EXHIBITION: Reclamation: Artists’ Books on the Environment, San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Center for the Book and San Francisco Public Library host Reclamation: Artists' Books on the Environment, a juried exhibition of artists' books exploring our relationship to the environment at this moment on the planet.
Environmental concerns demand increasing attention, from rising temperatures and dangerous weather events, to crises in water quality, to multiplying fires...the list goes on, echoed around the globe. Book artists create works that involve, educate, and inspire action. Book art takes many forms. Reclamation: Artists' Books on the Environment seeks to inspire and educate viewers to reflect on climate change and its impacts locally, nationally, and internationally. At the same time, the exhibition endeavors to avoid dualistic arguments common to today’s divisive political scene.
This exhibition takes place under the umbrella of The Codex Foundation's EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss call to action.
EXHIBITION: Place and Beyond, Seoul, South Korea
Exhibition: ‘Place and beyond’
Book exhibition ‘Place and beyond’ composed of recent Datz’s publications is held at the D’Ark Room in Guui-dong, Seoul. Along the process of contemplating life and weaving it into a single book, there are poems derived from the boundaries of the inside and the outside, the reality and the ideal. We invite you to the time and space of the artists who may stand here but imagine the beyond.
Artists and Books:
Katherine Yungmee Kim ‘Longitude’
Jane Baldwin ‘Only the River Remains’
Linda Connor ‘Constellations’
Bryant Austin ‘sun, water, being’
Phyllis Galembo ‘SODO’
Mary Daniel Hobson ‘Offerings’
Barbara Bosworth ‘Sea of Clouds’
Yoonsuk Kim ‘Here to Stay’ Min Kyung ‘Her and My Parabola’
*Date: 2021, 4.30 - 8.31
Place: D’Ark Room / D’Front Space, Seoul, South Korea
CATALOG: Extraction: the Megazine: Catalog and Exhibition Guide:
EXTRACTION: THE MEGAZINE
The “Megazine” is the CODEX Foundation’s forthcoming publication for Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss, widely available in early 2021. Like the Extraction Project itself, this book is many different things at once. Partly a group catalog of extraction-related artwork, each artist or creator’s individual contribution documents their own personal investigations into the extraction question, addressing a specific issue or set of issues under the broader umbrella of the Extraction Project.
The project is by no means limited to the visual arts—in these pages you will also find poetry, critical writings, philosophical treatises, manifestos, musical scores, conversations, historical or found photographs, and much more. The words and images collected here can thus be seen as discrete stories and aesthetic investigations that nonetheless make up part of a larger ongoing story in which we are all participants (the reader included).
A number of the submissions printed here offer snapshots of research projects that are ongoing, while others provide merely a small window into a larger body of work. For this reason the reader is encouraged to dig deeper, and to regularly check the Extraction website for the latest updates as the project continues to expand and develop after the printing and distribution of this volume. Our goal is to distribute 5,000 total copies of the publication for free to all the participating galleries, museums and exhibition spaces, before the beginning of the main Extraction program. Distribution of the Megazine will bring free publicity for participating venues, not to mention the hundreds of artists who have contributed art work to the publication.
SAMPLE PAGES FROM THE MEGAZINE:
ANNOUNCEMENT: Extraction: Art on the Edge of the Abyss, Summer & Fall of 2021
EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss exhibitions will take place in multiple locations throughout the U.S. and abroad during the Summer and Fall of 2021—a multimedia, multi-venue, cross-border art intervention that will investigate extractive industry in all of its forms (from mining and drilling to the reckless exploitation of water, soil, trees, marine life, and other natural resources). The project will expose and interrogate extraction’s negative social and environmental consequences, from the damage done to people, especially Indigenous and disenfranchised communities…
PODCAST: In conversation with Ian Weldon, author and host of Outerfocus 60 Podcast Newcastle, England, June 12, 2020
Outerfocus turns 60.
I hope that you are all well during what is becoming a very troubled time, on a global scale. I believe that there is a different future on the other side and this ‘down time’ can help us to focus on what that will mean.
This week I’m afforded the opportunity to talk with the very wonderful, Jane Baldwin about her long term project about women, culture, human rights and the environmental issues that threaten the communities of Ethiopia’s Omo River Valley and Kenya’s Lake Turkana watershed.
