Listen back to Framework for Resilience, our three-part series of online conversations which bring together activists, artists, researchers and educators to think about the world we are creating, the world we are destroying, the systems which will fall, and those which should prevail.
Episode 1: Ecological Empathy
In this first episode, we focus on the dismissive and destructive ways colonial powers have overtaken the natural world, extending the same attitudes to those who call these spaces home. Foregrounding the importance of empathy and practices of care, we discuss the effects of taking a more mindful and generous approach to the places we live, and our neighbours. Reframing our role as one of caretakers (of culture, the planet, one another), and encouraging positive action and education, we can begin to see the way to a more inclusive form of co-existence.
This episode is hosted by Lesley Taker (Exhibitions Manager at FACT) and mediated by Dr. Luiza Prado de O Martins (Artist, Researcher). Joining the conversation are speakers Dr. Edna Bonhomme (Historian, Writer, Interdisciplinary Artist), Céline Semaan-Vernon (Founder of Slow Factory Foundation, Designer, Writer, Activist) and Shonagh Short (Artist, Socially Engaged Practice).
Episode 2: Climate Justice from De-colonialist Perspectives
In the second episode of the series, we start from a collection of questions of how we engage with time, land and ownership: What happens if we consider that the very earth and trees, as well as non-sentient beings like AI and stones, have rights? How can we understand time and consequence differently: understanding that indigenous deaths caused climate change in 1600, and prevent the repeating of history? How do we peacefully transform a racialised colonial system which values the very commodities which are destroying lives, bodies, and lands?
Episode host Dr. Nicola Triscott (Director/CEO of FACT) and mediator Helen Starr (Curator), and gathered speakers Jack Tan (Artist), Himali Singh Soin (Writer, Artist) and Nabil Ahmed (Artist, Educator), consider how Western principles do not allow for ethical collaboration between beings, focusing rather on exploitation and one-sided gains. They instead explore how indigenous approaches might influence the way we establish ideas of kinship, and open up our sense of community to include other forms of existence, particularly in the future. If we approach the world with a different sense of time, and with empathy for all modes of existence, we might be able to create new forms of collaboration and notions of belonging.
Episode 3: Migration and Adaptation
In this third and final episode of the series, we discuss migration and adaptation. In 1990, the United Nations anticipated that ‘the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration’ with estimates predicting 200 million ‘climate refugees’ by 2050. While the scientific case for human-caused climate change has gained more certainty, the consequences for populations affected both by meteorological and political factors remain unpredictable. The disparity between countries and populations that had been a legacy of colonialism is becoming more pronounced as the effects of climate change are not contained within the borders of any single country.
Whether motivated by need, opportunity or force, human mobility has been an inherent part of the human experience for millennia. As people move and adapt to new environments, how is our sense of self affected by the perspectives offered by distance away from a ‘home’ and across settled generations? Our sense of self is often located in ideas of place and narratives drawn from history and biology, creating a tension between our desire to assimilate and belong somewhere or to preserve our origins. How might digital spaces create alternative definitions of community and identities shaped by more fluid notions of belonging? And how can new technologies allow us to adapt to changing ecological conditions?
Host Kayt Hughes (Public Programme Producer at FACT) and mediator Maitreyi Maheshwari (Head of Programme at FACT) and joined by speakers Dr. Ali Meghji (Lecturer, Researcher), Jessica El Mal (Artist) and Niloo Sharifi (Multidisciplinary Artist).
These online conversations are part of The Living Planet, FACT’s year-long season which focuses on the non-human, and deals with themes such as climate change, ecology and communication, as well as the violence of ‘othering’. This series will inform our programme for the rest of the year which focuses on systems of knowledge and classification in the formation of identity and the exercise of power.
They also form part of Artsformation, a research project which seeks to identify new ways of working, specifically at the intersection between art, society and technology, to overcome current social crises including justice, democracy and climate. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
The title for these sessions is taken from the artwork, PESTS, by Shonagh Short. Commissioned by FACT in 2020 for FACT Together.
