Clare Adams is the current artist-in residence. She writes:

Welcome to Ox House: An online alphabet for and about the Digital Native – made by you

About: The Ox House Alphabet

A digital native is a person for whom digital technologies already exist when they are born, and hence has or will grow up with digital technology such as the internet, mobile phones, social networking sites etc.

• What gift would you bestow upon a digital native about to be born into our digital world?

• What can you tell them about identity, disclosure, connection, information or the archive? How will you tell it?

Over the next two months, I will be in the final stages of my pregnancy, heading towards my baby’s due date on the 29th November 09. As artist in residence on The Art of Engagement, I invite artists, thinkers, performers, philosophers, writers, poets, photographers, illustrators, designers, musicians, computer scientists and curious passers-by, to submit to OXHOUSE, a collaborative online alphabet project that is both for and about the digital native.

The link for OXHOUSE is: http://tinyurl.com/OXHOUSE-ALPHABET

For August and September 2009, Justin Allen was the first artist-in-residence during a year of residencies he has curated for the Art of Engagement online residency programme. For his online residency he created VTC2.0 (messages for the future), a virtual time capsule into which people from around the world placed messages for the future. On the 22nd of September the capsule was sealed through a live ceremony that you could join via the Internet. Justin Allen had his lips sealed with stitches and then observed an hour of silence.

The 09-10 residency programme is supported by a research and development grant from Arts Council England.

Through the month of July, Lisa Lipsett invited us to join her on a 4-week Natural Painting adventure. The many activities are posted on her blog as an ongoing resource for artists and educators.

Previous residencies:
May-June 2009 Bobby Baker
March-April 2009 John Jordan
January-February 2009 Glas(s) Performance
November-December 2008 Doran George
September-October 2008 Tim Jeeves
July-August 2008 Gwylene Gallimard and Jean-Marie Mauclet
May-June 2008 Rajni Shah Rajni Shah curated the 2008-2009 program.

Welcome to this online gathering on the Art of Engagement.

Please join us! This network exists as an ongoing open space for international dialogue on the Art of Engagement. It is experimental, co-created and free. Here are some of the questions that draw us together: How do we image and imagine the work of art at this moment in history, when the survival of the planet is threatened? What role can art play in transforming the current cascade of social and environmental crises? Can we develop a way to create culture, to research, learn and teach with/in ecological systems? Where does art intersect with social struggle?

Give others the chance to learn from your own efforts and projects. Share resources and stories. Ask questions. Challenge us. Ask for help. Make new friends and forge new alliances.

Here are some steps for people new to the site (everything is optional and can be done in any order!):

1. Sign in.
2.Edit your profile - add a profile photo to represent you, and tell us something about your practice, your questions and your passions. (There will be a short delay before your page is visible on the site and you are able to post comments. We need to "approve" your membership in order to prevent SPAM attacks. We do not censor who can get on the site - we just check that you are not a spammer. Please give us enough information so that we can do this.)
3. Upload some photos, and/or videos and sounds.
4. Read about other participants by clicking on the "Members" tab. Leave comments for them on their comment wall.
5. Participate in discussions that are underway under the"Forums" tab. Join a Group. Start your own groups and discussions.
6. Use your Blog to keep us updated on what you are doing. Keep uploading photos and sharing projects.

Culturing Sustainability: a cookbook for artists and educators

Let's explore some of the methods, motives and consequences of our practices in art and education. Caffyn Kelley has posted a text called "Culturing Sustainability: a cookbook for artists and educators" that draws on the work of many Engaged Art Network members. This text is a living document! Let's correct, add, and argue here so that we can co-create a much better text together.

Some comments from participants:

Jan Cornall: Here there is the possibility to make deep meaningful connection with like minded artists, thinkers, writers, performers; to collaborate, share ideas, knowledge, develop projects, and to work together to actively make a difference in our street, neighbourhood, world. Here you can be recognised, appreciated and supported as an artist, and arts worker, an activist, a teacher, a thinker, by your fellow artists and arts workers. How valuable is that! How much do we need that! ...Here we can cut through the borders and boundaries that separate us, we can leapfrog the hierarchies and closed shops, the habitual patterns of our own limited thinking and limitations of our own arts communities and burst freely into a new awakened space of possibility. I tell you ....its better than sex, better than myspace almost better than art.

Beverly Naidus: For me, as facilitator [of a discussion on Teaching Art for Social Change], the greatest delight was this sense of our world as activist art practitioners, leaping across borders, time zones, and significant logistical boundaries. To be able to connect with deeply passionate colleagues in Australia, England, Qatar, Vancouver and Pittsburgh - wow, is all I can say. And if folks take a look at where the growing membership of this "engaged art" network comes from, you will be astounded. The countries represented besides those mentioned above include: South Africa, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Norway, Romania, Germany and Sweden. How exciting is that! ...

And I wanted to say that this gathering is so timely. There are so many people everywhere who feel the preciousness of this time and recognize that we must gather our energies to turn the tide. I encourage those of you with larger networks working with art for social change, to connect them with this space. We need to gather all the sparks, and develop more momentum from the margins.