Earth Day in Austin, TX -- Austin Green Art-style!

Submitted by randyjewart on May 9, 2008 - 5:07pm

Earth Day Scene

The main environmental problem that Austin Green Art seeks to address is not EXACTLY environmental! To quote Bill McKibben, it is that “we believe too firmly that we, each of us as individuals, are the most important things on the earth.” This cultural programming is driving the destruction of the planet.

It is perhaps only art that can shape culture, and without a cultural change, environmental policy, green products and activism cannot stop the destruction of the planet. So, we call our mission The Sustainability Revolution, and we envision, inspire and manifest it.

We are promoting a sustainability education platform that places human existence in a context of interconnectedness with an ecosystem at a regional level. All of our projects seek to address facets of that interconnectedness and explore ways that can tweak OUR systems to become balanced in that OVERALL system. The process we use to do that exploration is collaborative design and artmaking, which provides a tangible experience of community activity that isn’t based on individual genius or global consumer culture. We are also pleased to be working with Bill McKibben on his new 350.org project. We've created Austin350, which connects local to global action!

Around April 22nd Austin Green Art hosted thousands of neighbors to our version of sustainable culture. We partnered with the Austin Farmers Market again this year to host Austin's Earth Day, and we had production assistance from Sustainable Waves, our amazing local solar-powered music provider. We had amazing community sponsorship support from companies that are legitimately making Austin more sustainable. Sixty non-profit organizatons and green businesses set up displays of incredible variety. We had green art displays, an algae-sequestration trailer demo and a green art kids area. We were joined during the day by Lloyd Doggett, our region's congressman, and had a dozen musical performances. See for yourself!

Earth Day activities culminated on Tuesday the 22nd in a SOLD OUT screening of The 11th Hour at Alamo Drafthouse, our amazing local theater provider. The screening was sponsored by Levelfield.com and provided Austin Green Art with substantial fundraising. I got the opportunity to talk about the film on our local radio station KGSR the morning before, and the local FOX affiliate host and I talked about it at length on Earth Day on the morning show.

As an arts group, we see our main role as provoking questions about these complex issues through creative expression of all kinds. We are not beholden to any group or platform, and we surprise a lot of "greens" by working with unconventional corporate partners at times. That said, we are extremely pleased to have The 11th Hour as a comprehensive resource to familiarize and challenge our community to the state of emergency that is the status quo.

We welcome opportunity to promote the film through our websites, our art projects and the media exposure that we drive. AGA is working on the finishing touches of its first big out-of-region project in Pittsburgh, PA next week. We aspire to scale our efforts internationally to engage local communities in our brand of communication and artmaking and community-building that directly addresses the heart of The 11th Hour message -- how do we shape a new, sustainable culture? We'd love to join you in your community to shape one of our unique projects.

On May 20th AGA is hosting a follow-up discussion at a local coffee shop in the evening to discuss the film.

Sustainably yours,

Randy Jewart

Director

Austin Green Art

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