Contemporary Art and Sustainability: Living at the Edge

Residency of British eco artist Jane Frost in Slavonski Brodas part of the international project L@tE on the occasion of Earth Day

Community based art project, workshop with members of local eco societies and alternative cultural organisations about eco art practices, the result of which is a work of art created through collaborative methods

Exhibition in Galerija Balen with the work that resulted from the artistic project in the community about immediate environment of participants expressed through non-verbal means

Workshops are taking place 5-7pm on 19 and 20 April
The exhibition opening is on 21 April 2006 at 8pm

The focus of Jane Frost's residency in Galerija Balen is a community based art project carried out through workshops in which the participants will first be introduced to some of the methods and skills of ecological art, and try to express their immediate environment through visual means by using both natural and artificial materials found in that environment. The artist uses tex tile techniques of weaving and knitting in her community based works, for example, by recycling electronic cables in her weave, or 'weaving the walk', involving a walk in nature or the city and collecting objects which are later used in weaving with the accent not on making the cloth, but on 'alternative ways of recording an event.'

The renowned British artist Jane Frost is the initiator of the major international collaborative project called Living at the Edge, or L@tE, which is based on the work in and with communities that live along waterways or fenland, questioning the historical, social, and ecological effects of reclaimed land from the Fenlands of East Anglia to Bangladesh . The workshops in Slavonski Brod and the exhibition in Galerija Balen will form part of the L@tE project. Jane Frost is a researcher at Norwich School of Art, where she is investigating the possibilities in the communication of expressing belonging to a community and an understanding of the history and future of the environment.

The project Living at the Edge in Slavonski Brod offers the possibility of participation and experience of community based art for the first time. The project will contribute to the understanding of real ecological problems, and the role of art in arousing public consciousness about the need to transform our ways of life and thinking for an ecologically sustainable future.

Galerija Balen has for several years celebrated Earth Day and the issues that were discussed on that occasion, through exhibitions, presentations, or art circle time, included art and food production, art and bio technology, the problem of climate change, and how to live in harmony with nature and so on. Galerija Balen was co-organiser of the international exhibition Unframed Landscapes, which dealt with nature in contemporary art and was held in 2004 in Hungary, Croatia and Great Britain.

The curators of this project are Maja Fowkes and Dr.Reuben Fowkes, art historians and curators, who deal with socially-oriented and environmental art. They are the organisers of the first international symposium on Sustainability and Contemporary Art, that was held in Central European University in Budapest in March 2006, they participated in the seminar on Social Sculpture at Tate Modern, and write for numerous international art publications including Green Museum. Currently they are preparing an academic research paper on the history of ecologically oriented art in Croatia. www.translocal.org

The residency of the artist Jane Frost in Galerija Balen is supported by the Norwich School of Art and the Lions Club 'Brođanka' Slavonski Brod.