spirit of mystery

In the past (and hopefully again soon) I have given school batik workshops – they are hard work (preparation) but always good fun. Onesuch was with Kea School, as shown in these photos, for a Sense of Place project. The theme was 'The Voyage of the Mystery', and the batik style/approach was Aboriginal Art.

The Mystery was a Cornish lugger, a traditional small fishing boat, that in 1854 sailed with seven Cornishmen from Newlyn bound for sunny Australia. The journey to Melbourne took 115 days. Indeed it seems a miracle it even arrived – the boat was only 33 feet long (about 10 metres) with a beam of 11 foot 6 (3.5 metres). It wasn't meant to be ocean-going, and indeed most men on board had never been out of sight of land! At the time, the Mystery was the smallest boat on record to have made such a long voyage. Read more about the voyage of the Mystery here.

Now, in 2008, the Spirit of Mystery rides the waves. Pete Goss has built a new lugger to the same specifications, and along with several family members is re-creating the journey made by those Cornish fishermen 154 years ago. They are using the same navigational tools and technology as then – no modern gizmos. Other than communication tools that is, so they can update their blog (and stay in 'instant' touch with family). They already have had ups and downs (in wind and seas) but the boat is running as well as the original Mystery.

So where is the connection with Sustainable Batik (other than through school workshops)? For starters, a quote from today's entry is a good one for natural dye growers to remember: "Mother Nature rules out here and you just have to make the best of what you have."

There is something more, that I'm not sure I can explain well in this blog. It is something about pride and community, pride that Goss has taken this on, has recognised our forefathers did something quite immense as well as brave, and is re-living it for us, bringing part of our history alive.

It's my hope that my own experiences from living in Australia in the 1980s and introducing Aboriginal Art (as far as I am able to understand it - another blog!) into schools also brings something more meaningful and substantial than just playing with wax and dye.

irony and purpose

Next month the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation comes into force requiring biofuel to be included in 2.5% of petrol and diesel. It is now widely known (see here and here) that most biofuels are now discredited for being more damaging than the fossil fuel they are meant to replace. Not just for increasing greenhouse gas emissions but for putting up global food prices and destruction of pristine habitats such as rainforest.

The irony of a fuel designed to reduce greenhouse emissions but that actually increases it is not lost on me with my predicament over the direction, future, purpose of my art. My batiks reflect and interpret the natural world and/or environmental issues in the hope of inspiring or enlightening others to appreciate and live more respectfully with nature. But until recently I had minimal consideration for the consequences of their actual existence... not just the materials and processes used but the fact yet another "object" had been created and added to the world of consumerism.

edited 7 April

wild and free

Since mid-November when my car went back on the road I've been sampling the delights of driving again. Visiting petrol stations with an empty tank is not a delight. The concentration needed for driving after being a passenger only for a year is not a delight. Not being able to gaze out across the fields, daydreaming, is not a delight. The knowledge that driving pollutes is definitely not in the delight column.

But the feeling that I can get on and do things, can get places, can get to events whenever and wherever they are, can visit people anytime... this is wonderfully liberating!

Except.

Of course it's not sustainable both ecologically and economically. A 1.4 litre Peugeot 306 doesn't generate carbon as bad as some other cars but nor is it in there with the least worst. But the independence! So what is the solution, where is the right balance?

In my year of not-driving the few weekday buses from the village instilled some discipline in me – shopping lists probably being the most practical. But I no longer need the extreme of planning my route around the town in order to get everything done in time, or if seeing a friend or acquaintance saying a rushed "hello, sorry can't chat gotta catch a bus". Awkward was when additional extras came up, like needing to browse for a present for someone, or trying on clothes, or getting back already outdated library books. But I did manage to evolve shopping (and banking) to one half day a fortnight, a habit that seems to remain.

Impossible was trying to get anywhere independently other than Launceston. Of course there are onward buses to Camelford, Bude, Exeter, Plymouth, and Liskeard and getting to these places was there for the taking. Getting back in the same day would mean leaving the village on the 9 am bus, and getting back at 6 pm – all for about an hour in the intended end destination and much loitering in Launceston waiting for connections. That's when you're lucky – other places like Bodmin, Truro, Redruth, Penzance and Falmouth pretty well require an overnight stay.

