Building Community Resilience Online Exhibition

This is the 14th What’s Next for Earth online exhibition based on Think Resilience,
a free online course written by Richard Heinberg and produced by the Post Carbon Institute.

“In 2015, Post Carbon Institute surveyed the academic literature on resilience and talked to scholars, activists, and local leaders around the country to determine how the concepts of resilience might be most usefully applied in communities by people who aren’t resilience scientists. We found an easily understood framework that speaks directly to the challenges communities face regarding equity, group decision-making, and their complex social and economic contexts. We identified six foundations that appear necessary for community resilience-building efforts to be successful. And these are: people, systems thinking, adaptability, transformability, sustainability, and courage.”
– Richard Heinberg

Video Transcript here.

Artists

KIRSTEN AABOE (US), CHRISTINA CONKLIN (US), ALISON LEE COUSLAND (AUSTRALIA), YVONNE C. ESPINOZA (US), RIES FAISON (US), MICHELE GUIEU (US), DEBORAH KENNEDY (US), NANCY D LANE (AUSTRALIA), ROSALIND LOWRY (IRELAND), MONA NAESS (NORWAY), MEREDITH NEMIROV (US), TERRI HUGUES OELRICH (US), ANA MARTINEZ ORIZONDO (US), QUIN DE LA MER (US), BRENNA QUINLAN (AUSTRALIA), SUSAN SMITH (US), KIM TANZER (US), ANDREA RUEDY TRIMBLE (US), MARCELA VILLASENOR (US), EILEEN WOLD (US), GORDON WOOD (US), ANNE YONCHA (US)

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Exhibition

We Are All Connected to the Earth

Found object assemblage sculpture created in 24 hours

Building resilience in the face of climate crisis depends on community. By using natural and manufactured objects gathered from streets and beaches, I have tried to express our relationships to the earth and to each other. The basalt suggests the earth and its systems; the nuts and bolts, people comprising community. The twisted wire symbolizes the interconnectedness required to collectively build a better future.
2022
  • Nancy D Lane

Veneer Fire Studies

2022

Taken from the Post Carbon Institute Essays on Resilience, the following passage inspired me to submit these veneer studies on fire to the latest What’s Next For Earth Call: Building Community Resilience. (In The Leopard, a novel about the 19th century unification of Italy, a character says, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” In other words, to keep some of the things you care about, you sometimes have to give up other things. This is the essence of transformation, as opposed to mere adaptation.)

Veneer Fire Studies, 2022, are a series of works that explore wood as a carbon resource, climate stabilizer, and warning sign for accelerated global temperatures through increased wildfire threats. Human activity is still the number one threat to our forests and as we close out this year, I want to thank all of the community activists and artists keeping these conversations in the forefront.
2022
  • Eileen Wold

Transformability

Ink and watercolor on paper
9” x 12”
December 2022

From the Post Carbon Institute’s course on the Six Foundations of Building Community Resilience: “Some challenges are so big that it’s not possible for the community to simply adapt; fundamental, transformative changes may be necessary.”

This includes re-thinking systems - utilities and infrastructure - that we often take for granted and pass by daily without noticing.
2022
  • Andrea Ruedy Trimble

The Heartbeat of Trees —El Latido del Corazon de los Arboles

installation
Epecuen, Argentina

I’ve spent the last few weeks in Argentina on a residency at Epecuen, thanks to Arts Council Northern Ireland. In the 1970's following long term rain in the surrounding hills an earthen dam broke and the town of Epecuen where 5,000 people lived, was consumed by the lake, under 10 metres of water.

People in the town had a few days to evacuate before their homes disappeared. Now, 50 year's on, the water is receding and the town is being revealed again.

I had the privilege of being Artist in Residence in the ruins. This includes a forest, now a series of dead salt soaked trees. The people relocated and began their lives and built their new homes on higher land.

Throughout 2022 I have submitted and presented to the Stanford University initiative What's Next for Earth and this post is for the latest art call for Community Resilience.

In Epecuen I saw the results of sustained weather on a small community who had to work together to rebuild their lives and to develop a unique support system to survive.

