Forum for Radical Imagination on Environmental Cultures
A program of The Nature of Cities, FRIEC is a platform for nurturing humanity’s sacred cultural relationships with urban nature. We produce place-based storytelling (essays, poetry, books, and films), and events (exhibitions, residencies, and transdiciplinary events) that inspire direct ecological actions in local landscapes.
“Seeing trees as sacred is not an anomaly; it’s the fact that we’ve somehow lost this fellowship that’s the anomaly.” Awake a few hours earlier than necessary, we are on bicycles heading through urban infill, in a part of town that used to be Osaka Bay. Moving inland, we pass through a few old shopping […]
“Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.” — Max Planck As a graduate student, I was often assigned to read the foundational work of pioneering ecologists such as […]
“Urban nature and public art can help to break down barriers both mental and physical, sparking imaginations, catalyzing place making, forging new connections, and bringing people together.” Mankind may have left the savannah some million years ago, but the savannah never quite left us. It makes sense that since we co-evolved with nature, our need […]
“Artists bring into focus the complexity of our current situation and, in the complexity, there is beauty and potential in uncovering new pathways forward.” The world’s ecosystems are rapidly changing, and urban natural areas are often the first to exhibit these changes. The urban heat island effect and increased air, water, and soil pollution are […]
In September last year, the IUCN World Conservation Congress—Planet at the Crossroads—brought together in Hawai’i more than 10,000 participants from 180 countries, including top scientists and academics, world leaders and decision makers from governments, civil society, indigenous peoples, and business. It presented a unique opportunity to discuss the unprecedented challenges facing our planet. “If we […]
A review of Earth Stories, an exhibition on view at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles now through February 28, 2016.