I’d rather not get into it here but this conversation has made me think. Especially about what else I could be doing moving forward. I very much hope that you enjoy this conversation and the stories and insight herein.
“They think that we’re not educated, but we know that whenever they open their mouths they say nothing but lies”
Jane Baldwin, an American artist and educator, uses black and white film and audio recordings to document her photographic work. Baldwin’s most recent project Kara Women Speak is a multi-sensory, immersive body of work about women, culture, human rights and the environmental issues that threaten the communities of Ethiopia’s Omo River Valley and Kenya’s Lake Turkana watershed. Her advocacy for the human rights and environmental concerns of the Omo River Valley and Kenya’s Lake Turkana watershed is based on her lived experiences in the field and represents over ten years of fieldwork—2005-2014.
Initially, Baldwin traveled to Ethiopia’s Omo River Valley as a photographer. Her advocacy for the human rights and environmental concerns of Ethiopia’s Omo River Valley and Kenya’s Lake Turkana watershed developed slowly and are based on her 10 years of annual travel to the region. These experiences became an entry into the issues and fate of the communities of the Omo River Valley and Lake Turkana watershed. The project has become an overlay of women’s stories told through photography, video, ambient sounds, and recorded interviews. Her goal has been to give voice to the vulnerable and reveal the humanity of the women and their communities whose stories might otherwise disappear.
Baldwin has been able to provide additional opportunities for the women’s stories to be heard—stories of fear and concern about their future. Since 2014, she had continued to work on behalf of the indigenous people of the Omo River through museum exhibitions and collaborations with international NGOs.
Baldwin is a founding board member of PhotoAlliance San Francisco, California;
2012 - 2018, a member of the board of directors of International Rivers, Oakland, California; BA English Literature, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington; photography, UC Berkeley, San Francisco campus. Baldwin resides in Sonoma, California.
Omo River, Southwestern Ethiopia, 2010
WEBINAR: In conversation with Cleary Vaughan-Lee, ED, Global Oneness Project, Inverness, CA, May 21, 2020
Webinar discussion with documentary photographer Jane Baldwin
I've always been intrigued by the way places change over time. This is one component that we are including in our new lesson plans. We will be releasing the first batch in the coming weeks. How are the people and places featured in our short documentary films and photo essays experiencing change and what are the factors that precipitate that change?
We will be exploring this topic with photographer Jane Baldwin in our next community storyteller conversation event this Thursday, May 21th at 11am/PST. Her photo essay "Kara Women Speak" documents the lives of the Kara tribe living in the Omo River Valley, located in southwestern Ethiopia. The Omo River is the main vein of the Omo River watershed and extends more than 400 miles to feed 90 percent of Lake Turkana's water, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Kenya. Over the past decade, Jane traveled to this region photographing and recording stories from the women of Indigenous communities.
Her work is an intimate portrayal of the women who have lived for centuries unaffected by colonialism or modernity. She writes, “It’s my hope this photo essay will encourage interest in the issues facing the people of Lake Turkana and Ethiopia’s Omo River Valley. The global drive for dwindling natural resources, and destruction of healthy ecosystems, of water, soil, and air will potentially affect us all.”
A former member of the board of directors of the non-profit International Rivers, Jane will share stories and photographs from her recent trips to the Omo River Valley, a place that has experienced drastic changes due to a massive hydroelectric dam and land grabs.
Jane will also share some photography tips for those students who are entering our student photography contest. Please do bring your questions to the conversation or send them to us in advance. If you can't join us, register and we'll send you the recording. Sign language interpreters will be available during the live event.
I hope you can join us!
All the best,
Cleary Vaughan-Lee
Executive Director
Global Oneness Project
Photo by Jane Baldwin
ARTICLE: hundrED | Global Oneness Project
Image by Jane Baldwin for Global Oneness Project
Cultures around the world are vanishing at a rapid rate. Unique forms of cultural knowledge—language, myths and stories, rituals, music, artifacts, traditional dress, and unique agricultural methods—are at risk. According to UNESCO, half of the languages spoken today will disappear if nothing is done to preserve them.