A-ha! What about my shiny new bicycle? Well yes, I cycled to Camelford, Callington, Launceston, and the coast a few times. But not across the moor on the A30 to only-14-mile distant Bodmin. It's a good quality dual carriageway but chocka with trucks, caravans, cars being driven at 100 mph, and cross winds. There's a 40 cm wide rough hard shoulder when you're lucky.

The ever-present reliance on friends to take me places became humiliating and sometimes brought its own unimaginable difficulties such as a driver's last minute decision to alter their timing – throwing your careful logistics planning into disarray.

During the summer I gave up trying to exhibit. Most of my work is in my work storage unit in Launceston, and I needed to get it back here and checked over before sending out anywhere. One lift. Next lift to deliver. Final lift to collect at show's end (usually best to assume no sale!). It all becomes too much.

It's strange, once the pattern is lost the momentum goes too. I am having to make super effort to feel inspired to exhibit again. I hadn't realised how much public feedback actually boosts an artist's... confidence? Or maybe it's that the exhibitions/organisers seem oblivious to sustainability issues, while I am thinking about number of journeys/fuel costs.

It may also link to the unproductive time I had over the second half of the car-less year. I produced no new batik. This is scary, you start wondering if 'it', the motivation, will ever come again... Of course I was doing a lot of research into sustainability, and writing this blog and other articles. But starting the blog was mostly a tool to keep me focused, to give me purpose and direction while I was feeling exceptionally dependent and hopeless and frustrated. It gave me short term deadlines. Although I originally had loads of other plans for my 'year out', few were fulfilled.

But now I am frustrated at not creating. The blog now needs to take backstage and give me a chance to get going again. I now want space without 'public' commitments (for that is what it now seems), and definitely time with less computer. I may be away for a while but be assured I will still be working on sustainability and reporting findings.

The bird image that started this article is – as you can see – a work in progress (as we are to call unfinished pieces). I am going to start on completing this. It's hung around so long because this, the final stage of adding pond water, is going to be even more complex than the rest. I am really done with complexity... "Wild and free", the title of this post, refers to those birds with no inclination to interest in being fed bread.

asking the right questions

I went to a Transition Town event in Wadebridge on Wednesday to hear both Rob Hopkins, the founder of Transition Totnes and the wider Transition Towns movement, and Anthony Gibson, Communications Director of the National Farmers Union and founder of Taste of the West, speak about Peak Oil and the future. Without digressing too much I already felt that Transition seems the only way forward for western culture, and certainly for those of us at the geographic/geopolitic margins – never mind that rural areas are the food and water providers.

Although both speakers had areas of common ground (eg locally produced food, return to importance of British farming, great need for re-skilling people) they diverged strongly over the sourcing of energy beyond peak oil. Rob believes in addressing a powerdown, there being no serious feasible option to provide a fuel replacement to oil (petrol) to give us and our culture the mobility it has become accustomed to. Anthony is still selling biofuel as the future solution, though I don't feel he is as strong an advocate as he used to be. He indicated that second and third generation biofuels should overcome some of the problems of currently produced biofuels. He believes that British farmers further in the future may not be producing crops for biofuel (other than for farm use) and instead will be producing high quality food for domestic consumption with biofuel being imported from developing countries. But for now he encourages farmers to go for growing biofuel crops, even where it displaces food crops, as it's where the market is at now.

The market? As a member of the audience pointed out, the market, the existing economic system, seems to be causing the problems as it doesn't recognise that nature and the planet are finite, and can the answer really be to chase money all the time. Frustratingly this economics discussion often and did also on Tuesday lead to the dead end/let's-not-go-there-now of if not the market then there is only state control. When really we need another system, one that looks beyond GDP and competition or quota and control to... something modelled on nature's patterns, planetary capacity. Yes I'm no economist and I don't know the answer except change is needed.

As events are meant to, it got me thinking. Certainly I am looking to make my practice sustainable and ecologically sound, but is attempting to use quantitative measurement the right way? After all, the tipping point for irreversible climate change cannot be proved without actually going there, which only apocolyptickers would advocate doing. I am attempting to use carbon equivalent emissions as a measurement tool, which I still think is OK. But can I really pitch a petro-chemical method with no conceivable long-term future against one of renewable abilities? Do I really need to prove it? Have I been asking the right question?

Shouldn't I instead be asking:

How should I be making batik in a transition culture?

