Zhanna Yermakov, Chicago Park District presentation Posts

Please respond to the presentation by Zhanna Yermakov.

Cradle to Cradle Overview

Please comment this week on your overall comments, impressions, positive and negative, regarding the Cradle to Cradle readings.

250-500 words

Also, please publish them under this posting and not as individual posts.

Thanks.

freecycle

I'm guessing that at least some people in this class have heard of Freecycle, but I wanted to post this link because it is way cooler than Craigslist when you want stuff or have stuff to give away. Plus, what a great concept!

http://www.freecycle.org/group/US/Illinois/Chicago

Fewer Americans See Solid Evidence of Global Warming

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1386/cap-and-trade-global-warming-opinion

77% down to 57%

blog 5

I thought the ideas that the three artists behind People Powered take and create art with were really cool. I feel like there is this cultural shift happening where art no longer has to be defined by a specific medium, but can now cross disciplines and become much more rounded and aware of different aspects of society. I really like environmental and ecological ideas and movements becoming more available to artists and other groups of people because I think that they can then reach "the masses", so to speak.

Last year I attended a salon at the cultural center that focused on artists and environmentalism, and the different ways they can intersect from being very grounded in ecology to being much more abstract, like dance and performance pieces inspired by issues like recycling. Francis Whitehead, a Chicago artist and professor at the Art Institute, was there and she is really involved in some awesome projects. She often partners with scientists and city governments to help people see what is going on in the world around them through instillation art at different sites around the world. Really awesome, really inspiring stuff. Here are just a few examples:
http://www.datacloudmetamap.com/
http://www.phenologicforest.com/
http://www.embeddedartistproject.com/whatdoartistsknow.html

While I am certainly no artist or designer, I love being surrounded by people who are. I think that scientists and artists can really learn so much from each other and inspire each other to grow beyond their comfort levels, which is so important when it comes to creating something that can really make a difference. I really hope that once my career gets moving, it is moving in this type of collaborative direction.

Urban Lab Green Designs

Here is an interesting site called Urban Lab, it has a lot of green designs and concepts throughout Chicago and other cities. http://www.urbanlab.com/list.php?id=1


I really like their "Growing Water: Chicago in 2106" concept http://www.urbanlab.com/h2o/

website for the bird men interview

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/09/60minutes/main5374843.shtml