By Khalida Sarwari
Experts in the fields of fine art, fashion design and biomimicry are coming together for a symposium at West Valley College on how communities and individuals around the world are reacting to changing environments.
The Earth Stewardship Symposium takes place April 22 and will seek to inform people about climate change and sustainability through film screenings, lectures and panel discussions.
This marks the fourth year that the college is offering the program. Heidi Brueckner, chair of the college’s art department and a member of the Global Citizenship Committee, which organizes the event every year along with the college’s Sustainability Committee, estimated that 60 to 150 people attended each session at last year’s symposium. Speakers included Naomi Oreskes, an environmental historian at Harvard University, remedial environmental artists Mary O’Brien and Daniel McCormick and John Robbins, author of “Diet for a New America.”
This year’s program boasts a similarly impressive lineup.
A series of events are scheduled for April 22, starting at 9 a.m. with a lecture by artist Newton Harrison, art professor and co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Force Majeure at UC-Santa Cruz who “envisions ideas and sort of makes a lot of maps and things like that of how humans could adapt to changing environments in a healthy and regenerative way,” said Brueckner.
The lecture will be followed by a 10:30 a.m. screening of “Biomimicry,” a short film about the science of solving modern problems utilizing nature’s sustainable designs. At 11 a.m., Toby Hemenway, the author of “The Permaculture City, Regenerative Design for Urban, Suburban and Town Resilience,” will give a talk to wrap up the morning segment of the symposium.
After lunch, a screening is scheduled at 1 p.m. of “The True Cost,” a documentary about how the declining price of clothing results in human and environmental costs. For the final event of the day at 2:40 p.m. Lynda Grose, co-founder of Esprit’s e-collection clothing and a practicing designer, consultant and educator in the field of sustainable fashion, will lead a discussion about the film, along with Leigh Burrill, an English instructor and women’s studies program chair.
All events will take place in room 120 inside the Fox Building, 14000 Fruitvale Ave., Saratoga.
The symposium is free and open to both students and the wider community. Attendees are not required to register for the event or attend every session. Free parking will be available in lot 5 during the event, but attendees will need to pick up parking permits at the event.
Link: West Valley will host 4th annual Earth Stewardship Symposium
