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EcoRadio KC
EcoRadio KC is a magazine show, including live segments, prerecorded stories, and interviews. The weekly explores our interdependence with the rest of the world, showing the connections between the ways we choose to live and the health of the whole community of life.
EcoRadio KC is glad to encourage awareness and protection of our world. Our goal is to ensure our listeners are aware of how we can create a sustainable present for a sustainable future! It will take us all to make the world safe for habitation for millennia to come. This will be a great radio hour!
This week, host Terri Wilke speaks with her guest, Uranchimeg (Orna) Tsultem, a curator and leading Mongolian art expert whose latest exhibition features four of Mongolia’s most renowned artists who are using their platform to address environmental crises. Running from April through November alongside the 60th Venice Biennale, Mongol Zurag: The Art of Resistance responds to the environmental damage caused by Mongolia’s current neoliberal system.
Orna Tsultem has over 25 years of global curatorial experience, including at the Venice and Shanghai Biennales, and she is committed to raising the profile of Mongolian art and fighting for environmental justice. She can provide insight into the exhibition’s ecological themes and the importance of art as a form of social criticism. A conversation with her is a unique addition to today’s urgent global environmental discourse.
Following the establishment of the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1924 as the world’s second socialist country, mass purges and the complete destruction of Buddhist art and culture ensued. The traditional Mongolian script was replaced by an adapted Cyrillic script and a new culture took roots, shaped by young professionals educated in the USSR and Eastern Europe. The style of Mongol Zurag was invented as a new tradition in this historical context due to the dire need for a national identity and preservation of traditions. This exhibition introduces this case of artistic creativity during a period of socio-political restraints 1924-2001.
There are many pressing environmental issues in Mongolia that are detrimental to both human and environmental wellness. One of these issues is climate change, which is responsible for an increase in desertification, natural disasters, and land degradation. Another is deforestation, which is expanding due to human activity, pests, disease, and fires. Mongolian lands are becoming more arid through desertification, a process that is being exacerbated due to irresponsible land use. Additionally, more and more species are disappearing and at risk for extinction. Moreover, especially in population centers, Mongolians deal with air and water pollution caused by industrialization.
We support the work for a future in which humans flourish as members of a thriving ecosphere. We are all in this together and it will take all of us to make the world safe. This will be a great radio hour!
“The whole world is one neighborhood.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
