71 e. commercial st.
willits, california
707-459-1726
hours:
thurs-fri 4-7 p.m.
sat-sun noon-3 p.m.
The title of the show: End of Industrial Civilization, was written on a napkin in a coffee house by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. The show at the Willits Center for the Arts is a participatory art event. Throughout the show we are asking of visitors to the gallery how they would help define and limit industrial civilization. By the end of the show on January 31st we hope to have a collection of written and recorded statements on two questions: What can you do without? and: What year to return to for a happier, independent and sustainable life? The answers might become a radio show or a film.
Kirkpatrick Sale wrote on industrialism in the Nation in 1995: "As our own daily experience has convinced us, we in the industrial world are in the middle of a social and political revolution that is almost without parallel. Newsweek said it is: "Outstripping our capacity to cope, antiquating our laws, transforming our mores, reshuffling our economy, reordering our priorities, redefining our workplaces, putting our Constitution to the fire, shifting our concept of reality."
Industrial civilization has embedded itself, not only in our economy and the landscape around us, but also in our consciousness and our bodies, that so many can no longer envision a life without it. We believe that Mendocino County, with the thriving localization and environmental movements, is a good place to consider this challenge. People here are already refusing to struggle at the end of the junk chain, tired of desperately shoveling back into the machine the debris of non- and almost not re-cyclables. There are already effort to reverse the phenomena described in Newsweek. And there are many ideas on how to build a happy sustainable life. Come and share them!
For more information about the artists:
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Maria Gilardin