This work is called The Heartbeat of Trees or El latido del corazon de los arboles.
2022
  • Rosalind Lowry

Working with, instead of on top of

First, Earth castings of plants considered invasive are created on sites with known soil and water contaminants, using that soil and water. Second and third images use textiles rescued from landfill to host prints from the most polluted spot in my home state.

“Resilience building usually tries to maintain the basic function and structure of a given system in the face of disruption. But transformational efforts are purposefully disruptive to the system…”

Collaborating with the more/than-human has been the focus of my practice this fall, working with the fellow botanical, soils and water inhabitants.

Offering this to whatsnextforearth as a hope for reimagining our relationship and a deterritorialization of place. A working with, instead of on top of. Transforming by disrupting the mode of economics that sees everything as resource. Art can be more than just window dressing for science- it can point to solutions.

Part of building resistance is having courage- and for me, that means showing up, witnessing places near and far, and forgotten communities.
2022
  • Susan Smith

Shared Experience

Digital piece created from a painting (mixed media on linen canvas)
December 2022

“We humans are social animals, and so our personal and collective identities are tied to community: to our relationships to other people and to a place; our sense of shared experience, history and culture; the smells and sounds and even the soil that we associate with «home».”

Richard Heinberg, excerpt from the Six Foundations for Building Community Resilience lesson, Think Resilience course by @postcarboninstitute.
2022
  • Mona Naess

Ecology of Oyster Reefs: Sydney Middle Harbour: No 3.

photographs

Old worn and empty oyster shells that hold so much beauty ~ For me: As a trail leading up and over part of the reef.

Top left: Along the track leading down to Middle Cove.
Top right: Shallows lapping the reef.
Centre: Reef ripples.
Bottom left: Boats anchored in Middle Cove.
Bottom right: Sea Gulls on the edge of the reef.

'The Shellfish Revolution’ is the largest community-driven shellfish reef restoration project in Australia. It’s goal is to restore shellfish reefs throughout Australia through community participation and ownership.

Building on their success of the large-scale shellfish restoration already underway in Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay, another project is underway in Geelong’s Corio Bay, focusing on a smaller-scale, community-driven approach.

And Sydney? Not even a whisper, but I’m pretty curious to hear more.

Further reading.

"Ultimately as both individuals and communities: ‘We need courage to confront challenging issues and take responsibility for our collective future." ~Richard Heinberg: Six Foundations for Building Community Resilience.
2022
  • Alison Lee Cousland

Ecology of Oyster Reefs: Sydney Middle Harbour: No 2.

photographs

Sydney’s Middle Harbour: A beautifully natural and calm haven but perhaps the water is not quite as ‘ecologically friendly’ as it needs to be for Sydney Rock Oysters to thrive as they must have once in this area of the harbour?

This ephemeral art piece was made with worn and empty oyster shells gathered from the mirky shoreline of Sydney’s Middle Harbour at Middle Cove ~ The remnants were replaced as a trail leading up and over part of the reef.

Top left: Along the ridge.
Top right: Down to the bottom and up to the top plateau.
Bottom left: Along the flat plateau.
Bottom right: On the way down again.

‘Perhaps up to 85 percent of shellfish reefs have been lost globally. And so there's a big movement globally to start restoring these oyster reefs.’

'Complete reef restoration with the support of conservation and community groups will still take many years to accomplish: However, the results are already VERY promising.'
~Ozfish.

‘Some challenges are so big that it’s not possible for the community to simply adapt: Fundamental, transformative changes may be necessary.'

And to be sustainable community resilience also: ‘Needs to work for other communities, future generations and the ecosystems on which we all depend.’
~Richard Heinberg: Six Foundations for Building Community Resilience.
2022
  • Alison Lee Cousland

Ecology of Oyster Reefs: Sydney Middle Harbour: No 1.

photograph

Sydney’s Middle Harbour: A beautifully natural and calm haven but perhaps the water is not quite as ‘ecologically friendly’ as it needs to be for Sydney Rock Oysters to thrive as they must have once in this area of the harbour? A question that I’m still in pursuit of.

