Still Water Co-Director Joline Blais plants the seeds of sustainable gardening at the Belfast Cohousing & Ecovillage in midcoast Maine.
Tags: Belfast, GreenHouse, sharing, sustainability, Wabanaki
Internship 1:
Orono Transitional Landscape Internship
Live-in, low rent permaculture. $300/week rent
May 31-Aug 31
Contact: William Giordano on first class.
Faculty sponsor: Prof. Joline Blais
Orono Transitional Landscape Internship
Live-in, low rent permaculture. $300/week rent
May 31-Aug 31
Contact: William Giordano on first class.
Faculty sponsor: Prof. Joline Blais
This internship is a living/learning opportunity that focuses on training and experience. Live and work in your own garden in Orono, and assist in the development of a home-scale edible landscape, in exchange for reduced rent. food harvest and permaculture training in a shared household.
The home, on the south edge of campus, is a transitional edible landscape and includes fruit/berries/nuts, medicinal herbs, kitchen herbs, annual and perennial vegetables, a greenhouse, cold frames and an ebible plant/tree nursery. Interest for summer interns could include engaging any of these areas. Opportunities for permaculture design training and certification available via summer projects/classes. Internships involve 1 day per week in the garden and grounds.
- Live on site for $300/month, and work 8-10 hours/week.
- Laundry/dishwasher on-site. eat-in kitchen, dining room, finished basement, 2 bathrooms.
- 3 Rooms available. 1/8 mile from campus and 1/2 mile from downtown Orono.
- Mature highbush blueberries in July/August
- Pick salad greens from outside the front door daily
- Learn/assist in caring for edible tree crops (plums, pears, apples, butternuts, hazelnuts etc)
- Learn/assist in growing herbal medicines
- Make far less trips to the grocery store
- Help establish a lively evening bonfire/music scene for summer fun
- Connect with Lucerne Lakeside permaculture side for exchanges, swimming, boating, camping
Seeking:
- Garden skills of any kind, or willingness to learn quickly
- Ability to make clear observations and record findings
- Research skills for connecting available models to actual gardens
- Ability to work well on team and on own
- Holistic/Systems thinking an asset, seeing patterns and whole picture as well as local details
- Design & digital skills helpful for documenting (photography, video, web skills)
Internship 2:
Native/PermaCulture
Lakeside forest permaculture
One day/week, $50/week stipend
May 31-Aug 31
Contact/Faculty sponsor: Prof. Joline Blais
This internship is for a Native American student interested in learning more about your own culture’s gardening methods and permaculture gardening and how to weave the two together. The Internship will involve one day gardening in Dedham, Maine (4-5 hours in the garden, 1-2 hours on the lake–swimming, canoeing, etc), as well as researching your own garden traditions and finding out how to integrate the two together. When Europeans came to this continent they often clear cut forest and planted their own crops. This form of gardening is about making peace in the plant kingdom–learning about polycultures that integrate European and Native types of edible and medicinal plants.
You will also learn about local native plants, especially weeds (which are highly nutritious and healing to earth and body), mushroom, insects, local fauna, medicine and ceremony. The intent is for you to act as an ambassador between cultures, brining the best from both worlds across the cultural divide and into the earth where we all are related. We will document and catalogue this research using digital photography, video, and web skills, as well as writing about our experiences. Our goal is to create enough interest to apply for grants for future funding for ongoing research. Must be motivated, hard-working, enjoy outdoors, enjoy talking to elders, and willing to learn and integrate skills in digital culture, permaculture and Native Culture. Child care possible for young parents interested in this opportunity.
- Lucern, Maine, on the edge of Phillips lake
- One day/week, $50/day
Seeking:
- Eagerness to conduct research in field and in culture
- Keen observation skills of natural and cultural phenomena
- Interest in digital skills
- Connect with LongGreenHouse site in Orono for more urban permaculture options
Fall 2010-Spring 2011 Internships
Fall internships will pick up on the work of both internships, and involve students in UMaine degree/for credit courses. All Students living at LongGreenHouse are required to link at least one of their courses with LongGreenHouse work, whether as a capstone project, a course research project, or an independent study project.
