Statement of Thanks

Autumn 2023 Newsletter will be the last newsletter of Work Package 5 -Media and Art (WP5) within Mistra-EC programme. Taking this occasion, we would like to extend our warmest thanks to all our colleagues, supporters, partners, and collaborators who have worked with us throughout the four-year phase of Mistra Environmental Communication Research Programme, as part of WP5.

Looking forward to future collaborations!

Testimonials

Here, you can view the testimonials of colleagues and societal partners about the activities of WP5.

Click to view the Testimonials

Interview with Nico Carpentier: On the Participatory and Innovative Dimensions of Environmental Communication

In this interview, media and communication researcher Nico Carpentier tells us about the activities and outputs of WP5 and Mistra-EC@ICSJ team, the participatory dimensions of this work, including decentralization of academic knowledge production through academia-art-civil society collaborations, the Moulding Nature exhibition produced as a result of these collaborations, and much more!

Read the interview with Nico Carpentier here.

Interview with MEC@ICSJ team: Vaia Doudaki, Gerardo Nicoletta & Elisabeth Wennerström

WP5 researchers at Charles University in Prague tell us about their work within Mistra-EC programme and share their reflections on the contributions of this work in moving beyond the barriers between academia and civil society, and promoting environmental literacy at all levels.

Read the interview with MEC@ICSJ team here.

WP5 highlights

In this section, you will find some highlights from the outputs of WP5’s work, including publications, exhibitions, films and videos, screenings, presentations and talks, educational content, and more!

Publications	Exhibitions	Films

Videos	Environmental Ideologies Map	Presentations & Talks

Screenings	Artist-in-Residence (AiR) Programme	Events

MORE

New article: Mapping environment-focused social media, audiovisual media and art, in Sweden: How a diversity of voices and issues is combined with ideological homogeneity

The article by Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier, titled Mapping environment-focused social media, audiovisual media and art, in Sweden: How a diversity of voices and issues is combined with ideological homogeneity has been published in the Communications.

New article: A Social Mapping of Swedish Environment-Focussed Facebook Groups: The Principles, Methods and Implementation of a Mapping Project

The article by Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier, titled A Social Mapping of Swedish Environment-Focussed Facebook Groups: The Principles, Methods and Implementation of a Mapping Project (open access) has been published in Telematics and Informatics.

Upcoming article: Strategies and tactics to communicate ‘nature’: beyond anthropocentrism in Swedish media

The article by Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta and Derya Yüksek titled Strategies and tactics to communicate ‘nature’: beyond anthropocentrism in Swedish media has been accepted for publication in Journal of Communication Inquiry.

Upcoming article: Unpacking the Discursive Assemblages of Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism: Articulations of Space, Place and Time in the Documentary Film Gállok

The article by Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier, titled Unpacking the Discursive Assemblages of Anthropocentrism and Ecocentrism: Articulations of Space, Place and Time in the Documentary Film Gállok has been accepted for publication in Interactions: Studies in Communication & Culture..

Events - Exhibition: Moulding Nature - Discursive Struggles over Environment

The exhibition Moulding Nature - Discursive struggles over the environment is taking place at Stockholm-based arts centre Färgfabriken from 26 August until 26 November 2023. Curated by Nico Carpentier, Daniel Urey, and Emilia Rosenqvist, as part of WP5 coordinated by the Mistra-EC team at ICSJ , the exhibition will be open to visitors until 26 November, from Wednesday to Sunday, between 11.00-16.00.

Driven by an ideological map developed by Nico Carpentier (with a design by Irene Straccuzzi), Moulding Nature raises questions about how we perceive our environment, and brings together video works, collages, photos and installations that explore how different discourses affect the way we give meaning to nature and the role of mankind in it.

A large part of the visual material in the exhibition has been produced through co-creative activities, with artists and other participants from different geographical and social contexts, resulting in a number of installations that highlight the many layers of interpretations, voices and conflicts of interest characterising landscapes, forestry, gardens and urban environments.

Events - Upcoming: Moulding Nature Finissage at Färgfabriken

The closing of Moulding nature: Discursive struggles over the environment exhibition will take place on 26 November 2023, Sunday from 11.00 to 16.00, with a finissage organized at Färgfabriken to celebrate the end of the project.

The program for the Finissage includes a performance, a roundtable, and a ritual dismantlement. All are warmly welcome! Click here for more information on the event.

News: Environmental Ideologies Map is Online!

Environmental Ideologies Map online platform that explores competing ideological projects over humannature relationships and the more-than-human world(s) has been launched in September 2023!

Developed as part of WP5, by post-doc researcher Gerardo Costabile Nicoletta, together with programmers Orestis Tringides and George Nicolau, the platform provides an overview of the many environmental ideologies that intervene in our thinking about (and our acting in relation to) nature, and allows visitors to navigate diverse clusters of meanings over nature, sustainability, and climate change, as well as the discursive struggles between them. The textual and audio-visual content of the platform has been produced by scholars from the fields of environmental humanities and communication, media studies, philosophy, and anthropology, based on an earlier designed map of 37 interconnected ideological projects over the environment, sustainability, and, more generally, human-nature relationships, identified through WP5 research.