What purpose will batik hold for my community? What can batik give?

Or even:

Should I be making batik? Or something else?

Yeah yeah, sounds a bit drastic eh. But as a Transition Network leaflet says:

"The need for change is urgent and these profound changes can't happen overnight. We still have some time - if we act now. By thinking and acting together, the transition to a way of living that consumes substantially less carbon energy yet is a happier, more fulfilling and abundant place will become much more achievable."

another planet?

If everyone in the world lived like me we'd need 1.9 planets.

One Point Nine! Almost a whole other planet. So I am using/consuming nearly twice as much as Earth can sustain. I've been greedy while thinking I wasn't!

Planet-based measurements certainly bring home the impact of your lifestyle. Yes, I've been playing with online carbon calculators... I also discovered my ecological footprint. It's around 3.2 global hectares. The UK average is 5.3. Worldwide there are only 1.8 biologically productive global hectares per person.

My carbon footprint is around 6.3-7.5 tonnes annually of carbon dioxide emissions (varies according to calculator). The UK average is 10.22 tonnes. But I've nothing to be smug about – when my car-driving travel pattern is used my total annual emissions rise to... 9.5 tonnes! Discovering this stunned me. Even upset me. I was sure I was doing way better than most – after all I work mostly from home and only used the car a few times a week. Of course living rurally means going anywhere will be quite a way, but even so...

Seem it's been a blessing to have had to give up driving for a year – I have been forced to make hard choices and changes in what I can and cannot do. For instance I didn't submit work this week for an exhibition at Cube 3 in Plymouth because it would have required four trips to the city (meaning four lifts in a car big enough to take my work). But that wasn't so much about carbon as time, expense, and the arranging of four separate lifts.

Breaking down the figures my electric/energy footprint is 3.2-3.6 tonnes (depending on the calculator used) made up of 3.48 tonnes heating, hot water and lighting and 0.38 appliances (national average 4.56 heating/hot water/lighting and 1.56 appliances).

My house/studio are all electric, and at the moment living by myself means I can't halve the heating aspect. My energy footprint is based on 100% non-renewable electricity even though I buy from Ecotricity. Less than 5% of electricity currently produced in the UK is from renewables, and although Ecotricity's tariff supplies me with 26% renewable it seems more appropriate to work within the national share of non-renewable – ie 95%. So I left it at 100%; some calculators already factor in the renewable. Apparently demand for green energy is outstripping supply... explains several new applications for wind farms around this windy moor.

My land-based travel is 0.6-0.7 tonnes (not driving) or 3.0-3.6 (driving) – isn't the difference stark! The national average for all travel is 4.1 tonnes. I haven't flown since 1999.

My industrial/consumption footprint is 2.5-2.9 tonnes - though being subjective are only rough guides, as the calculator websites admit. It depends how much new or second-hand stuff you buy, whether you repair before re-buying, how local your food is and so on. I haven't adjusted anything particularly in my favour, just made myself average. Around half of CO2 emissions come from industry and commerce to support our everyday lifestyle. Works out at five tonnes a person.

The government's target is for a 60% cut in CO2 emissions by 2050, to around 4 tonnes per person, and about 7 to 7.5 tonnes (26-32%) by 2020. But George Monbiot has concluded that for a 50/50 chance of avoiding more than two degrees of global warming we need an 80% cut in global emissions by 2050 with 91% per capita being the British share. The Tyndall Centre affirms this by demonstrating that "even a 30% chance of not exceeding the 2 degC threshold require[s] the UK to cut its total carbon emissions by 70% by 2030 and in the region of 90% by 2050."

Down to one tonne a head in the next 40 years? Three tonnes by 2030? Substantial doesn't begin to say it. But I believe we can get there!

So, where from here?

Alongside energy and water use tables I have started a travel table. And now that I have conversion figures courtesy of the Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN) I can calculate my CO2 emissions alongside them. The SMMTCO2 website has given exact CO2 emissions for my car, a Peugeot 306 hatchback, of 176 grams per kilometre.

Heating is another important area to address. Batikking does require warmth – for waxing and when drying dyes. So do I to feel comfortable enough to work! Being too hot is a less of a problem, anyway I'm quite content with an electric fan (for now).

