Sarah Stirk, Airborne, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
Curated by Radical Ecology, this public gathering brings together interdisciplinary artists, campaigners and thinkers to address questions of environmental justice and the role of culture in creating it.
Daytime gathering (1-7pm): free, booking required via Eventbrite
Concert: 8-10pm: £5/£4 conc. Booking required via Eventbrite
Contributions from The Ella Roberta Family Foundation will highlight issues of urban air pollution and risks to public health whilst contributions from the Stop Ecocide Foundation will frame this problem within the context of the international conversation around ecocide.
Conversations led by the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute and the International Centre for Climate Change and Development [in Dhaka] will speak to the role of new frameworks for climate finance in imagining new futures, whilst those led by Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network will draw out connections between climate displacement on a global scale and racial inequity within the context of contemporary Britain.
The programme also features a tapestry of creative interventions across forms including music, movement and performance-lecture. These point to the crucial role of the artist, in an era of ecological crisis and imbalance, of embodying alternative ways of knowing and intuiting new pathways towards equilibrium.
Participants include artists Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainyte and Lina Lapelyte, social entrepreneur Hilary Cottam, visual artist Kiluanji Kia Henda, activist Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, sociologist William Lez Henry, climate scientist Saleemul Huq, novelist Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, case worker Hera Lorandos, musical performer Love Ssega, Stop Ecocide co-founder Jojo Mehta, environmentalist Eva Peace Mukayiranga, economist Avinash Persaud, legal practitioner Philippe Sands, artist and dancer SERAFINE1369, photographer Sarah Stirk, and evening performances by Isobella Burnham and Romarna Campbell, in partnership with jazz educators Tomorrow’s Warriors.
PROGRAMME
1-2:45pm
Listening session: Torkwase Dyson, Breathtaking: On Black Beauty and Other Necessary Indeterminacies (Spatial Test With Drawing, _001), 2021
Introductions: Bettina Korek, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Ashish Ghadiali, Lucia Pietroiusti
Conversation: Air quality in Lewisham, with Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, Sarah Stirk and William Lez Henry
Listening Session: A new sound piece and performance by Love Ssega for Black Chapel
2:45-4:45pm
On the Sun & Sea partnership and University of Exeter’s Arts & Culture: Kris Nelson and Sarah Campbell
Introduction to Serpentine’s long-term project of environmental campaigns, Back to Earth: Rebecca Lewin
Back to Earth panel: Rugile Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė, Lina Lapelyte, Love Ssega and Hilary Cottam in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist
Notes on ecocide: Jojo Mehta and Philippe Sands
Performance: SERAFINE1369
4:45-7pm
The Imagination of New Futures: Karim Harris, Saleemul Huq, Eva Peace Mukayiranga and Avinash Persaud in conversation with Lucia Pietroiusti
Screening: Janine Benuys in conversation with Kate Raworth, introduced by Hans Ulrich Obrist
Reading and conversation: Ayana Lloyd Banwo, When We Were Birds followed by a conversation with Tamar Clarke-Brown
Building Places of Sanctuary: Lewisham Refugee and Migrants Network panel, with Hera Lorandos, moderated by Ashish Ghadiali
Performance-lecture: Kiluanji Kia Henda, Something Happened on the Way to Heaven
8-10pm
Concert: Isobella Burnham and Romarna Campbell, invited by Jazz educators Tomorrow’s Warriors, special musical performances inside the Serpentine Pavilion 2022, Black Chapel by Theaster Gates
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Curated by Radical Ecology (Ashish Ghadiali and Lucia Pietroiusti) and produced by Holly Shuttleworth. Emilian Isibo: Assistant Curator. Curatorial and production advice from Amaya Jeyarajah Dent, Kris Nelson and Matthew Schmolle. In partnership with: LIFT 2022, Serpentine’s Back to Earth project, We Are Lewisham, The Ella Roberta Family Foundation, Lewisham Refugee and Migrant Network, University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, University of Exeter Arts & Culture, University of Exeter Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, UCL’s Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism & Racialisation, UCL Anthropocene, L-Acoustics & Open Society Foundations.
