In 2018, the directors of the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) invited Beatriz Maturana Cossio as the Founder of Architects for Peace and academic of University of Chile, to be a member of the judging panel for the competition for an urban intervention in the highly controversial St. Kilda triangle in Melbourne, Australia. The competition was a call for feasible proposals for an urban intervention based on a cross disciplinary response to this unique public space, based in landscape and urban design and the physical, social and economic aspects of sustainability. A perfect fit for the principles of Architects for Peace. LAGI occurs in a different city each year. The following article, published with the permission of its authors, presents LAGI’s contribution to the built environment through ecological civic art that produces renewable energy.
ENERGY
OVERLAYS
Civic Art for a Circular Economy
Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian
Founding Directors,
Land Art Generator Initiative
“The next culture will be a culture of ‘stewardship,’ the energy driving it will be renewable, and the art it produces
will be quite different from the art favored by production and consumption
cultures.” — Margaret Atwood on the writing of Barry Lord1
“All life is a struggle for free
energy.” — Leslie White2
More
than a decade after the release of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth there
remains a vocal segment of the public who are unmoved by images showing rising
sea levels and global heat map projections. Talk of mass extinction events and
droughts still does not seem to motivate many of us to take civic action to
protect the climate. In some cases it can have the exact opposite effect,
either entrenching denial or causing political paralysis in the face of the
problem’s enormity. The scope of climate change leaves many feeling
un-empowered as individuals to make a difference.
It pains us to hear such acquiescence on
display, like the time we casually remarked about the unusual weather we were
experiencing during the week of one of our LAGI workshops. A 14-year old girl
responded in earnest, “I heard the world is ending because of the climate.”
What if instead we could change the
message of fear and disaster into one of hope and optimism—an inspirational
message about the greatness of a post-carbon future? What if rather than show
disaster images to run away from, we could instead design a future that people
desire to run towards? What if we changed the conversation about gloom and doom
to one of beauty and cultural transformation? While science communication has
enlightened the world and brought us to where we are today in the climate
debate, it is the humanities and the arts that make us unique and that remind
us of what is worth saving for tomorrow.
Culture and energy are two sides of the same coin, but as a consequence of this geometry they rarely catch a glimpse of
one another. We know that fuel and electricity keep the lights bright upon our
stages, the welding torches lit, and our audio visual equipment humming. It is
energy that makes it possible to turn four billion trees every year into
magazines, journals, paper, and books.3 Culture can be thought of as
a reflection of a society’s ability to orchestrate the use of energy beyond
that required for the most basic human survival.
 | La Monarca. This Land Art Generator Solar Mural artwork for San Antonio is a functioning solar array with a capacity of 1 kW. The graphic was designed by San Antonio artist Cruz Ortiz with creative direction by Penelope Boyer. Photographed at the San Antonio Zoo by Penelope Boyer |
