Noteworthy, Volume 5, Issue 6

Noteworthy. (2014). Solutions 5(6): 8-11.

Idea Lab Noteworthy The Art of Dissent: From Beijing to Alcatraz

by Colleen Maney

A prison is not the first place one would expect to find an art exhibit, nevertheless one exploring themes of freedom and human rights. But this is exactly where Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has chosen to display his work—at the United States’ notorious island prison, Alcatraz, found off the coast of San Francisco in California. The exhibit, titled @ Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz, includes seven installations of sculpture, sound, and mixed-media works inspired by Alcatraz Island.

Alcatraz was made infamous during its time as a federal penitentiary, but the island has also been utilized as a military fortress and host to a Native American occupation and protest movement in the early 1970s. This rich and layered history made Alcatraz an intriguing spot for an exhibition raising questions regarding freedom of expression, by an artist whose freedoms have been repeatedly tested by his native Chinese government.

As a politically outspoken artist, Ai Weiwei has been arrested, detained, and put under continuing surveillance in his home city of Beijing. Although he has since been released after a 2011 arrest, Weiwei is still prohibited from

traveling outside of China. Yet these restrictions have not stopped him from expressing criticism through his art. His installments offer a new perspective on a place known for both detainment and protest- two themes that resonate in Weiwei’s life and work. In one section of the exhibit, visitors peer down at his work through the broken windows of a gun gallery, where guards once stood watch, weapons trained on the prisoners below.

While this arrangement adds a powerful dynamic to the exhibit, the vision for the piece required access to a section of Alcatraz that is normally off limits, for both the safety of visitors and the preservation of the historic

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The entrance to the @Large: Ai Weiwei exhibit at Alcatraz Prison.

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Idea Lab Noteworthy site. A Portland cleantech start-up was enlisted to engineer a custom solution.

Indow Windows rose to the occasion, creating custom window inserts that will both protect visitors from broken glass and the historic building from further damage.

The exhibit is on display at Alcatraz Island through April 26, 2015. For more information, visit the For-Site Foundation online at: http://www. for-site.org/.

In a Region Famous for Oranges, Students Use the Sun to Make a Car by Özge Sebzeci

Since Istanbul, Turkey is notorious for its hours-long traffic jams, one might not get terribly excited over the development of another car.

But, this is not just any new car.

The Portacar is a solar car named after the orange (‘portakal’ in Turkish), the symbol of Antalya, and also because the steering system was built from an orange-squeezing machine because the car engineers— all university students—lacked the money for anything more.

The students come from Turkey’s Akdeniz University Mechanical Engineering Department. Most of the Portacar’s parts are taken from junk metals, electric bicycles, or motorcycle materials. The car’s solar panels are able to recharge its batteries within an hour, and the car has 800 watts of panel power.

The Portacar can reach up to 60 kph and it has a reverse gear unlike most other solar cars. Test drives of the car are being conducted in the corridors of the university, and the car has not been put on display or gone to races outside Antalya for two years.

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An orange tree in the Antalya region of Turkey, where students used orange-squeezing machinery to build a solar car.

The team of students is working constantly to upgrade the quality of the engine and to give it more functions.

Project advisor, Hakan Ersoy points out that the car will attract more attention nationally and internationally

when they build a higher-powered engine. He emphasizes that, as Antalya is a city blessed with the sun, they cannot accept being in second or third place when it comes to projects using solar energy.

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Idea Lab Noteworthy Bringing Geothermal Technology Home

by Victoria Clark

A new residential community development on the outskirts of Sydney is stepping up to the sustainability challenge—and creating an unusual amount of attention in the process.

Constructed over what was previously a private golf course, the master plan includes restoration of wetlands and waterways connected into its stormwater management plan, and a number of green spaces and bike paths to support healthier lifestyles.

The main cause for attention, however, is the developer’s approach to energy efficiency. Geothermal technology is being rolled out across the project’s 800 homes, providing the heating and cooling systems needed almost year round in the Greater Sydney region. This is good news for residents, with the average 4-person household anticipated to reduce its energy usage by up to 60 percent compared to those with conventional air conditioning systems—a saving equivalent to approximately US$435 per year at current Australian electricity prices. And, perhaps more importantly, the houses are able to significantly reduce their carbon footprint.

Geothermal takes advantage of the constant temperature below the Earth’s surface, generally cooler than the above ground temperature in summer, and warmer in winter.

Typically, refrigerant or water is circulated through bores up to 150 m below the building’s foundations where it adjusts to match the surrounding temperature, before being returned to ground level.

Despite the benefits of geothermal technology, it has experienced a

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Geothermal heating and cooling systems take advantage of the ground temperature, generally using water as a conductor.

relatively slow uptake when compared to other renewables, for example, solar and wind. This looks set to change however, thanks to Queensland-based company QPS Geothermal, who have developed the GeoAir system—the same one being installed across the Sydney community development.

GeoAir has refined the technology at the residential scale, reducing upfront installation costs and making geothermal more affordable for the domestic market. According to QPS Geothermal director, Paul Costello, this has been achieved by reducing the depth of drilling by up to half, resulting in a significant cost saving.

The potential benefits have not gone unnoticed, with a number of national and international developers, as well as one of Australia’s major energy providers, showing growing interest.

For more information, visit: http://www.qpsgeothermal.com.au/ residential/.

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A Fitting Pair for the Nobel Peace Prize

by Naomi Stewart

Few were surprised to hear of the selection of Malala Yousafzai for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, but, alongside the famed young Pakistani girl was another, less well-known child activist also being awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, Kailash Satyarthi. Satyarthi is a 60-year-old Hindu Indian, who quit engineering and teaching in 1980 in order to take up the torch for child labour and human rights. He has worked tirelessly in his own country, as well as the international arena, to rid society of the damaging practice of child exploitation, which often also takes place under the duress of dangerous working conditions, minimal to no wages, and bonded labor.

To date, Satyarthi has rescued over 83,000 children, and counting, from the perils of child labor. In the vein of

Idea Lab Noteworthy

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Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014.

Gandhi, and under the banner of eliminating the exploitation of children for financial reasons, he has organized numerous peaceful marches and demonstrations, cultivated and participated in many international conferences, and even directly contributed to the development of Convention 182 with the International Labour Organization, which addresses the harshest types of child labor and is now applied by governments across the world.

The Nobel Peace Prize is not his first international recognizance either.

Satyarthi won the Aachen Peace Prize in Germany as far back as 1994, and has easily won a dozen more major international prizes for his efforts since. Despite all this, and the more

recent fame of the Nobel Peace Prize, Kailash Satyarthi remains humble and his ambition and dedication to his cause has not slowed down a bit—he is currently pushing for a boycott on all Indian goods produced with child labour. This is a constant pursuit of his, reflected also in the Goodweave organization he founded in 1994, which ensures, through certification, that all goods affixed with the Goodweave label were produced without exploitative child labor.

Like Yousafzai, Satyarthi bears the scars of standing up for human rights. He has been brutally physically attacked by opponents of his activism, yet continues to persist for the cause, with the benefits of his own labor

being reaped in India and across the world. Many other comparisons have been drawn between Yousafzai and Satyarthi—indeed, a century ago they may have been neighbors. Now, while their respective countries are neighbors instead, Yousafzai and Satyarthi are a symbolic choice for their Nobel Peace Prize. They have opposing characteristics of young and old, female and male, Muslim and Hindu, yet are unified through the common goal of a free, equal life for all children, everywhere. It is hard to believe that these two will ever be less deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize, as both carry their progressive efforts forward into a more just world, one which they are ultimately creating together.

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