On 2 May 2010, Joline Blais gives a Permaculture walkthrough and workshop for University of Maine students at the Belfast CoHousing & Ecovillage, Belfast, Maine. Students in Emily Markides PAX class see a real ecovillage under construction and find out how its members balance practicality and idealism from BCHE member Blais and Radical Simplicity author Jim Merkal, who also attended the event.
Shown: BCHE’s zero-energy prototype house, built by G●OLogic.
Tags: Belfast, class, education, GreenHouse, sustainability, University of Maine
Waterfall Arts presents Still Water Co-Director Joline Blais talking about her work in ecology, the New Commons, and cross-cultural networking on Monday 26 April at 7pm.
Tags: art, Belfast, GreenHouse, LongHouse, network, New Media, presentation, sharing, Still Water, sustainability
On March 30, 2010, Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito present “Beyond Facebook: From Cliques to Kinship” as part of the University of Maine’s Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program.
Tags: education, LongHouse, network, orono, presentation, privacy, sharing, society, Still Water, University of Maine
Still Water has been awarded a Maine Water Resources Research Institute grant for a community-based ecological intervention that is creative and practical at the same time. The project takes place at LongGreenHouse, a site at the southern edge of the Orono campus dedicated to the intersection of old and new models of sustainability.
The initiative will take a core Permaculture design principle–”the problem is the solution”–and focus energy on transforming a current economic and ecological liability (stormwater run-off) into an educational and economic asset (collaborative ecological restoration and food production). In the process–via online documentation, social networking, and artists’ engagement–this LongGreenHouse project will raise public awareness of the effectiveness of collaborative and ecological designs.
The application received the highest score of relevance from all three of its reviewers, who noted:
“I have met with the investigators and am convinced that their work will be of the highest caliber. They are inventive and dedicated and have been inspirational to students and faculty on campus.”
“This proposal’s potential value to society is great–especially in an increasingly resource constrained world where current human behavior, technologies and development patterns are nearly completely unsustainable and in need of deep redesign….its integration of art, community and design engineers holds the potential to communicate the culture-shift necessary to move up-stream and eventually eliminate many of the toxic and organic sources of waste currently entering water ways.”
Tags: grant, GreenHouse, LongHouse, Still Water, sustainability, University of Maine
Still Water is pleased to announce the publication of 60: Innovators Shaping Our Creative Future, a landmark book on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of renowned art and design publishing house Thames & Hudson. Still Water co-directors Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito penned the new media section of this book, which profiles five of the most innovative creators on the planet today.
These visionaries take the lessons learned from experiments in online communities and apply them to real-world problems, whether making cities sustainable, holding corporations accountable, or re-imagining laws that govern the flow of information. Included among these innovators are Maine’s own Miigam’agan and gkisedtanamoogk, Wabanaki elders who are building bridges between their ancestors’ lifeways and the 21st century.
“Every now and again along comes a book that acts as a cultural bookmark … Thames & Hudson’s new doorstopper Sixty is just such a book” — Grafik Magazine
“A collection of incredible, truly inspiring work from all over the world.” — The Design Files.
“Showcases the most creative minds in fashion, architecture, photography, green technology and science.” — New Scientist
“Fascinating insights into global projects that may predict future directions are presented here in an informative and visually appealing format.” — Library Journal
Tags: art, New Media, publication, Still Water
A new University of Maine class in Life Art (NMD430/520) explores the boundaries of artistic collaboration by encouraging students to co-create with entire ecosystems of humans and other critters.
Life artists may :
- Crowd-source their artmaking with 10,000 earthworms.
- Get frogs to do their drawings for/with them.
- Create sculpture ‘for the birds’ so they can survive destroyed migratory paths across continents.
- Clone cruelty-free meat via the latest gene manipulation.
- Get Michelle Obama to “perform” their art piece.