This ephemeral art piece was made with some old worn and empty oyster shells that I gathered from the mirky shoreline of Sydney’s Middle Harbour at Middle Cove ~ The beautiful (to my mind) remnants were replaced as a trail leading up and over part of the reef.

In this image the oyster shells can be seen in a single line trailing over a narrow ridge of the reef (right of vertical middle) visually merging with the oyster shell embedded reef.

Further reading about the decline and restoration of Australian Oyster Reefs.

‘The power to envision the future of the community and build its resilience resides with community members.’

‘Because communities and the challenges we face are dynamic, adaptation is an ongoing process.’

~Richard Heinberg: Six Foundations for Building Community Resilience.
2022
  • Alison Lee Cousland

The Company We Keep

Metal, costume jewelry, salt, ice, plant matter, glass Petri dishes
12" diameter

Every day, the different types of lives connected in our systemic world are affected by our (human) actions.

In this year-end blizzard, as I was considering the effects of flash freezing on our wildlife, plants, and microbes (and on humans), I observed my patch of Austrian winter peas that act as both a cover crop for the soil, and as a snack for a variety of creatures living in the piles of brush. Along the edges of the icy road are plants tolerating our human need for salted streets.

And like our animal, plant, or microbial neighbors, our lives are thoroughly enmeshed with theirs. However, some of these worlds are safer than others.

Our smallest decisions affect each other’s lives and the entire system of life on our magnificent planet. As daunting as that may seem, working together with our human and non-human neighbors will enable us to develop an ongoing resilience through changes, disruptions, and upheavals.

And maybe, just perhaps, we can know what it means truly to be a good neighbor.

“Resilience building usually tries to maintain the basic function and structure of a given system in the face of disruption. But transformational efforts are purposefully disruptive to the system, changing some of its functions and structures so that it can build resilience in ways more suited to a new reality that’s simply non-negotiable.”
-Richard Heinberg
2022
  • Yvonne C. Espinoza

Ecology of Mind: There is No Garden of Eden

Acrylic Collage on Panel
20" x 20"

I will reiterate that reciprocity is essential for, to resiliency. What’s significant is how Art can connect the dots in an integral manner emphasizing transdisciplinarity, linking and enfolding it with the broader community’s resilience and “web of meaning” and values in dialogue. As David Bohm states, “My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc.”

Reciprocity - the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit. Regarding Systems Thinking; “A worm, on the other hand, along with every living entity, down to a single cell, is a complex system, which means that all its parts engage dynamically with each other in a vast number of nonlinear relationships, with feedback loops that can never be precisely described or predicted.” - Jeremy Lent

For me, this is essentially the creative process, within which one may be embedded, enfolded, in collective resilience. We humans need to reconnect as symbiotic beings in relation to our place, time and space as nature.

“Integralism is a great antidote to perceiving reality in the dualistic mode that plagues Western civilization. It calls for reciprocity and equality among all the levels of reality, and all levels of being.”
- Suzi Gablik
2022
  • Gordon Wood

Emergent Mindful Ecology

Acrylic Collage w/Metal Leaf on Panel
42.5" x 42.5"

I will reiterate that reciprocity is essential for, to resiliency. What’s significant is how Art can connect the dots in an integral manner emphasizing transdisciplinarity, linking and enfolding it with the broader community’s resilience and “web of meaning” and values in dialogue. As David Bohm states, “My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc.”

Reciprocity - the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit. Regarding Systems Thinking; “A worm, on the other hand, along with every living entity, down to a single cell, is a complex system, which means that all its parts engage dynamically with each other in a vast number of nonlinear relationships, with feedback loops that can never be precisely described or predicted.” - Jeremy Lent

For me, this is essentially the creative process, within which one may be embedded, enfolded, in collective resilience. We humans need to reconnect as symbiotic beings in relation to our place, time and space as nature.

“Integralism is a great antidote to perceiving reality in the dualistic mode that plagues Western civilization. It calls for reciprocity and equality among all the levels of reality, and all levels of being.”
- Suzi Gablik
2022
  • Gordon Wood

Grokking – Our Bodies of Water

Acrylic Collage on Panel
48" x 48"

I will reiterate that reciprocity is essential for, to resiliency. What’s significant is how Art can connect the dots in an integral manner emphasizing transdisciplinarity, linking and enfolding it with the broader community’s resilience and “web of meaning” and values in dialogue. As David Bohm states, “My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc.”