The platform aims to serve as a resource for everyone interested in environmental matters, while specifically targeting educators who seek captivating teaching resources that unravel the complexities of environmental discourses shaping societal and political debates, and foster understanding and dialogues in environmental matters in the classroom context.

Click here for more information on Environmental Ideologies Map.

Flyer for academic promotion can be downloaded here. Flyer for broader distribution can be downloaded here.

Videos: NEW

• Epistle from an Obscure Man is a video letter by Marcus Bussey at University of the Sunshine Coast, about releasing new possibilities for the future by tapping into cultural creativity and anticipatory imagination. Click here to view the video.

• #uglynatureselfies is a short fiction film by Tessa Joosse inspired by the paper ‘The quest for “nature” in selfies’. In the movie an influencer is questioning the representation of nature on social media. Click here to view the video

• The Environmental Ideologies Map: An artistic-academic intersection at Färgfabriken is a video by Nico Carpentier about the Environmental Ideologies Map displayed at the “Moulding Nature” Exhibition. Click here to view the video.

• AIR is a short video about Mistra-EC’s artist-in-residence programme, featuring experiences and outputs of the resident artists in Prague (Czech Republic), Uppsala (Sweden), and the Sunshine Coast (Australia). Click here to view the video.

• A Visit to Moulding Nature is a brief video impression of the “Moulding Nature” Exhibition organized at Färgfabriken (Stockholm, Sweden) from 26 August to 26 November 2023. Click here to view the video.

Click here to view all videos.

Screenings: Power & Gardens Screening at Moulding Nature Exhibition

Power and Gardens is part of the videos that will be screened throughout the Moulding Nature Exhibition at Färgfabriken during 26 August-26 November 2023. This four-part video essay by Nico Carpentier investigates how human-nature relationships are condensed in the gardens of the European cities of Paris, Lyon and Prague, driven by a discursive-material analysis.

Click here for more information.

NMEC Screening at Film Geographies RGS-IBG 2023

New Modes of Environmental Communication: Four Street Art Experiments has been selected for Film Geography's RGS-IBG 2023 screening, organized under the theme of Climate Changed Geographies. The online screening took place on 30 August 2023.

This documentary by Ali Minanto features the experiment, where WP5 researchers commissioned four Indonesian street artists to produce four street artworks in Yogyakarta: “Welcome New Pollution” by Anagard, “Plant Trees Plant Hope” by Guerrillas, “Plastic Reduce” by Kinky Twenty, and “Planting Determination” by Young Surakarta, providing visual (and highly visible) alternative discourses that critique indifference towards, and exploitation of, the environment.

Read more about the screening here.

Read more about the film here.

AiR News: Of knots and whorls

‘Of knots and whorls’ is a creative project developed by Caitlin Franzmann during AiR@USC at the Sunshine Coast, Australia in March-April 2023. During the residency, Caitlin carried out field research in the native hoop pine plantations of the Mary Valley region, where her Danish ancestors ‘selected’ unceded land belonging to the Kabi Kabi/Gubbi Gubbi people.

As an outcome of this eco-cultural research, Caitlin created sculptural works guided by hoop pine: more specifically their knots and whorling branches. Through what is often considered undesirable within the timber industry, she explored the knot as a meshwork of stories, feelings, histories and multi-species relations.

Click here to read more about Caitlin’s residency works.

Click here to read Caitlin’s blogpost about AiR@USC.

AiR News: ’On the quiet surface’ at Metro Arts, Brisbane

A selection of Caitlin Franzmann’s works carried out during AiR@USC were presented as part of exhibition 'Artefacts of a Working Process' at Metro Arts, Brisbane during 24 June-15 July 2023.

In addition to the sculptural works, Caitlin delivered a collaborative participatory event, ‘the stories we water’ with Sunshine Coast based artists Libby Harward and Dominique Chen on 24 June, as part of same exhibition. For the event, Libby, Dominique and Caitlin each contributed a personally significant plant into an unfolding recipe of tales.

Click here to read more about Caitlin’s residency works.

New Presentations/Talks

• CARPENTIER, NICO (2023) Moulding Nature- Discursive Struggles over the Environment Exhibition Opening Talk, Färgfabriken, Stockholm, Sweden (26 August 2023).

• CARPENTIER, NICO, 
DOUDAKI, VAIA (2023) A discourse-theoretical analysis of the discursive assemblage of ecocentrism and its ethics in the Swedish television series Jordskott, IAMCR conference, Lyon, France (9-13 July 2023).

• CARPENTIER, NICO (2023) Discursive Struggles over the Environment: An Ideological Map, ICA conference, Toronto, Canada (25-29 May 2023).

• CARPENTIER NICO (2023) Power and Gardens – A reflection on the taming of nature, Historiska och samtida perspektiv på trädgården, National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden (27 April 2023).

• CARPENTIER, NICO (2023) Beyond Information: Mapping Discursive Struggles over the Environment in Swedish Media, Visuality 2023 Conference, Vilnius Gediminas TechnicalUniversity, Vilnius, Lithuania (20–21 April 2023), invited keynote.

You can view the presentations and talks made by WP5 researchers here.

New Online Texts

“Of knots and whorls” by Caitlin Franzmann, resident artist for the AiR@USC at the Sunshine Coast, Australia.

You can view the online texts written as part of WP5 research and collaborations here.