- Plan an art opening with full course cross-species meals (eg for human and geese).
Student projects may draw from indigenous culture, digital culture, and/or permaculture, and will be featured in an exhibition at the end of the term. The course takes place at the Hutchinson Center in Belfast, Maine and is organized by Joline Blais in collaboration with Waterfall Arts and Unity College.
This New Media class is open to graduate students, qualified undergraduates, and members of the community. For more information, contact Joline Blais.
Tags: art, Belfast, class, GreenHouse, LongHouse, New Media, Still Water, sustainability, University of Maine, Wabanaki
From 24-26 September 2009, Espacio Enter brought artists, performers, technologists, and theorists to Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands off the coast of Africa. Organized by Montse Arbelo and Joseba Franco, directors and founders of ART TECH MEDIA, the conference explored possible scenarios for the future of creativity and new media over the next few decades, and gathered a diverse ensemble of presenters representing art, industry, and particle physics.
The cultural preconditions for sharing culture, energy, and emotion were a recurrent topic among presenters at Espacio Enter’s “Future Now” symposium, who hailed from Japan, Australia, and other Asian locales as well as Europe and the US. Eyebeam director Amanda McDonald-Crowley surveyed her institution’s many creative approaches to sustainability. Korean puppeteer Semi Ryu used a digital interface to inject reciprocality into the relationship between puppets and their “masters.” Transmediale curator Ela Kagel described her research on hybrid economies, and wondered aloud what a business run according to artistic principles might look like.
Drawing on themes from At the Edge of Art and the forthcoming book The Innovators, Joline Blais and Jon Ippolito presented “New Media Join the Rest of the World,” a look at creators who are taking the lessons learned in building online communities and re-applying them back in the real world. While Blais and Ippolito stressed the way networks can level the playing field compared to the hierarchies of broadcast media, Gunalan Nadarajan pointed out that the very inequalities of networks such as the electrical grid can become artistic fodder in the hands of artists such as Ashok Sukumaran, who invites street vendors in Bombay to share electricity with local apartment owners.
Blais in turn argued that the ethic of networks is one of connection rather than detachment, and that the simple act of listening to the natural world can be revolutionary in the face of the increasing mediation of technology and consumer culture. She demo’d the project Request For Ceremony, a set of community-created protocols for reconnecting with nature modeled on the famous Request for Comments (RFCs) that galvanized designers of the early Internet.
All in all, the discussion reinforced the importance of distinguishing between the technical and social definitions of shared networks.
Tags: Africa, art, GreenHouse, LongHouse, network, New Media, presentation, sharing, Still Water, sustainability
As the final speaker in the panel discussion “Re-Imagining Globalism: Maine in the World’s Economy” at Bates College on Jan. 25, 2008, Peter Riggs, Executive Director of the Forum on Democracy and Trade, concluded his talk on climate change and international relations with a call for a new kind of creativity:
“Probably the most exciting part of looking ahead to what is a climate-constrained world, is the opportunity of new art forms to emerge. If cinema was the artform of the twentieth century, I submit to you that the artform of the twenty-first century is going to be–and it’s performance art by the way–restoration ecology.”
The talk was featured in Maine Public Radio’s “Speaking in Maine” series; mp3 and podcast available.
For reference, here’s a longer transcription of Riggs concluding remarks.
“Finally, since we are in a liberal arts school, I think probably the most exciting part of looking ahead to what is a climate-constrained world, is the opportunity of new art forms to emerge. If cinema was the art form of the twentieth century, I submit to you that the art form of the twenty-first century is going to be–and it’s performance art by the way–restoration ecology. Because we’re going to get really good at understanding how to rebuild ecosystems on their timescale and their timeframes, and that interrogative process of what ecosystems need to flourish, particularly in a time of atmospheric change, will teach us a lot. And I personally look forward to more engagement on the art and science of restoration ecology, because I really think that’s the future.”
Tags: economics, GreenHouse, Maine, Still Water, sustainability, Wassookeag