Reciprocity - the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit. Regarding Systems Thinking; “A worm, on the other hand, along with every living entity, down to a single cell, is a complex system, which means that all its parts engage dynamically with each other in a vast number of nonlinear relationships, with feedback loops that can never be precisely described or predicted.” - Jeremy Lent

For me, this is essentially the creative process, within which one may be embedded, enfolded, in collective resilience. We humans need to reconnect as symbiotic beings in relation to our place, time and space as nature.

“Integralism is a great antidote to perceiving reality in the dualistic mode that plagues Western civilization. It calls for reciprocity and equality among all the levels of reality, and all levels of being.”
- Suzi Gablik
2022
  • Gordon Wood

Re:Peat

Collaborative sound piece with composer Daniel Townsend and workgroup Anne Tolvanen, Oili Tarvainen, Anna-Liisa Välimaa.

Media: Stereo microscopy images of preserved sphagnum moss plant from conserved peatland, field recordings from Latvasuo & Pikkusaarisuo peatland extraction sites, hyperspectral imaging of soil core samples read as graphic music notation.

Re:Peat is a recent EDUFI Fulbright Finland Fellowship research project focusing on peatland extraction and restoration in Finland. Our hyperspectral images were made with a Specim FX-17 camera using wavelengths of 900 – 1700 nanometers. These images allow us to see details in soil structure invisible to the naked eye. We hear two sonified core samples, the unrestored sample panned left and restored panned right, moving low to high. Ash, an industrial byproduct from burning peat for power and heat at Toppila station in Oulu, has been used to treat the soil, de-acidifying it and perhaps leading to a viable novel ecosystem for reindeer forage.

I'm interested in the idea of system and ecosystem as fabric: "To me that’s systems thinking. It’s thinking about how one action here affects the whole. This means untangling some of the threads that tie various systems to one another, and what pulling on one part of the fabric might mean for the rest of it."

I'm also exploring this idea in terms of the idea of "novel" or post-human ecosystems that have been changed so much that there is no possibility of returning to a historical precedent. So how do we get to know and live with these new places? "In other words, these communities needed to change a part of their identity (while hopefully retaining their most valued qualities) and undergo a transformation to a new state that could be resilient under the new conditions."
2022
  • Anne Yoncha

Transformational Effects

audio/visual and digital media

This audio/visual artwork was inspired by the idea that Transformation is a necessary part of community resilience. As a transformer, I am rarely accepted as a long-term member of a community because I bring with me … change; something that is often considered disruptive to the status quo. I was delighted by Richard Heinberg’s description of transformation as a necessary and purposeful disruption to the system to make room for a new reality that’s non-negotiable. We cannot hold on to “business as usual with all of it’s comforts” and also “operate within the limits of the biosphere”.

Transformational effects are happening and will continue to happen. I believe it is best to look at transformation as a being that is guiding us… pointing out where we should embrace dramatic, life altering changes. Only then will we be able to embrace a “new reality that’s simply non-negotiable”.
2022
  • Quin de la Mer

The Four Medicines

Origami folded paper with images and text, 8 ½” x 8 ½”

