Blog

I’m just starting another eco-art project at OISE this term, and thought I’d track its development through a few blog entries.  It’s been taking a month or two to percolate on new ideas, trying to figure out what might be a manageable project to work on with my education students.  Getting projects up and running often takes more time than actually doing them – it involves getting others to buy into the concept, finding funding and an appropriate context to exhibit them in. 

But the project is finally taking shape.  It relates to OISE’s ‘Take the Stairs’ campaign – we’re creating a new series of artworks for the main stairwell in the OISE building.  I discovered last summer that the bank of six elevators in our building is the biggest energy hog in the building, so if we can get people to walk the stairs more and take the elevators less, it will result in energy savings, as well as a range of health benefits for those who walk.  Our hope is that placing a series of environmentally-themed artworks in the stairwells can improve the stairwell spaces aesthetically, raise awareness about environmental issues generally, and take action on energy conservation.

Before the artworks are created there is still work to do on developing partnerships to make the artworks – over time we’d like to include worksfrom a range of people in the OISE community, including staff, students and faculty.  We’re going to start by bringing in children’s art’s from our lab school, the Institute for Child Study, showing what they have learned about the environment through their Natural Curiosity project.  Stay tuned to track this project as it develops!