Canada's Environmental Voice
This suite of eight-foot by eight-foot paintings by Ottawa-based painter Stephen Hutchings is a character study of storms, each as distinct as a snowflake. “The Tower” is fierce and concentrated, capturing a tornado column as it violently strikes an idyllic green field. “Gathering Storm” is ominous and foreboding, with its swirl […]
With 350 riveting images, Québec-based photojournalist Éric St.-Pierre takes us into the lives of coffee growers drying beans on jute-covered tables in Ethiopia, flower workers wrapping roses in cardboard boxes in Ecuador, and rice farmers sowing seeds in paddy fields in Thailand. St.-Pierre doesn’t hide the harshness of their lives. […]
The title character of this 20-minute, interactive National Film Board documentary is a grizzly that was caught and tagged as Bear 71 in Banff National Park in 2001 at the age of three, then monitored until her death eight years later. Filmmakers Jeremy Mendes and Leanne Allison use a navigable […]
In our latest issue, we ran a feature on Canada’s king of upcycling, Junk Raiders star Gordie Wornoff. With some examples of smaller upcycling pieces to inspire your holiday shopping – or some DIY projects of your own – author and herbalist Irith McConnachie sent us profiles of nine artists she met […]
The 13th annual Planet in Focus film film festival in mid-October provided an unbeatable spot to sit and absorb some of the planet’s most pressing ecological stories. And because its 35 screenings and other programming (ranging from industry events to a fabulous Q&A with Ed Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas […]
Beyond Green: Toward a Sustainable Art,
WHAT THE WARMING WORLD needs now,” writes author Bill McKibben in Grist magazine, “is art, sweet art.” Precisely because environmental problems are rooted in cultural practices and ideologies, it is artists, immersed in world and cultural practices, who are ideally situated to locate and develop effective- responses. In fact, we’ve […]
LAUNCHING STREET FESTIVALS. Planting watermelon. Doling out fake traffic tickets. If you’re wondering what these have in common, read on. They’re ingenious ways of handling issues, prying open the box. That’s what Alternatives delivers in this Creative Communities issue: fresh approaches to entrenched social problems – poverty, waste, addiction, environmental […]
The Playlist for the Planet is another example of how the music community believes we need to do more to protect the environment. I hope the songs … inspire you to make changes that will bring about a healthier world. -David Suzuki
DESPITE ALL THE YEARS I’ve worked in the not-for-profit sector, our current fundraising drive is the first time that I’ve been up close and personal with a program involving individual donors. It’s been a humbling experience. Looking through the list of donors, some of whom I know, but most with […]