Several years ago, in a dream, I encountered a large white bear. He was wearing a medicine pouch in the tradition of an indigenous shaman. I realized the pouch contained medicine, and the white bear wanted me to have it. For years I wondered what that medicine was, and I began thinking actively about the medicine I needed. I came to understand I need four medicines: Water Walking Forests Gardens These situations—a combination of place and active engagement—sustain me. They are the inspiration and often the subject of my art. They also, separately and in combination with each other, sustain human life. They are systems at the intersection of the Earth’s ecology and human behavior. In my life, these medicines interact with each other as they nurture and heal me. In reflecting on this Call for Art, I began thinking about my personal guideposts—my four medicines—and flashed on an image from my childhood, sometimes called a “Fortune Teller.” It is a simple combinatorial machine, leading to surprising suggestions. I decided to make one, incorporating my photographs, my local knowledge, and my knowledge of sustainability and resilience. Ultimately, I made two fortune-tellers, one highlighting actions that heal and inspire me, and one prompting me to think about community actions leading to a sustainable future. I think of these as “four medicines toward healing” and “four medicines toward change.” The outer ring of each Fortune Teller identifies my four medicines—Water, Walking, Forests, Gardens. The next ring specifies directions, or portals, in relation to where I live--NE, SE, SW, NW. The inner ring contains prompts. Healing prompts begin with “Visit” or “Walk.” Action prompts begin with “Host,” “Grow,” “Plant,” or “Drink,” among others. By opening and closing the Fortune Teller I am prompted to engage one of my Four Medicines, to sustain myself and help envision a more resilient community.
2022
  • Kim Tanzer

Water Catchment

Unlucky card: Resilience

watercolor & pencil on a found street detritus lottery card

6x4 inches

2022

Three-fourths of the forests in France are in held through private ownership. In light of the pressure from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there is great pressure on these private landowners to harvest these forests for wood pellets and firewood. Sustainable yes, but the impact on biodiversity and habitat is immense. Carbon is returned to the atmosphere and a forest can take decades to reach the level of sequestration it had before the harvesting.

The goal in acquiring this forest is to create and promote a biodiversity refuge, one small parcel at a time. Planting native trees and fruits will expand the diversity, food and habitat for insects, birds and wildlife. Water catchment provides a critical resource for the plantings and a pond for wildlife on the side of the hill where no natural spring or source of water currently exists. This simple structure is emblematic of the building of resilience.

“Where resilience is process-oriented and, in ways, value-neutral, sustainability forces us to confront deep questions and uncomfortable potential futures.”

“Courage brings us back to the first foundation, People, because it is the people of the community who will build resilience—and they are the ones who need courage for all the pieces of resilience building…”.
2022
  • Dorothy Ries Faison

The Artist

photograph, 2022

As I walk thru my old community in south Florida, where my Mom has lived for over twenty years, I am observing it thru fresh eyes, new perspective. Not just because I have changed, but so has the community. Yet, the resilience of our natural world is astounding. The deeper my attention to it, the wiser the teaching. Every day I walk the same paths, and every day my awareness heightens. I had not seen this particular tree before, its markings, until today. Yet, it was here all along and, it has a story to share. I am paying attention.

Excerpt from Richard Heinberg’s Think Resilience course: "Sustainability helps us understand, in a more general sense, our extremely complex relationship with the natural world, and the consequences of getting that relationship wrong."
2022
  • Ana Martinez Orizondo

Ukraine 2022

digital collage

The best example of resilience is found with the ukrainians who, despite the constant attack by the russians, continue to fight... meeting at key points and taking shelter underground for days and even weeks sharing public spaces, food, water, and electricity.

“…six foundations that appear necessary for community resilience-building efforts to be successful. And these are people, systems thinking, adaptability, transformability, sustainability, and courage.” Richard Heinberg

El mejor ejemplo de resiliencia lo encontramos en los ucranianos que, a pesar del constante ataque de los rusos, siguen luchando... reuniéndose en puntos clave para compartir espacios públicos, alimentos, agua y electricidad.

“…seis fundamentos que parecen necesarios para que los esfuerzos de construcción de resiliencia de la comunidad tengan éxito. Y estas son personas, pensamiento sistémico, adaptabilidad, transformabilidad, sostenibilidad y coraje”.
- Richard Heinberg
2022
  • Marcela Villaseñor

Fusion 2022

digital collage

The resilience of the scientific community has given us the best gift in 2022. Having managed to use nuclear fusion to produce clean energy; in order to replace polluting fossil fuels . La resiliencia de la comunidad científica nos ha dado el mejor regalo en 2022. Ha conseguido utilizar la fusión nuclear para producir una energía limpia. Qué reemplazará en el futuro los combustibles fósiles contaminantes.