These are only the first steps towards calculating the carbon cost of making batik and making my practice sustainable. It's going to take more research to figure out specific costs and even more to discover externalised costs from industry and sourcing materials. I also need to consider offsetting my "excess" carbon – not to make me feel OK but as a constructive contribution to address my part in climate change.


COIN lists and ranks a range of carbon calculators. I used Resurgence.com's, COIN's own, Ecofoot.org's, Bestfootforward.com's and, not listed there, the UK government's new one, ActOnCO2. It is so over-designed it looks like carbon emissions don't need to be taken seriously. Why does everything have to be entertainment these days? But dig deep enough and you find a methodology paper which gives more specific information – I congratulate DEFRA for this openness, and for asking for feedback.

talk talk

I feel bad for not posting more pictures. It's difficult when I don't have relevant ones – I didn't take my camera away with me. Nor my sketchbook. I decided not to as I was travelling light. But... here is the invitation to the Batik Transitions exhibition at the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath – bit crumpled after being in my pocket for the day. Great exhibition - stunning traditional and contemporary batik.

Where I had an interesting conversation too. A lady whose passion in life was doves had found my postcard "Tradition of February 14th" (see Robin, another opportunity for a pic) and, after hearing I was in the museum, found me and asked why it didn't include doves. Apparently her late husband, another fanatic, had written books about them. She continued his work through involvement with a newsletter for a society devoted to doves (memory bit hazy). She was always on the lookout for pictures to include, so if I ever did make one...

Had I been driving (=rushing), I'd have left the museum already and we wouldn't have met. Or if we had I would have felt rushed and not able to linger over such a conversation.

Which leads nicely in to the second conversation referred to in my previous post. Wandering around Bath choosing where to have breakfast I settled for a coffee shop chain selling fairtrade coffee with tables outside. The coffee was welcome but the croissant cold. A man sat at the next table and began talking. The manner of conversation sticks in mind as much as our conversation itself.... it was straight out of a Graham Greene novel. He was a journalist. I imagined him stopping there each morning with a cuppa, watching the world going by, greeting and sometimes chatting with passing locals. Waiting for a lead into the next story. And I was a new face, so worth enquiring about. I wondered if I'd pinched 'his' table.

What did we talk about? The media's influence over people (he had recently not-renewed-contract with the local paper because of its increasing reliance on headlining negative non-news to increase sales), merits of museum trends towards interpretation over simple display and label of many more items, positive life without television and childhoods outdoors mucking around in nature, similarities between all political parties these days and equivalent lack of democratic respect, and the local council's disregard for its residents and their much-loved public building it was demolishing. It is always encouraging to find similar thinking elsewhere in person and not just 'anonymously' through the internet or campaign groups. It may not be a revolution that's coming, but change in the next few decades surely will be revolutionary, and it is comforting to know others are stepping outside 'the system' to seek positive change... especially someone with the influential skills of a journo!

It surprised me to hear a businessman acknowledge the changes we are facing over the next twenty years will be greater than any he has seen in his lifetime (of 50+ years, at a guess). This was on the train back to Plymouth, a Saltash businessman absorbed in his laptop with mouse at arms length across the table. We began chatting at Exeter. You know how sometimes conversations lead to you saying something that makes you jump aside and look amazedly at your statement wondering where it came from, whilst also recognising it's what you knew all along. I proclaimed:

"the only thing that matters from now on is knowing how to live off the land".

I think those without this knowledge and the ways of nature won't survive. I'm not in the survivors camp... yet.

Our statements emerged during discussions of the nature of art, its role in the future uncertain world – with some unexpected parallels to our earlier London Olympics logo conversation.

While considering the merits or not of the logo, the media's influence again popped up – how it will have shaped many people's opinions even before seeing the logo. Our conclusion was to have more faith in Wolff Olins (a highly respected design group even when I was a minnow design student), that over five years the logo might well evolve into something (in my opinion) more appropriate. But I didn't and don't believe that just an intellectual approach (ie rationalisation of what, why, when, who, where etc) is enough - if it doesn't feel right. Feelings and instinct should have more respect and be listened to.

As I see it, art's intrinsic value is lost today because of the disconnection most people have with art. The oblivion to it. Yet music on the radio is accessible to everyone despite different tastes (sometimes too accessible, thinking about thumpity thump car stereos). But which came first, the loss of purpose or the disconnectedness?