Why does this matter? Anthropologist Wade Davis, in an interview with National Geographic explains, "As cultures disappear and life becomes more uniform, we as a people and a species, and Earth itself, will be deeply impoverished." Learning what is at risk is essential.
A deeper look at indigenous cultures provides students with an ever-widening window of inquiry. Students discover remote geographical places and cultural artifacts local to various regions, learn about the wisdom and ways of life of indigenous people, and examine the global issues threatening these people and places. Students find themselves in an expanding world where they are witnessing history and can become inspired to examine their own cultural values and heritage.
Asia Society recognizes the following outcomes—investigating the world, recognizing perspectives, and taking action—as indicators of global competence. These strategies, along with resources, offer ways to integrate the study of indigenous cultures into the global learning classroom.
Investigating the World
Cultural museum exhibitions, either in-person or online, provide important opportunities for students to investigate the world. Exhibitions today bridge media with traditional art forms, such as painting and photography, and offer inquiry-based tours for schools and classrooms.
Jane Baldwin, photographer of Kara Women Speak, recently said to me, "As a photographer, I believe art can inform and focus our attention in powerful and insightful ways. Through engagement and conversation, art can inspire empathy and evoke our humanity by raising awareness of political issues and be a catalyst for change."
Kara Women Speak explores the indigenous women and culture of the Omo River Valley and Lake Turkana watershed in Southwestern Ethiopia. The indigenous communities of the region are threatened by upriver hydroelectric power projects and international land grabs. For an interactive exhibit at the Sonoma Valley Art Museum in Northern California, Baldwin produced life-sized portraits, audio recordings of the Kara women, and ambient sounds from the Omo River to provide visitors with a visceral experience.
Brandon Spars, humanities teacher from Sonoma Academy High School, took his freshmen students to the exhibit to gain an understanding of complex projects that have damaging impacts. This fits with the freshmen curriculum, which explores the question, "How does geography shape culture?" The exhibit, Spars explained, was a valuable experience. His students were able to witness an important story, meet the artist, and ask questions.
Cleary Vaughan-Lee
Executive Director of the Global Oneness Project, a free multimedia education platform which hosts documentary films and photography on social, cultural, and environmental issues.
This article was originally published in Education Week and has been reposted on HundrED with the author's permission. Cover image by Taylor Weidman for Global Oneness Project. This article has been abridged.
ARTICLE: NIGRIZIA
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
The Threatened people of the Omo River Valley Ethiopia
Installation at MUDEC in Milan
Con gli occhi delle vittime | Through the eyes of the victims
Nigrizia Italy, II mensile dell’Africa e del Mondo Nero | December 2018
By Stefania Ragusa
Photographs by Jane Baldwin
In Ethiopia, a development project risks wiping out 200,000 people. At the Museum of Cultures, an exhibition tells the point of view of those who resist. An initiative by photographer Jane Baldwin, in collaboration with Studio Azzurro and Survival International.
Enter into the room and immediately be captured by the great terracotta river that “moves” still and sinuous on a long sculptural table. The visitor is invited to take a fragment of that terracotta and to drop it, through a jar, into one of the small bags hanging on the walls. At that point the corresponding screen lights up and the story begins. It may be that of a widow of the Hamar ethnic group, who explains: "This river is like mother's milk for me"; or a Kara woman, who tells how her day always begins with a visit to the river, to get water for coffee; or two young Dassanech, who ask: "Will the river continue to live or will we lose these fertile lands and water in the future?" Or it is summarized in a glance, like that of the adolescent Mursi met in a camp temporary, mounted on the banks in the dry season. The audio of the women’s original voices telling their stories is heard. The screen reveals the translations and images emerge gradually from the darkness, to be defined in vivid black and white portraits. It is a suggestive modality that emphasizes the centrality of people: those who are rarely given a voice and under normal conditions no one would care. But today their life is threatened.
The river we are talking about is the Omo, which is born in the Ethiopian plateau and, after a journey of about 800 kilometers, flows into Kenya, the lake Turkana since last June included among the endangered heritage of humanity. Hamar, Kara, Dassanech, Mursi are the peoples who have always lived alongside these waters, in an economy of self-sufficiency and in harmony with the environment. It is at least 200 thousand people. The threat that is looming is the construction of two new dams: after the gigantic Gibe III, completed in 2016, Gibe IV and Gibe V are "expected". In this case, the Italian Salini Impregilo will be the one to realize them.
