Emergence Summit - Plans Revealed

25th July 2012

Building upon the conferences, discussions and workshops of the Cynnal Cymru - Sustain Wales initiative, delivered in partnership with British Council Wales and Fern Smith from Volcano Theatre in 2010, Emergence Summit 2012 : Creating the Future will now develop those ideas. Together with the delegates at the summit, Emergence intends to discover a positive and practical way forward for creative practice, and foster a movement for cultural change in support of the technological innovations that will lead us towards a low carbon, sustainable Wales.

For the past year Fern Smith, of Swansea based Volcano Theatre with the backing of the Arts Council of Wales, has been pulling together a team of creative practitioners to work with the Centre for Alternative Technology near Machynlleth to imagine an event that will provoke and stimulate positive action towards sustainable practice and living. What was imagined by Fern's team can now be revealed, and for those who sign up to attend the summit those ideas will soon become a reality.

"The conference aims not only to discuss and debate change, but to become a vehicle for change itself" - Fern Smith, Volcano Theatre.

A concious effort has been made to emphasise the search for positive cultural responses to the questions that arise from imagining a sustainable future. The imagined futures that culture currently produces, in the form of films, literature and artworks of all kinds, based on the background of the threats to society that climate change, pollution, corporate greed and increasing industrialisation produces, is generally that of distopia, catastrophe, gloom and doom. The aim of this summit is to find a way through this cultural darkness and create a positive cultural response to imagining the future.

And to do this, Emergence and the Centre for Alternative Technology, have re-imagined the idea of the conference itself. From the 1st of September to the 6th some of the delegates will participate in a walk, a 'Land Journey' that has been curated by artist Simon Whitehead. The Land Journey will culminate at CAT where the conference itself will be held over the week end of the 7th to 9th of September with over 200 delegates attending. A number of artists have also been commissioned to create works especially for this event.

Fern Smith of Volcano Theatre with Simon Whitehead, curator of the Land Journey, and Ben Stammers one of the commissioned artists, look over a map of the proposed routes for the Land Journey.

To register please go to www.cat.org.uk/emergence-2012

Video documentation of previous Emergence - Eginiad conferences can be accessed HERE

Below is a pdf of the press release with more information about Emergence Summit 2012 : Creating the Future

Additional Information (263.96Kb)

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