The Saltash businessman feels it is partly because other media have taken art's place (eg television) but it's also about education, that young people these days don't learn to retain knowledge or facts because they are otherwise so easily accessible eg through the internet. At a simple level, you could compare learning times tables with use of a calculator, and certainly I was one of the last generations to learn maths without calculators.

But I feel the cause of disconnectedness from art is deeper-rooted and longer-lived, not just a young person thing but a whole society thing. In traditional societies designs had meaning and spiritual significance, and were respected as part of everyday life and culture. Perhaps they were the media of the day, influencing people in the way modern media does now. But traditional art wasn't and isn't about sensationalism, fashion and sales but about customs, values and knowledge, how society should be, how the natural world is, and spiritual interaction with the natural world. Knowledge gleaned through generations and handed down in art form. Yet traditional art has evolved over time without losing its meaning. So what happened to ours?

Has the written and read word replaced this former visual language? Much more information can be given and taken through reading than could be incorporated into a design (I think!). But is knowledge understood and retained in the same way as it might with a familiar design or pattern? Can the read and written word initiate physical, emotional responses like art can?* In the same way calculator use has obscured mental arithmetic, has reading and writing obscured visual ability? If this is true, the Saltash businessman would be right in blaming education – whether the traditional 3r's (reading writing 'rithmetic) or current literacy and numeracy policy initiatives.

Art has a societal role... it is community art. But community art in Britain is close to commodified. Sometimes government policies are being delivered or targets met – varying from year to year and government to government. Sometimes community art is just a means for artists to earn a living through projects instigated and funded by agencies outside the very communities. Sometimes community art is brilliant but it still doesn't have the reach of traditional art. Art for the community surely is more attitude than career...

I still haven't found the answers, but both conversations opened up new ways of looking at the dilemma. And reminded me of the value of slow travel, slow life – the value of having time for other people and other places, of time to contemplate. Does slow art have these same values, is slow art akin to traditional art?


*Not confusing the read/written word with the spoken/sung word, or wanting to upset poets!

Batik in Malaysia

Diane Gaffney recently told me that Malaysia is hosting a second KLIB batik convention this autumn. Although I think their last one was more concerned with clothing, fashion and commercial batik than with fine art batik, I would love to go simply because it is in Malaysia (where I learned batik in the early 1990s) . I could catch up with a few friends, eat durian (can't remember when the season is) and roti canai, practise my rusty Malay, and then shoot up to Northeast Thailand to chill out and catch up with things there. After I finish this commission, I will be working again on what I loosely call the Mekong batiks, inspired by my last visit to this area. So everything seems to slot in (though haven't thought about financing it yet!) including the excuse of not having had a holiday away for years.

At the moment I am researching and writing an article for the Batik Guild magazine on climate change and batik practice following both the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) recent report 'Mitigation of Climate Change' and the British government's Draft Climate Change Bill of March 2007. News of the convention makes me wonder whether international get-togethers are still "a good thing" - or the right thing - considering all the carbon going into the atmosphere from participants flying there from all over. In terms of communication, learning, sharing, inspiring and general buzz they can't be beaten... but at what point do they become unsustainable? On the other hand, this kind of specialist networking is a useful "tool" for spreading new ideas... maybe even sustainable batik practice! Might the positive effect of one outweigh the negative of the other?

Or maybe it's fine for international get-togethers to be in and for those countries (and their citizens) who cannot be considered primary creators and maintainers of "the problem", such as Malaysia. After all why should they lose out because of our lifestyles? Why should they cut back now too, when their starting point is way less consumerist, on-demand and carbon-intensive than our existing one? We in the west will have to show a lot more willing and action I reckon before the rest of the world can be expected to make sacrifices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

More cycles and car shares

Many thanks to B for offering to lend me V's bike while she's away... though V being a tall lady suggests the bike will be too big physically for me. But worth a try!

Also, sick of my own whining, I came across carsharecornwall.com and signed up. But don't need to go anywhere now, so can't yet try it out! There's also a carsharedevon.com that I might need some time...

Cycling

Today a friend took me and my work (and hers) to Saltram, and then dropped me in Plymouth to catch a bus to Saltash to visit a cycle shop. I had pretty well been a life-long cyclist - as a kid my friend and I or my brother and I would go off on cycling adventures. Later I got round London by bike both as a student and as a fledgling graphic designer, and when I left in 1987 to travel the world, I naturally took my bike with me. Or, should I say, my bike took me!

