2021 marks yet another year of fatalities from natural and human disasters. With the COVID-19 pandemic and climate crisis spreading worldwide, we continue to rethink how to coexist with other living beings on Earth. Besides the natural ecology, how do we engage with other forms of ecologies, including social, political, artistic, and even academic ones?
Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) will host this first Critical Ecologies (CE) symposium, bringing together various academics, artists, and students concerned with the agenda from the CE theme group.
Our agenda is being formed with thoughts such as those of Canadian anthropologist Julie Cruikshank (2006) in her study of glaciers pointed out how “local knowledge” often conjoins social and biophysical processes. Tao Indigenous writer and anthropologist Syaman Rapongan from the Orchid Island of Taiwan reminds us how local philosophies from the ocean can teach us different values systems and ways of living. Brazilian Indigenous movement leader and philosopher Ailton Krenak observed that COVD-19 discriminates against humans, due to the way human societies work. "It does not kill birds, bears, or any other beings, just humans" (2020, 3). He even emphasizes that we have to abandon our anthropocentrism (2020, 6).
This symposium and conference bring together researchers and practitioners working in the intersections of art, ecology, indigeneity, geopolitics, as well as science and technology studies, to build a cross-regional network of sustainable collaboration.
Date
Friday, November 12
Time
19:20-20:40pm HKT (GMT+8)
Description
Our relations to the maritime are both remote and intimate, made of myths bigger-than-life, of encounters of cultures and exchanges of merchandises, of Empires built and others defeated, of explorations of the abyss and of ecological devastations. Last March, the incident of the commercial vessel Ever Given stuck for six days in the Suez Canal reminded us that the very flow of our everyday life relies on an intricate maritime infrastructure. In fact, 90% of all trade takes place over the sea (oecd.org) and in the past few years, the once-forgotten “Silk Road” is being remodelled through the ambition of China for its Belt and Road Initiative. Within a large geopolitical and opaque logistical context, we are (re)discovering the stakes of maritime control and exploitation, and how they impact our culture and ecosystem. Artists and researchers in this panel will showcase some of the legacies and current trends of these maritime identities.
Speaker: Dr. Anna Katharina Grasskamp, Charity Edwards and Dr. Mohd Anis Md Nor
Moderator: Dr. Joëlle Bitton
Register now: https://forms.gle/pkRfFQf3LgZoJUdD9