“…six foundations that appear necessary for community resilience-building efforts to be successful. And these are people, systems thinking, adaptability, transformability, sustainability, and courage.”
Richard Heinberg

“…seis fundamentos que parecen necesarios para que los esfuerzos de construcción de resiliencia de la comunidad tengan éxito. Y estas son personas, pensamiento sistémico, adaptabilidad, transformabilidad, sostenibilidad y coraje”.
Richard Heinberg
2022
  • Marcela Villaseñor

Electrification, Efficiency, & Equity

The artists' team: Lori Lipsman, Fedella Lizeth, Yvette Dibos, Sasha Sanudo, and Terri Hughes-Oelrich.
Gallery Art Produce, San Diego, California, 2023.

Electrification, Equity, & Efficiency invites conversation, interaction and education around local electrification and energy efficiency. The project includes a gallery installation and a series of events and lectures to jumpstart our community through what we hope will be a just transition.

Six Foundations of Building Community Resilience video provoked many thoughts but this quote captivated me the most, “In systems thinking we choose from among many possible perspectives, and accept that we can’t know everything we might want to know… And this is especially important when we are talking about human communities, where there are always diverse views and interests.”
2022
  • Terri Hughes-Oelrich

From the Walls Within series

Photograph

This is a reworking of a series of photographs from my Walls Within series. I did this after I came back from Berlin and realized we all have walls within, barriers between the self and others. I tried to represent reaching out and being protective. I think this would help a community become much more resilient.
2022
  • Deborah Kennedy

Eyes and Hands

From the Collapse Collage series

For this Collapse Collage, the theme of Building Community Resilience called to my mind Hands and Eyes — that is, eyes to see the reality of the existential crisis we are in, and hands to get busy building the world we need. The rest of the living world is watching us. Will we do the work, both internal and external, to see the truth and shape our own lives as if we, too, are nature?
2022
  • Christina Conklin

Be Present

drawing, 2022

Is shopping really a hobby? Is it really be a pastime that leads to happiness? Who does Black Friday really benefit? Us? Shop owners? GDP?

I took a quick look at instagram today and it was full of ads. I walked through Fremantle yesterday and had a similar experience. Black Friday is the day when people go into further debt. Where the Earth's finite resources are chewed up at an increasing rate. Where marketers are paid big money to convince us of scarcity and to incite a buying panic.

We are more than what we own. Convenience always has a cost. Our stuff burdens us in other ways that the shiny adverts don't ever hint at. I'm spending today doing something meaningful, and I'm certainly not going to buy something.
2022
  • Brenna Quinlan

Going With the Flow. It’s the name of the game.

digital collage

“….Sustainability helps us understand, in a more general sense, our extremely complex relationship with the natural world, and the consequences of getting that relationship wrong. Where resilience is process-oriented and, in ways, value-neutral, sustainability forces us to confront deep questions and uncomfortable potential futures…”
2022
  • Kirsten Aaboe

The Old Juniper Tree

On-site watercolor painting

I have been making onsite studies and paintings of a group of Utah Juniper trees for the past five years. They grow on Dragon's Point in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Soutwestern Colorado.

For this last post of 2022 on #whatsnextforearth I wanted to pick an image of resilience. The Thinking Resilience course has added depth and created a new resonance with which to think about the resiliency we will need in our communities in the next few years and beyond. Even though the Utah Juniper tree can survive extreme heat with very little water and live for hundreds of years, there are times when the climate is different and the tree must adapt to these new conditions. In very dry years they sacrifice branches to conserve moisture. When stressed by wind or inhospitable topsoil they twist and bend as they grow.

Piñon-Juniper forests have long been important to local communities for fuel wood, fence posts, pinenuts, forage for livestock and watershed protection. More recently, communities and businesses have begun to turn to these forests as a source for fuel and energy.

These trees also provide habitat for many of of Colorado's rarest plants, along with the Gray Vireo, one of the state's rarest birds.

From lesson 15: Six Foundations For Building Community Resilience: 'A community that adapts to change is resilient because communities and the challenges we face are dynamic and adaptation is an ongoing process."
-Richard Heinberg
2022
  • Meredith Nemirov

Territorial Resilience

​Small installation with seedlings (peas and radishes) and a map of San Jose, California.

