Art & Media 38.3

Art & Media 38.3

Art is powerful. Art can both explain the world around us, and inspire people to care about it. Art & Media is an extension of our annual EcoBooks issue, featuring provocative and compelling visual art by the likes of Iain Baxter&, Broken City Lab, Cory Trépanier, Greg Euclide, Ed Schleimer and the late Robert Smithson.

Art is powerful. Art can both explain the world around us, and inspire people to care about it. Art & Media is an extension of our annual EcoBooks issue, featuring provocative and compelling visual art by the likes of Iain Baxter&, Broken City Lab, Cory Trépanier, Greg Euclide, Ed Schleimer and the late Robert Smithson.

Jeff Gailus investigates similarities and differences between nature writing in Canada and the US, while Chris Turner shares an excerpt from his recently released book. Robert Bateman is worried that youth are losing their ability to connect with nature, and the printing industry gets a double analysis by Nicole Rycroft, Anna Bowen and Roger Suffling. Book reviews abound, and Chris Wood gets the last word: “Everything is free now”.

Read selected articles and web extras from this issue

Here’s what else you get when you buy the issue:

Letters to the Editor

In Brief: Animal Pharm, Arsenal Kiss-Off, Enbridge Too Far – Emma Bocking

Who Do You Love?
We asked four friends of Alternatives to identify their favourite environmentally minded artists and explain what grabbed them.

A Brush of Dissent – Eric Rumble

With watercolour and cold, hard facts, a new book exposes 23 years of unresolved aquifer contamination.

Into the North – Nicola Ross

The great big vision of landscape painter Cory Trépanier.

Dirty Dancing – Lin Snelling
From confronting the tar sands to communing with the cosmos, five artists explain how they connect with nature to protect it.

The Melbourne Miracle – Chris Turner
Even the most car-obsessed new-world metropolis can successfully apply Danish urban design.

In Review
Industrial Evolution: Local Solutions for a Low Carbon Future, by Lyle Estill – Reviewed by Kyrke Gaudreau

This Crazy Time: Living Our Environmental Challenge, by Tzeporah Berman – Reviewed by Nicola Ross

Rethinking the Great White North: Race, Nature and the Historical Geographies of Whiteness in Canada, by Andrew Baldwin, Laura Cameron, and Audrey Kobayashi – Reviewed by Randolph Haluza-DeLay

The Agitator’s Library – Review by Christine Krumrey, Don Alexander
Creative Community Organizing: A Guide for Rabble-Rousers, Activists, and Quiet Lovers of Justice by Si Kahn
Collective Visioning: How Groups Can Work Together for a Just and Sustainable Future by Linda Stout
Citizen You: Doing Your Part to Change the World by Jonathan Tisch with Karl Weber
A Troublemaker’s Teaparty: A Manual for Effective Citizen Action by Charles Dobson

The Last Word: Everything Is Free Now – Chris Wood
Artists do more than amuse and we’ve got ourselves a creativity glut to contend with.


We acknowledge the financial support of Canada’s International­ Development Research Centre (www.idrc.ca); EJLB Foundation; Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation; The McLean Foundation; Ontario Arts Council; Ontario Media Development Corporation; Ontario Work Study Plan and the Sustainability Network. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Periodical Fund for our publishing activities. The support of the Faculty of Envrionment at the University of Waterloo and the Waterloo Environmental Students Endowment Foundation is appreciated.

Here’s what’s online: