Being an open and inquisitive researcher means I attend a wide range of SIGs, workshops and seminars. I’m open to lots of new ideas. Recently, I went to a feminist research group where a PhD candidate presented their work. The presentation gave me much to think about – and below is a 100-word worlding I wrote that explains why.
ATR WFU Women Leadership. Source: Worker’s Control
Cooperative Gap-ness
Passionate work to accelerate fair and (just) transitions to climate action using a grassroots union of Western Australian youths. Encouraging and political. Using Feminist Participatory Action Research and Cooperative Inquiry to be more culturally responsive, ethical and inclusive. Emotional labour. Green and ‘sustainable’ as false solutions. Extractivism of volunteers. Research(er)ing through-with-and-as ‘storying’. As insider-researcher-activists, I suggest Sherilyn Lennon’s ‘Unsettling Research’. Nicely messy. Critical cusps of Hope. Anna Tsing says hope can obfuscate activism. Astrida Neimanis and Jen Hamilton question hope, turning instead to desire. Tactical gap-ness. Expectant tool-processes of change and reviving neglected knowledges. Wrangling manageable recuperative action.
In this post, we look at how Meg Ulman, Patrick Jones, their two children (aged 11 and 2) and pet dog used an incredible 6,000km family bike tour up the east coast of Australia as a way of putting into action their ethical, environmental and social principles. This is the fifth and last instalment of our August 5-part series written by Laura Fisher exploring how bicycles are used as a dissident object in contemporary art. Previously we looked at Ai Weiwei’s ‘Forever’, then ‘Returnity’ by Elin Wikström and Anna Brag, then ‘Shedding Light’ from Tutti Arts Oz Asia Festival. The last post was on how public space is being creatively activated as sites of protest using bicycles by the Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination. Enjoy! NG.
The Art of Free Travel
A final project that demonstrates the power and promise of the bicycle is the 6,000-kilometre journey taken by “Artist as Family”: Meg Ulman, Patrick Jones, their two children (aged 11 and 2) and pet dog.
As writers, gardeners and environmentalists, Ulman and Jones exemplify the ecological sensibility that a growing number of us embrace. In 2015 they decided to take up this environmental imperative as an artistic-philosophical project.
Over a period of 14 months the family rode their bicycles from their home in Daylesford in Victoria to Cape York in Northern Queensland, during which time they lived by foraging (they had extensive knowledge of edible plants), fishing, trapping, exchanging labour for food on farms, and through the hospitality of friends and strangers.
Their blog posts and book attest to the heightened engagement with the world that bicycle travel affords: two-year-old Woody was able to identify an enormous variety of animals and plants, and meaningful connections were made with the many strangers who invited the family into their homes, sharing their knowledge and stories.
The physical demands of cycling focused their minds upon the needs of the body and the available sources of energy replenishment.
As these projects demonstrate, the bicycle is a nimble tool for individual and collective agency and a catalyst for knowledge creation, self-awareness and meaningful social encounters. It is a technology that serves our need for self-reliance and exploration, without surpassing the body’s capabilities.
In an era in which we are incarcerated by our affluence – through work, debt, declining physical and mental health, and an exploitative and wasteful dependence upon the declining natural resources – the bicycle is the ultimate dissident object and symbol of freedom.
Image: Still from ‘The Art of Free Travel’ film trailer.
Laura Fisher is a post-doctoral research fellow at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. In October 2015 she co-curated Bespoke City with Sabrina Sokalik at UNSW Art & Design, a one night exhibition featuring over 20 practitioners celebrating the bicycle through interactive installations, sculpture, video, design innovation, fashion and craft. This event was part of Veloscape, an ongoing art–research project exploring the emotional and sensory dimensions of cycling in Sydney.
The Lab is an activist organisation that has devised inventive forms of creative civil disobedience to assert an alternative to the nexus of capitalism, consumption and environmental destruction.
They try “to open spaces where the imaginative poetic spirit of art meets the courage and rebelliousness inherent to activism”.
In 2009, the Lab developed the Bike Bloc as a form of direct action for the UN Climate Negotiations in Copenhagen (the unsuccessful forerunner to the recent Paris Climate Talks).
Hundreds of people worked over several weeks to design and weld activist bicycles and practise “street action cycle choreography”.
Double Double Trouble – a Dissent Bicycle-Object
Some of these were paired tall-bikes that gave riders a great height advantage (confiscated by police before the protest), while others were equipped with megaphones that played music, sirens and abstract sounds in synchronicity.
One such bike recently featured in Disobedient Objects, an exhibition developed by the Victoria & Albert Museum in London which toured to the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.
As the video documentation shows, the Lab embraced the model of an insect swarm in order to create a dispersed field of sound and activity that drew police attention in different directions.
What makes this action so compelling artistically is the intersection of DIY cycle culture and the lessons of radical theatre and performance.
The bicycle was assessed for what kind of form it might contribute to coordinated protest, notably creating a fluid field of assembling and disassembling bodies and sound.
Laura Fisher is a post-doctoral research fellow at Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. In October 2015 she co-curated Bespoke City with Sabrina Sokalik at UNSW Art & Design, a one night exhibition featuring over 20 practitioners celebrating the bicycle through interactive installations, sculpture, video, design innovation, fashion and craft. This event was part of Veloscape, an ongoing art–research project exploring the emotional and sensory dimensions of cycling in Sydney.
Some people say making time for bike rides can be hard. But if your diary is a creative bike-inspired calendar all-in-one, then the job is not only easy, but imaginative and fun!
Below are 5 great bicycle diaries and travel journals.
Some you can still get while others were limited editions. All are the perfect place to block out happy hours on two wheels (alongside all the other things you need to get done too of course!).
Aside from having a bike theme – always check items are recycled and/or produced using sustainable and ethical practices – and support local artists where ever possible.
Keep any eye out for these in your local bookshops too (they need the business).
Or have a go at making your own!
1. Punctures & Panniers- Cycle Traveling Journal
This bike travel journal has it all! It is the brainchild of intrepid bike tourer Andre and was made possible in collaboration with artist Ania Butler. It has recycled paper and biodegradable inks. The design is clean and engaging and there is places in it to record your favourite routes, people you met, pages to doddle, log recipes, store contacts and more. This book was initiated by a kick starter and has something for every bike rider. A real gem!
Punctures & Panniers
2. Bike Art – Just Ride 2018-2019 Weekly Planner
The Bike Art On-the-Go Weekly Planner is perfect for your bag, backpack, or briefcase. This is a 17-month calendar with funky graphics. This planner is fun and thorough with plenty of time management sections that will help keep you organized. Stylish design and kooky bicycle motifs will make you smile on every page. By Amber Lotus Publishing 224 pages.
Bike Art – Just Ride
Bike Art – Just Ride
Bike Art – Just Ride
3. Ashley Hackshaw: How to turn a book into an art journal
Ashley Hackshaw (AKA Lil Blue Boo) has a blog o(f the same name) where she shares art projects and creative ideas. In this post, she shows step-by-step how you can make your own art journals using composition books. Although not specifically a bike diary – I love that her example is!
Quirky, creative and unique. Personalized notebook covers are so handy. The best thing is they can be reused for different diaries and notebooks. This particular cover by Sierraistanbul is an embroidered, fabric, red bicycle with a nameplate ‘Nick’ – but you can get it customised for your own/other people’s name too.
SierraIstanbul
SierraIstanbul
5. Inner Tube Notebook Covers
You can also check websites and places like Etsy for inner tube book and diary covers. Or have a go at making your own. Check reviews first if buying online as sizes can vary especially if you add things into your diary and it expands. Inner tubes can be tricky to work with so double-check any zips and that seams are robust. Having said that- these are great products to have as they fully fit the bike-recycled mandate!
On U.S. roads there are 6,000 pieces of litter per mile, on average.
Seth Orme and Abby Taylor set out on their bikes for an epic five-month, 4,700 mile trip across the US – during which they cleaned up 2,130 pounds of trash.
Their journey has been documented in the REI film Leave it Better.
(Below is the trailer. Link to the full 20-minute film for free at end of this post).
Background
One of the main seven tenets of Leave No Trace outdoor ethics is to leave it as you found it. Generally, this is a common-sense approach to preserve the natural or historical beauty of private or public land; it should look untouched when you leave it.
But why not leave it better? In 2015 Seth Orme started a project he calls, Packing It Out, a continuous mission to leave the places he and his companions visit not just as they found them, but better.
For the first-ever Packing It Out trip in 2015, Seth thru–hiked the Appalachian Trail (AT) alongside his friends Joe Dehnert and Paul Twedt. Over 2,200 miles, they packed out 1,100 pounds of trash that was found along the trail.
The following year, Seth and Paul continued the project by hiking a grand total of 2,650 miles from the border of Mexico to Canada along the Pacific Crest Trail. On this trip they cleaned up 720 pounds of trash en route.
This year, Seth traded his hiking boots for a bike and recruited his friend Abby Taylor. On April 26, 2017, Seth and Abby set out on a cross-country bike tour to pick up trash along the way.
Epic US bike trip to pick up trash.
Their route took them from Georgia to Washington State, including a circuit of stops at National Forests, scenic areas, campgrounds, etc., hosting trash cleanups and conservation-theme clinics as they rode.
For 5 months, their goal was to explore the country, meet people, spread the word on ‘Packing It Out,’ and continue their message of environmental stewardship.
At each destination, whether alone or with a group, Orme and Taylor cleaned up trash, totaling more than 2,100 pounds over the course of the trip.
What a fantastic trip and a timely challenge to all riders (and people).
I know I have been stopping more often to pick up rubbish on my bike rides. I hope people, both ON and OFF continue picking rubbish and progressing conversations about sustainability, plastic pollution and conversation.
For 2019, we are heading to Lismore in QLD, where for the past few years the local City Council has provided a public recycled art Christmas Tree. This very successful initiative all started with recycled bikes.
The Lismore Council public art Christmas tree initiative stemmed after the local ‘leaning tree’ that had previously been decorated for Christmases was (unduly and harshly) dubbed ‘the world’s most pathetic’ Christmas tree. (Note: Personally, I think the leaning tree was awesome. Such a pity that we don’t celebrate diversity and difference and the wonderful uniqueness in nature. As Gaudi stated ‘there are no straight lines in nature’ – I think it is the very twists, turns, messiness and curves that makes life so engaging and grand. The very thing that made that tree unique and special to some, others considered to be a flawed and an eyesore. I don’t agree that ‘perfection’ i.e. a straight tree (or a or a ‘pretty blonde female’ as an extrapolation) is necessarily beautiful. Perhaps we need to check in with our cultural value criteria – anyhow..back to Lismore).
So, in 2015, Lismore Council looked to change their tree and started a recycled public art initative.
Image: Cathy Bowen Northern Star
Lismore’s Bicycle Christmas Trees
The recycled bicycle tree was the first of these instalments. In 2015, the Lismore Bike Christmas Tree was erected as a centrepiece for the main roundabout on the corner of Keen and Magellan Streets.
This intuitive is to celebrate the festive holiday season as
well as Lismore’s commitment to recycling and sustainability.
A local bike shop, Revolve, supplied the 90 old bicycles (which otherwise would have gone to scrap), 50 litres of paint, almost half a tonne of steel for the frame and $30 of donated rainbow mis-tints from the local paint shop. GOLD!
Lismore’s council metal workshop welded the bicycle frames
were welded onto the steel frame they had created as the base structure.
The final ‘tree’ was then painted in rainbow mis-tint colours by the council staff and their families in their own time.
The tree was then gifted by the council to Lismore residents.
Lismore’s tree for Christmas 2019 was a 7-metre ‘living’, growing structure. It has more than 300 potted plants, 100 metres of tinsel, 250 metres of solar-powered LEDs, 16 pairs of work trousers and matching boots. At the top instead of a star, council staff made a Planta (plant ‘Santa’).
The 2018 Lismore Christmas tree was made out discarded umbrellas.
In 2017 it was recycled road signs.
In 2016 it was recycled car tyres.
The 2015 Bicycle Christmas Tree has been the most popular instalment by far to date. In acknowledgement of this, the council is in discussion for a possible future tree that has sculptural bikes that produce power so that when visitors ride them, the generated power will light up the tree. Sounds similar to Brisbane’s Bicycle-powered Christmas Tree.
A big round of applause for Lismore Council for installing the recycled bike Christmas tree. An inspiring public project that brings community and council together to celebrate sustainability, recycling, community and creativity.
Going overseas for a bike tour is a great way to get around, see local sites and keep fit and active.
Increasingly, cyclists are either taking their bikes away with them or are signing up for a localised one or multi-day biking adventure such as ‘bike and cook‘ trips or ‘winery bike tours‘.
If you are planning to book a bike tour overseas, a key consideration should be to check whether the bike tour is officially registered as an Eco-tourism provider.
There is a massive social, economic and environmetal impact difference between bike tours that are Eco-tourist registered, and those who are not.
For Storyteller, Eco-tourism is about uniting conservation, communities, and sustainable travel. This means that those who implement and participate in ecotourism activities should adhere to ecotourism principles.
Ecotourism Principles
• Minimise impact. • Build environmental and cultural awareness and respect. • Provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts. • Provide direct financial benefits for conservation. • Provide financial benefits and empowerment for local people. • Raise sensitivity to host countries’ political, environmental, and social climate.
Image: Storytellers Eco-Bike Tours Cook Island
Cook Islands: Storytellers Eco-bike Tours
Storytellers stand by the principles of Ecotourism. They are the only Cook Islands Eco Tour on mountain bikes.
Storytellers give 10% of profits back to the community for development projects.
Their local storytellers (staff) are passionate and knowledgeable about the local culture, history and environment and love sharing stories of their heritage with guests.
So next time you look at a bike tour overseas, check to see if they are registered as a Eco-tourism operator – this will boost your enjoyment of the tour and help support local communities.
Brisbane, Fri 20th Sept. 2019. Nina and Leki joining 350,000 Australians protesting for Climate Action.
Last month, Leki and I joined 350,000 Australians nation-wide – and millions of people in over 150 countries worldwide – who hit the streets to rally for #ClimateAction. In Australia, there were mass rallies in 8 capital cities as well as 104 other centres. This day of action is known as ‘the student strikes for climate action’ and is led by Swedish Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg.
8-year old Luca, who I had the pleasure of working with recently on a project, also went to the Climate Rally. I asked her if she could a guest blog post about what the event was like – and luckily she said yes. So here it is!
Thanks so much to Luca for putting this together!
Here is a few photos I took from the rally. See Luca’s review below.
Image: @courtwhip
Luca’s review of the Climate Action Rally (Brisbane).
On the weekend I went to the Climate Strike with my family.
We all made posters and marched in the city to fight climate change.
While we were marching we did lots of chants about global warming and saw some great posters that others had made.
My favourite said “It’s getting hot in here so take off all your coals”.
At the march I saw lots of people of all different ages. There were many kids there as well as adults.
At the beginning of the march we listened to talking and started a chant.
Then we started walking through the city. There were about 30,000 people at the protest.
I found the protest fun and exciting but my favourite part was marching around Brisbane.
Increasingly, more people are turning to alternative ways of eating, living and consuming that are more sustainable and enriching.
Cycling has always been part of the green revolution, but one pair of farmers are taking this approach to the next level.
Cycle Farm is an organic farm run by Patricia Jenkins and Jeremy Smith located in Spearfish South Dakota, USA.
As their name suggests – as well as being a functional organic farm, Cycle Farm is particularly interested in using bicycles to facilitate workload and productivity.
They are a working farm, selling their produce to a variety of outlets and farmers markets, as well as being a kind of open/farm visitation/awareness-raising platform for more sustainable farming/consumption practices.
Bicycles are central to Cycle Farm’s philosophy and daily operations.
Most impressive is how Patricia and Jeremy have custom-altered a range of bicycles and integrated their use into all areas of farm operations, like the bike-powered roller-crimper – very inspiring!
Cycle Farm has a blog and website showcasing some great photos and info on what they are up to and seasonal activities.
Here at Cycle Farm, we are very enthusiastic about bicycles as efficient
farm tools. We’re using bicycles to help minimize our off-farm inputs.
Employing bicycle- and human-power and minimizing our off-farm inputs is
important to us for the following reasons.
Conventional agriculture has a huge environmental impact, from the use of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, distributing produce to distant markets, use of heavy machinery, water use and pollution, etc. For us, reducing our inputs forces us to look at our overall ecological impact. For example, we are a human-powered, bicycle-driven operation. We take our vegetables to market each week by bicycle and encourage CSA members to ride their bike to the farm for pick-up.