I stopped cycling a few years ago, mostly because of the increased amount of traffic here - both on the A30 which is something of a motorway with only a metre-wide hard shoulder (when you're lucky), and on the roads and lanes north and south. Also because of the A30 limiting east-west travel I had become more a leisure cyclist rather than cycling as a means of transport.

Now, as mentioned in my last log, my means of transport are very limited - no car until November, and only a couple of buses to Launceston on weekdays (shouldn't complain really, it's an improvement from 14 years ago when they went only on Tuesdays, former market day in Launceston!).

I dug Old Faithful out of the shed a week ago and feel really guilty for abandoning the star that had accompanied me across the world all these years. Sadly the framework seems to have started rusting, and I will need a professional opinion on whether to keep her going or... if the time has come for a shiny new one.

I was recommended a wonderful hybrid road/off-road bike... it was really beautiful and seductive. I wanted to try it there and then (but couldn't due to impending bus-catching). But the price! £700! I've no doubt it was worth every penny but I really need to be sure I'd be using it enough to justify such a price. Or might it work the other way round, that owning it would make me use it more?

One reason for wanting to re-locate is to move to somewhere in Cornwall that's both more conducive to cycling and knows the meaning of the concept public transport. But I would like to have the ease still of going for brilliant long walks on the moor (or similar "wild" environment) without having to leap first into a car (or bus/bike). But unless I change my work - what I produce and how it is "disseminated" - I can't see an easy way to get on without a car, in North Cornwall anyway. Pooled car ownership would be ideal, but I'm not aware of anywhere locally that this is happening. Yet.

Here and There

Last week I had batiks to deliver for an exhibition at the Museum of East Asian Art in Bath, and another to collect from Worthing that is due to go to Saltram House, Plymouth next week. Two others came back recently from Salisbury. Normally, meaning previously, I would have driven my work to/from these venues. But last November when I had to stop driving (medical reasons) I turned to couriers for deliveries and collections. It seems like a good and the right environmental thing to do, saving a bit of carbon here and there. But last week packing the work for Bath left me wondering whether there was more to it.

Upcountry trips can tie in with catching up with family and friends, having a break/holiday, and seeing what's happening elsewhere - all important to one's wellbeing and outlook. Sometimes delivery costs can be shared by taking another artist's work. In this case combining Bath, Salisbury, Worthing and Saltram into a single trip might have been feasible.

The biggest downsides of not taking work yourself is in not meeting the curator and staff and establishing a personal relationship, and in not seeing and getting a feel for the venue and museum. Indirect delivery sort of commodifies exhibiting, which - not being where my art is meant to be - is a feeling I don't relish.

It took most of the day to pack three batiks for Bath – to get the right balance between a tight well-protected fit yet not making it too complex for re-packing by the gallery staff. Well ok, the day also included collecting the (re-usable) crate and (re-used) bubble-wrap from my work storage in Launceston (via lift with friend), and preparing relevant paperwork. If I was driving it, the work could have been suitably wrapped in less than ten minutes! Oh how I would have preferred the adventure of travelling for the rest of that day, never mind the next spent waiting in for the courier...

But a little niggle in my memory makes me search out:

Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realise there is nothing lacking,
the whole world belongs to you.

Tao Te Ching, in verse 44, Lao Tzu (translation Stephen Mitchell)

My urge to deliver and collect work personally could be a bolshy reaction to my authorities-imposed driving licence surrender. But with peak oil apparently in sight, using couriers more often and seeking out and sharing deliveries with others should become the norm. By chance someone from the next village was working just 100 metres away from the Worthing venue and brought the large batik back by car last Friday. A friend is also exhibiting at Saltram and will take my work – and me – along with her next week... yee ha! A personal visit!

I have just remembered! I have another batik awaiting collection from the Soil Association offices in Bristol! Hanging on until someone is going somewhere you need obviously carries its own risks.

Have I reached any conclusions here? I don't think so. Further questions arise over the merits of work being on show so far away; and how my delivery/collection position relates to the position of those viewing a show who may have driven some distance to get there; and the collective carbon footprint of visitors to that exhibition...

Suppose all the stops were pulled out to produce and deliver sustainably... and yet the exhibition itself became a net gain for global heating?