The objectives? To increase the production of energy and its commercial sorting, to convert the land to intensive agriculture. A combination that will bring great gains and great evils: not only the end of the river's civilizations, but also the destruction of the extraordinary ecosystem of which the Kara and the others
have been custodians until today, as well as the opening to the notorious land grabbing.
‘If the only thing left to speak is the river’ Jane Baldwin, an American photographer and activist, traveled for ten years in the Omo Valley, photographing women and collecting their testimonies. In collaboration with the Studio Azzurro research group, who created this multimedia installation, with an evocative and eloquent title, which mixes in a narrative framework photography, video, fine art, information and poetry. If talking only the river, in a few essential steps, brings us into the point of view of the "victims": treated with hardness and sufficiency by the government, ignored in their essential requests, aware but not resigned.
"With my art, I want to draw attention to the threats facing the people of Ethiopia’s Omo River Valley and Kenya’s Lake Turkana,” explains Baldwin, “My hope is that this installation will increase awareness and instill empathy, awakening our humanity to the issues facing the peoples of this region face.”
"Like all the Indigenous peoples of the world, even the Indigenous people of Ethiopia’s Valle dell Omo are threatened by racism, theft of land, forced development and genocidal violence,” echoed Francesca Casella, who heads the Italian section of the non-governmental organization Survival International, engaged for almost 50 years in the fight against the extermination of indigenous peoples and present in the project. “We hope that this immersive experience will encourage the visitor to participate in the battle against one of the most urgent and gruesome humanitarian crises of our time.”
‘If Only The River Remains to Speak’ is hosted until 6 January 2019 at MUDEC, the Milanese Museum of Cultures. You do not have to pay the ticket and the visitor can, if he wishes, take with him, as a souvenir and memento, a small piece of terracotta, a symbolic fragment of the Omo.
ARTICLE: Con gli occhi delle vittime | Through the eyes of the victims
Con gli occhi delle vittime | Through the eyes of the victims
Stefania Ragusa for Nigrizia Magazine
December 2018
In Ethiopia, a development project risks wiping out 200,000 people. At the Museo delle Culture, an exhibition tells the point of view of those who resist. An initiative by photographer Jane Baldwin, in collaboration with Studio Azzurro and Survival International.
Read article with translation here
ARTICLE: Only the River Remains to Speak, Archi.Media Trust, Grosseto, Italy
Hamar girl ©Jane Baldwin
Only the River Remains to Speak. Multimedia exhibition to promote and support the rights and cause of the Lower Omo Valley indigenous peoples
Archi.Media | September 27, 2017
“I have one question for you – what I am asking is – is this river, where we plant our food, where we catch our fish, will this continue or will we lose this farming land and water for the future? If you know, will you share with me? We have no say. Nobody comes and explains to us. We have no future.” – Houtil Naranya, Dassanech matriarch, Kara Women Speak
The cooperation between Jane Baldwin, Studio Azzurro Produzioni, Survival International (Italy) and Archi.Media Trust Onlus for the creation of this multimedia exhibition was developed from the common will to give voice to the peoples of the Omo Valley and Lake Turkana, in Ethiopia and Kenya, and to enlighten the environmental and human rights issues that threaten them.
At the core of this advocacy initiative is photographer Jane Baldwin’s work Kara Women Speak, a project that represents over ten years of field-research, documenting the women of the Omo in their own voices and capturing the stories of issues that threaten their communities. With the cooperation of Studio Azzurro and the consultancy of Survival International (Italy), the images, the voices and the testimonies collected by Baldwin were edited and rendered in the multimedia, sensory rich and interactive exhibition Only the River Remains to Speak: a dense and compelling journey, combining the potential of new digital technologies with the materiality of raw matters, surfaces and objects, making them receptive and reactive to the gestures of the visitors.
Aim of exhibition is telling a present-day story of a river and of the peoples that it sustains, narrated in their own voices, to raise awareness about the violations of tribal peoples’ human rights, calling for the protection of their ancestral knowledge and ways of life. Only the River Remains to Speak was exhibited from 1 October 2018 to 6 January 2019 at the Museum of Cultures – MUDEC of Milan.