The environment has always been a powerful motivation for art and art in turn can be a powerful tool to communicate environmental information, increase awareness and dialogue around environmental issues, and serve as a catalyst for individuals and communities to focus on environmental values. The Environmental Institute invites faculty, students, and staff across the Amherst campus to send us information on upcoming campus events, courses, research, and initiatives linking art and environment so we can post and share with the larger community. Send information to TEI at tei@tei.umass.edu.

Painting from the Same Palette:
The Art of Conflict Transformation Event Series

The Art of Conflict Transformation Event Series will bring artists, academics, and conflict resolvers to UMass Amherst for public mural painting, lectures, and discussions on the transition to peace in Northern Ireland/the north of Ireland. This transatlantic event series is sponsored by UMass Amherst in conjunction with partners in Belfast and will take place during Spring 2009 and the 2009-2010 academic year. The first set of events will take place April 26 to May 13th, 2009 and include virtual and in-person class visits, panel discussions on truth recovery and reconciliation in a post conflict society, and cross-community mural painting on the UMass Amherst Campus and in the community of Springfield, Massachusetts.

Sponsors: UMass Amherst Graduate School; Falls Community Council; College of Social and Behavior Sciences; Department of Legal Studies; Law and Society Initiative, Psychology of Peace and Violence Concentration; Interdisciplinary Seminar on Humanities and the Arts (ISHA) ; National Center for Technology and Dispute Resolution; Social Justice Mediation Institute. (More)

Shedding Light Project
Amherst 250th celebration

UMass Amherst students in the Building Materials and Wood Technology program are assisting in the development of the Shedding Light Projectcelebrating Art and the Valley’s agricultural heritage. The project will light up a tobacco barn during the Town of Amherst’s 250 birthday celebration. Professor David Damery and his students will be providing expertise on alternative energies and the design of the photovoltaic array that will provide power to the lights.

Past Events

Exhibit: "Designing a Sustainable Future"
Monday, June 22, 2009 – Friday, September 11, 2009

“Designing a Sustainable Future” is an exhibit of selected works from graduate and undergraduate students of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning on display through Sept 11, 2009, in the Integrated Sciences and Engineering Library (Lederle Graduate Research Center Lowrise, Floor 2). The exhibit is on view during library hours. A closing reception will be held on Thursday, September 10, 2009, from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. The reception is open to the public and refreshments will be served. More Information

VISUAL (Ventures in Science Using Art Laboratory)
Ongoing

VISUAL, an educational outreach program of the UMass Amherst Materials Research Science and Engineering Center on Polymers (MRSEC) is based on the premise that the visual arts can serve as an effective means to stimulate, educate, and promote materials science research to the general public and to students of all ages. VISUAL images have been included in a number of local exhibits, including the annual Nikon Small World Competitions. For more information contact Cathy Russell at visual@mail.pse.umass.edu

Transporting: Oil, Water, Arteries and Veins in the Amazon
August Savage Gallery, November 17 - December 5

The Exhibit featured paintings by artists from the Secoyan community in Ecuador, and artist and educator Patty Bode, a recipient of a Augusta Savage Gallery’s Arts International Residency (AIR) Grant Program in 2007. This collaborative show transported viewers to the Amazonian rainforest at the intersection of indigenous life and global oil production, consumption and contamination. It comments on the erosion of the Amazon environment and indigenous ways of life, while celebrating the Secoyan’s resilience and resistance to globalization.

8th Annual Juniper Festival: The World and the Word/Environmental Science and Literary Art
April 25 and 26, 2008

The 8th Annual Juniper Festival explored the confluence of environmental science and literary art. Poets, essayists, fiction writers, activists, publishers, and scientists gathered to investigate the many ways environmental science and literary art need and nourish one another. Narrative and data, field work and poetic form: how do these transmute and translate one another? What does literary art have to say about the health of the planet? The honey bees? About the great migrations, the resplendent woods? The sustainability of our habits? What effect might literature, and literary artists, have on the world our children inherit? The Juniper Festival featured two days of readings, roundtables, film screenings, and more.

Sustainability—Enough for All Forever - Art/Invention Contest
Summer 2008

Artists and inventors throughout the Pioneer Valley were invited to submit their ideas and concepts for an art project focused on a representation of sustainability. The goal of the contest was to stimulate thought and action on sustainability in the Pioneer Valley. View the contestants and eventual winner on the Pioneer Valley Sustainability Network site. The Network was established through an EPA funded sustainability project involving the UMass Amherst The Environmental Institute, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, and the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission.

Symposium: Art in the Public Sphere: Singular Works, Plural Possibilities
April 25, 2008

The University Gallery, in partnership with the Departments of Art, Architecture and Art History, and Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning hosted a symposium on Art in The Public Sphere: Singular Works, Plural Possibilities to examine the complexities and challenges of producing work in and about the public domain. In conjunction with a daylong symposium exploring the conceptual and tangible difficulties of art in the public sphere, the University Gallery presented a juried Exhibition of proposed public art projects that address issues of temporality, community, place, and practice on local, national, and global levels, that also highlighted contemporary trends and new ideas in the field of public art.