EcoFutures: Queer, Feminist and Decolonial Responses to Ecological & Environmental Changes

Curated by the London-based organisation Arts Feminism Queer (also known as CUNTemporary), EcoFutures is a Live Art programme spanning 7 venues and 10 partner organisations and responding to urgent ecological and environmental issues through a feminist, queer and decolonial lens.

EcoFutures brings together over 70 artists, activists and theorists from all over the world to create a platform for discussion and experimentation around issues ranging from ecological disasters and their impact on climate refugees; plastic/toxic waste and the contamination of aquatic and human bodies; the relationship between increasing air toxicity and human and animal diseases; high-speed capitalist consumption and the ungovernable production of trash and techno-waste; from neo-colonialist soil exploitations to indigenous land reclamations and green economies; the rise of temperature and sea levels and their direct effects on the environment, with a focus on the Majority World.

The programme consists of a 10-day group exhibition Staring at the Sun at the Mile End Art Pavilion with artworks by Helena Hunter, Liz Rosenfeld, Mary Maggic, Micha Cárdenas, Nadja Verena Marcin, Pinar Yoldas, Tabita Rezaire, Zheng Bo and Eca Eps, who will perform on the opening day (4 April). The exhibition space, which will be the hub of the programme, will host an ‘open day’ of free activities called Local Dialogues – Global Movements on 6 April, with stalls and info desks by local organisations, performances by Timebomb Opera and Moa Johansson exploring the themes of extinction and sustainability, then followed by the talk “Black & Feminist Eco-Activisms” with Ama Josephine Budge, Women’s Environmental Network, Farzana Khan (Voices that Shake), Suzanne Dhaliwal and Susan Buckingham. The day ends with a screening of Shu Lea Cheang’s 1994 film Fresh Kill.

During the exhibition, there will be SF Trans*Plant, an intensive 5-day workshop (9-13 April) on bio-hacking and identity deconstruction run by the transfeminist collective Quimera Rosa. For 3 days (5-7 April) Xavier de Sousa & Andre Neely, supported by Artsadmin/2Degrees, will be conducting their artistic Residency in the space, which will be engaging invited guests and the general audience across the themes of environmental political protests. Raisa Kabir is also leading a 4-part workshop called Weaving Local Voices with a local group of Bangladeshi women, in collaboration with the organisation Stitches in Time, to focus on processes of labour exploitation in the textile industry. Artists Ivy Monteiro and Javier Stell-Frésquez, coming from Brazil/Switzerland and the USA for the occasion, will draw on their indigenous/Black lived experiences to reflect on the concepts of motherhood and ecology through a workshop in 2 parts (7 April). They will also premiere their performance ‘Mother the Verb’ at Chisenhale Dance Space on Friday 5 April.

As part of the programme, the film Water Makes Us Wet by Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle will be shown at Genesis Cinema on 11 April. The free screening Ecologies of Migration as part of the Live Art Development Agency ‘Performing Rights’ series, will showcase works by Kyrahm & Julius Kaiser, Feral Theatre, Quimera Rosa, Rocío Boliver and Inés Moldavsky – followed by a Q&A with the artists.

The international interactive conference Queer-feminist Ecocriticism in Live Art & Visual Cultures, taking place on 13 April at Queen Mary University of London, has invited theoretical and performative approaches to the panels ‘Non-Human Ethics and Xenopolitics’, ‘Sexing the Planet: Performing Ecological Intimacies’ and ‘Repair, Resist, Revitalize: New Synergies in the Anthropocene’ and will have videos by Adelita Husni-Bey and Wangechi Mutu and interventions by Rita Natálio, Ama Josephine Budge, Gaia Giuliani, Liam Geary Baulch, Quimera Rosa, Isabel Burr Raty, Elizabeth Eleanor Jacqueline Atkinson, João Florencio, Nadja Verena Marcin, Helena Hunter and a keynote presentation by Silvia Federici.

To end this rich programme, the live art club night Deep Trash: Eco Trash (on Friday 19 April) will showcase over 40 artists at the rhythm of techno music, with live performances by Arise Amazons! (coming from Sweden) Danielle Imara, Eunjung Kim & Burong (曾不容), Fallon Mayanja (coming from Portugal), intimate animals, Joseph Morgan Schofield, Miss HerNia, Niya B, Tom Coates and Veneration (Victoria W & Nicole B).

As part of EcoFutures, the team at CUNTemporary is also creating a Live Art Development Agency Study Room Guide on these complex issues  to be published this summer.

 

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Date Posted: 28 March 2019