We are producing local food. Our goal is not to grow food for a large wholesale market, but to serve the community in which we live, Spearfish Valley. Additionally, we are not using a tractor, but instead all farm work is done by hand. This means we don’t have to use gasoline, which saves us money as well as reduces our carbon emissions.
A second reason is
economic; the more we can reduce the amount of things we have to purchase
to run this farm, the more likely we can make a living wage off these three
acres. A tractor, even a small one, is a considerable expense. If we can
do the same work with our hands and with a bicycle, we can save ourselves and
our market that additional cost.
Beyond reducing gas use and our carbon emissions, we are working
toward building soil carbon in our fields with small scale, no-till vegetable
farming. Organic no-till methods are
becoming more and more widespread in larger operations for a variety of reasons
(soil conservation, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, etc.). However,
this has not yet translated into small scale vegetable production, that we’ve
found. We are experimenting with and developing methods applicable for a
smaller scale (0-15 acre) organic, no-till operation (i.e.
bike-powered roller-crimper).
And of
course, bicycles make everything more fun. By moving at a more
human pace, we are getting to know our community better. We can stop and talk
with friends and neighbors in passing. Hopping on a bike allows us to stay
loose and flexible after long days in the field. And there is something
so satisfying about hitting a pocket of cool air on a ride past Spearfish Creek
on a warm summer evening.
However, doing this alone ultimately may not accomplish much
towards addressing pressing global crises. We are enthusiastic about helping to
motivate our community and participating in an exchange of ideas on a broader scale.
Interested in human-powered, sustainable agriculture – then you can come visit
the farm and talk to us.
Lastly, when the farm slows down in the winter, we plan on gearing up a bicycle workshop in the garage. Building custom cargo and utilitarian bicycles and trailers, as well as doing frame repair.
Nâm Arya is a first generation
Tibetan-America. In 2016, she spent a year undertaking an epic bike-packing and
speaking tour of the U.S called Bike
for Tibet.
Her goal was to spread the word about the impacts of climate change in Tibet and to seek climate justice for Tibetans.
I got excited to find out more about the trip online. I went to Nâm’s online journal, but there was not much content there. Bummer because the trip itself sounds awesome! Even so, this initiative is so worthwhile. I suppose you have to go to one of the talks in order to get all the details! Fair play!
What is Bike for Tibet?
It was a year-long bicycle tour of the U.S. for the purpose
of bringing Tibet and Tibetans into the global conversation on climate justice.
Along the way Nâm offered 60+ min presentations
to discuss and dissect climate change issues in Tibet.
During these discussions, she highlighted key concerns
including the displacement of nomads, the effects of dams along Tibetan rivers,
and mining.
Nâm also outlined root causes,
false solutions, issues of colonization, and how democracy features within the
context of exploited communities.
A central theme in all the presentations is inter-dependence. She also linked wider issues from other communities seeking environmental justice in the US and abroad.
Who is Bike for Tibet?
Nâm is an exiled Tibetan woman
who was
born in Mungod Resettlement Camp in southern India. As a youth, she attended Tibetan boarding school in the
northern India until she immigrated to the US in 1996 where she now lives.
She and her bike-riding-mad partner Jonni undertook the 12-month Bike for Tibet journey together.
Jonni is adventure bicyclist and Instagram celebrity under the moniker UltraRomance. If you have not seen Jonni’s IG before, check it out – he is hilarious!
What a brilliant idea for a bike project! Get out on the road with your favourite person, ride around living a simple life and promote a very important environmental and social issue at the same time– wicked!
How did Bike for Tibet get started?
Nâm says she was inspired by Drukpa Rinpoche’s Eco Pad Yatra and the enduring work of Tibet climate change organizations working to vision to bring stabilise the Himalaya Plateau.
She created Bike For Tibet to be a nexus for these projects, influences and practices – as well as something she loves best to do – biking!
The Bike for Tibet project builds on Nâm’s decade-long leadership and work within the environmental movement.
Nâm used crowd funding to get Bike for Tibet up and running. Although she is advocating for climate action, Bike for Tibet is independent and not affiliated with any one particular group.
Some parts of this post were taken from the Bike for Tibet website to ensure accuracy of facts. All images by Bike for Tibet or IG UltraRomance unless otherwise indicated.