2023

How can a territory adopt a new vision, build community resilience to prepare for severe crises, and envision new models and ways to function? There is a big difference between a severe crisis that happens in a population that is not prepared and in a population that is prepared.

Everyone must organize their change. Individually it is crucial to change our behavior. But it is essential to mobilize collectively at a community level. Communities must prepare locally and learn to support themselves. This knowledge is crucial. This does not happen much in Western societies today because almost everyone lives an individual life based on the dependence on a very globalized system.

"A community that adapts to change is resilient; but because communities and the challenges we face are dynamic, adaptation is an ongoing process. Philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote, "In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." For communities, resilience should be understood as a quality to continually cultivate, not a goal to be achieved. Initiatives, activists, and politicians come and go, but if resilience building is ingrained in the community culture, it can evolve as circumstances change."

Richard Heinberg, excerpt from "Six Foundations for Building Community Resilience.
2023
  • Michele Guieu

PEOPLE – 265 tags

265 tags people contributed to the Down to Earth installation.

PEOPLE is the first of the six foundations necessary for community resilience-building efforts to succeed.

ART should and must play an essential role as a catalyst for building community resilience.

In my recent installation, the public was invited to participate. People wrote their ideas about how they see things unfolding, the changes they would make, the changes they wished for, their hopes, and their fears. As an artist, I love public participation. It is one way to get community members to share their thoughts about the critical challenges we face. It is an exchange, a reflection. The process and the means are simple and could be implemented in many ways. The impact can be huge. It needs to be followed up and extended. I am thinking about the next iteration of the installation and how to leverage the participatory aspect even more.

Here’s an excerpt from Richard Heinberg’s lesson about the Six Foundations for Building Community Resilience from the Think Resilience course by @postcarboninstitute:

“In a democratic society, we might say that the identity of a community comes from its members, and represents a shared sense of what the community’s core qualities are, and a shared vision of what things should be like in the future.

Therefore the process of building community resilience can sometimes start with a survey—we can try to describe a community’s identity by asking people: What are the values of this community? What defines this community, and why? What do we not want to lose? What do we need to change? These kinds of questions can only really be answered by community members.”
2022
  • Michele Guieu

The Community Resilience in the 21st Century exhibition is based on Think Resilience, the Post Carbon Institute’s free online course. To respond to the art call, we asked the artists to signup and to watch the course, one lesson/video at a time. Each video is approximately 12 minutes long.

[Lesson 1: Introduction to the course]

CHAPTER 1: Our Converging Crises

CHAPTER 2: The Roots and Results of Our Crises

CHAPTER 3: Making Change

CHAPTER 4: Resilience Thinking

CHAPTER 5: Economy and Society

  • Lesson 16- How Globalization Undermines Resilience
  • Lesson 17- Economic Relocalization
  • Lesson 18- Social Justice
  • Lesson 19- Education

CHAPTER 6: Basic Needs and Functions

  • Lesson 20- Meeting Essential Community Needs
  • Lesson 21- Resilience in Major Sectors
  • Lesson 22- Review, Assessment & Action

Think Resilience is hosted by Richard Heinberg, one of the world’s leading experts on the urgency and challenges of moving society away from fossil fuels.

We live in a time of tremendous political, environmental, and economic upheaval. What should we do? Think Resilience is an online course offered by Post Carbon Institute to help you get started on doing something. It features twenty-two video lectures—about four hours total—by Richard Heinberg, one of the world’s foremost experts on the urgency and challenges of transitioning society away from fossil fuels. Think Resilience is rooted in Post Carbon Institute’s years of work in energy literacy and community resilience. It packs a lot of information into four hours, and by the end of the course you’ll have a good start on two important skills:

1. How to make sense of the complex challenges society now faces. What are the underlying, systemic forces at play? What brought us to this place? Acting without this understanding is like putting a bandage on a life-threatening injury.

2. How to build community resilience. While we must also act in our individual lives and as national and global citizens, building the resilience of our communities is an essential response to the 21st century’s multiple sustainability crises.

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