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Dina Wind Lecture Series: 2015

Artful Sustainability 

How Artists are Using Social Practice to Engender Environmental Stewardship

“Artful Sustainability” presents an exploration of artist-designed, innovative environmental projects across the country. Using case studies from Austin, TX, Seattle, WA, Philadelphia and New York City, the panelists show how artists use social practice models to provide out-of-the-box approaches to ecological challenges. Emphasis is on how art functions in engaging the community, especially in urban settings. Artists are reaching far outside the gallery to fully participate in the urgent issues confronting humanity today.

Carrie Brown has an extensive public art background, and prior to coming to Austin, managed public art projects for the Los Angeles County Arts Commission’s Civic Art Program and was a a lead contributor to the artist training academy, Making It Public, sponsored by the Public Art Coalition of Southern California. She has managed public art projects for the cities of Mesa and Glendale, in Arizona and also worked on the state’s first light rail system which incorporated artwork from 28 artists. 

Lucy Begg’s background is as an architect and is Co-Director of Thoughtbarn, a building design studio also located in Austin. She has worked on projects including net-zero housing developments, private homes, hotels, retail fit-outs, a school refurbishment, a recycling facility and a screened porch addition to a mobile home. She has developed participatory design methods and continues her ongoing effort to fuse architectural practice with public interest and advocacy work.

Nicole Kistler creates interactive art and landscapes that help connect community members to the places where they live. She has over 12 years of experience managing large-scale public art, arts planning, public involvement, and landscape design projects, with work shown in Washington, New York, and Arizona. She is currently the City of Seattle’s first Urban Agriculture Artist-in-Residence. 

Mary Mattingly is an artist based in New York whose work merges performance, sculpture, photography and architecture to address issues of sustainability and environmental communities. Philadelphians may be familiar with her floating sculpture “WetLand,” moored at the boat basin at Penn’s Landing during summer 2014. Its distinctive look (including gardens and chicken coops) marked it as something more than the sinking house that inspired its design. Constructed to explore resource interdependency and climate change in urban centers, it became a mobile habitat and active public space that engaged members of many local communities.

ABOUT THE DINA WIND LECTURE SERIES

The Dina Wind Lecture Series is a new program of annual lectures created in honor of Dina Wind, a Philadelphia Sculptors Board member who passed away in late 2014. An artist, philanthropist and vigorous promoter of the arts, Dina left a large legacy to the art world, including her gift to Philadelphia Sculptors. This program was made possible because of her generosity and the active support of her husband Jerry and sons John and Lee. Dina Wind’s estate is represented by the Bridgette Mayer Gallery in Philadelphia.

Co-hosted by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts