Animated story of plastic garbage floating on our oceans and its impact on us and our environment. UpGyres works to stop

Animated story of plastic garbage floating on our oceans and its impact on us and our environment. UpGyres works to stop plastic from getting into the ocean by promoting to reduce, reuse, recycle, recover, rethink and upcycle plastic waste on land.

Upcycle the Gyres Society (UpGyres)is  a not-for profit organization in the Province of British Columbia, Canada.

The Global Ocean Commission,

The Global Ocean Commission, an independent body of international leaders, launched in London on 12th February with the aim of reversing degradation of the ocean and restoring it to full health and productivity.

Please join The Commonwealth Club of California and UC Berkeley’s Townsend Center for the Humanities for the second in a series of dialogues on catastrophe, storytelling and the present

Please join The Commonwealth Club of California and UC Berkeley’s Townsend Center for the Humanities for the second in a series of dialogues on catastrophe, storytelling and the present moment. In “Climate Change and Sacred Groves,” Townsend Center scholar Sugata Ray will meet with visual artist Ranu Mukherjee to investigate the relationship between the natural world and the sacred realm, especially as it has developed in India over the last several centuries of civilization and the rise of the Anthropocene era.

In his most recent book, Climate Change and the Art of Devotion, Sugata shows how a site-specific and ecologically grounded theology emerged in northern India in the wake of the Little Ice Age (ca. 1550–1850), an epoch marked by climatic catastrophes across the globe. His interests dovetail in unexpected and compelling ways with Ranu’s visionary and captivating recent work, which positions the banyan tree as a meeting point between ecology and culture. Their conversation will be an opportunity for viewers to contemplate and rethink the role of art as it relates to contemporary concerns around climate, disease, human flourishing and the sacred.

Sugata Ray is associate professor of South and Southeast Asian art in the History of Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley. His research and writing focus on climate change and the visual arts from the 1500s onward. Ray is the author of Climate Change and the Art of Devotion: Geoaesthetics in the Land of Krishna, 1550–1850 (2019); Water Histories of South Asia: The Materiality of Liquescence (2019; coedited); and Ecologies, Aesthetics, and Histories of Art (forthcoming; coedited).

Ranu Mukherjee is a visual artist who makes paintings, animations and large-scale installations. Her current work focuses on shifting senses of ecology, non-human agency, diaspora, migration and transnational feminist experience. Her most recent installation was presented at the ecologically focused 2019 Karachi Biennale; she has exhibited solo at the San Jose Museum of Art, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Asian Art Museum, and the de Young Museum. She is an associate professor in graduate fine art at the California College of the Arts. Mukherjee is represented by Gallery Wendi Norris.

NOTES
Artwork from The Met (in public domain): "Krishna and Balarama by a River: Page from a Dispersed Bhagavata Purana (Ancient Stories of Lord Vishnu)"

Part one in this series, “The Book of Exodus,” can be viewed here


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Chetan Singh Solanki discusses his work towards sustainability through his “Energy Swaraj” lifestyle, and the immediate actions we can take to combat climate change across the globe,

Chetan Singh Solanki discusses his work towards sustainability through his “Energy Swaraj” lifestyle, and the immediate actions we can take to combat climate change across the globe, drawing concepts from his book "Energy Swaraj—My Experiments with SOLAR Truth".

Educator, researcher and innovator Chetan Singh Solanki is currently on an Energy Swaraj Yatra, which includes fully living on a solar bus for 10 years. Having started in November 2020 in the wake of catastrophic climate change, and committing until 2030, the purpose is to create a public movement towards the adoption of the use of 100% solar energy. Solanki has been referred to as the “Solar Man of India” by some, while others call him the “Solar Gandhi.” Following Gandhian ideals, he coined the phrase ‘Energy Swaraj’, and to establish it globally, he founded the Energy Swaraj Foundation (ESF). Solanki has also led major solar projects at IIT Bombay, including his SoULS project, in which he provided clean, efficient, affordable and reliable energy for 7.5 million families.

Solanki has been the recipient of many awards and accolades, including but not limited to: the Prime Minister’s Innovation Award for his SoULS project, the first prize in the Solar Chulha Design Challenge by ONGC, and three Guinness World Records. He is the Chairman of the committee of the Central Board of Secondary Education and a member of the National Focus Group on Environmental Education. He is the author of 7 books, has published over 100 research papers internationally and has 4 U.S. patents to his credit.

For more information on Solanki and his Energy Swaraj Yatra, please visit https://energyswaraj.org/.

Get the book here: https://goo.gle/3F5v6Q0.

Moderated by Johnson Jose.

Published on Mar 22, 2017