities, Property Services, RMIT University
”Consideration of the environmental footprint of art, by the artist, is of increasing importance globally.”

Michael Anderson is the Utility Manager at RMIT University, with over 9 years experience in energy and carbon reporting in the Australian tertiary sector. Michael is responsible for the emissions profile of RMIT University, one of the largest tertiary institutions in Australia – in 2019 RMIT University achieved a 48% reduction in emissions from 2007 and are aiming to be Carbon Neutral by 2030. Michael has assisted in the calculation and offsetting the carbon inventory for the David Greybeard installation.

Please visit public artwork David Greybeard by Lisa Roet currently installed on the side of Arts Centre Melbourne’s Hamer Hall, overlooking the Yarra River, Melbourne CBD until 23 December 2020.

To attend the online forum on the day: JOIN
This forum is supported by RMIT University Sustainability and RMIT University Contemporary Art and Social Transformation (CAST).
Please note that this event will be recorded.

Register via Eventbrite

Find out more about the Art and Sustainability FORUM SERIES and the David Greybeard public artwork by Lisa Roet

Photo: John Gollings