We are very interested in sustainable building, green architecture and related work at ISDSI. While we’re currently remodeling the Institute (more on that someday), we’re inspired by lots of great information out there on the Internet.
Here is a short video that captures a lot of good ideas about housing, building and living well. Worth watching twice, and thinking about doing things well — things that last — and where we stand in our built environment.
Two weeks ago to start our Foundations Course, we watched a great film — 180º South — about a climber retracing the journey of two of his heroes to the tip of South American and Patagonia.
Here’s a description:
Chris Malloy’s film strikes so deeply into the heart of Patagonia’s wilderness we come to feel at home there. 180° South: Conquerors of the Useless follows Jeff Johnson as he retraces the epic 1968 journey of his heroes Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins to Patagonia. Along the way he gets shipwrecked off Easter Island, surfs the longest wave of his life – and prepares himself for a rare ascent of Cerro Corcovado. Jeff’s life turns when he meets up in a rainy hut with Chouinard and Tompkins who, once driven purely by a love of climbing and surfing, now value above all the experience of raw nature – and have come to Patagonia to spend their fortunes to protect it.
What we found useful in the film is the deeper story about sustainability. Going to Rapa Nui (Easter Island) can’t help but bring up questions about sustainability. Like our own students on study abroad at ISDSI, Jeff Johnson is on a journey — getting to know interesting people, and experiencing first-hand a different way of life .
We used the film as a jumping off point to discuss sustainability and its challenges, and think that this film can be a great way to start thinking about culture and ecology — the core of what we care about at ISDSI.
Here’s the trailer:
Here are some of the questions we used for the film:
Who are the actors / people / groups in the movie?
What resources are they interested in / do they have a stake in?
What is the connection to the natural world do different people / groups have?
What key issues / questions / problems of sustainability does the film address?
What expedition / leadership skill are demonstrated during the film?
We then followed up the rest of the week with reading papers and articles related to the sustainability themes in the film. Some of the topics we focused on were:
Consumerism
Resource use / management
Views of nature / people in nature
Corporate responsibility / sustainable business
Individual responsibility
Local costs / distant benefits (externalities)
Ecological footprints
Marginalization and sustainability
So yes, it is a fun journey movie, and entertaining. But there is a deeper message there if you think about it.
Today at ISDSI we were privileged to have a showing of the film “Mystic Ball” and a question and answer session with the filmmaker, Greg Hamilton.
From the film’s website:
Passion suffuses every moment of Mystic Ball, an uplifting documentary about one man’s physical and spiritual quest. The film resists easy categorization – it’s simultaneously a thrilling sports movie, an insightful journey to a new world, and a lyrical personal story.
Mystic Ball follows Greg Hamilton, the filmmaker, deep into the ancient and little-known culture of Myanmar and its traditional sport, chinlone. Like the film, chinlone is hard to define. It’s a team sport without an opposing team, part dance, part meditation. There is no competition, no winners and no losers. The game is back-breakingly difficult, yet is played by almost all Burmese, from young children to octogenarians.
There is a lot to say about the movie, and I recommend it highly. You can get copies through the website, and it would be a great film to show on campus. Lots of lessons about culture, and while specific to Burma, I think it resonates with our students who are on a similar sojourn on study abroad — crossing cultures, learning new things, and going outside of themselves to become part of a new community in Thailand.