The weather has been so very strange. Extreme weather events ranging from relentless coastal flooding, acidifying oceans, to desertification, and uncontainable forest fires are disabusing us of any delusions of exceptionalism or escape from the climate crisis now englobing us all. This weather is neither “incidental, nor accidental; it is an intra-active, naturalcultural phenomenon”; it is “the external conditions that structure … quotidian existence”, “existence felt in and as our [porous] bodies” (Neimaris).
The public symposium “Strange Weather: Ecologies of Resistance and Repair”, held in the context of the 5th Pelion Summer Lab on “Ec/o/ntologies”, takes for granted the imbrication of state power, material phenomena and atmospheres, the strangulating grip of racism, colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism on the water, the air, the land. We must now learn to live with these more-than-human traumas, whether inflicted or endured. This strange weather has a way of catching up with us all.
Our aim in this three-day symposium is to seek out and sound out alternatives to despair and paralysis, on the one hand, and to a naïve faith in techno-capitalist solutions, on the other. We bring together activists, researchers, artists, from near and far, to join local community members responding to what we see as a planetary imperative: to regroup and ground our respective imaginative powers, everyday experiences, and multi-sited struggles for racial, historical, political, and environmental justice. Yes, all these things, all at once. The stakes could not be greater, the timing more urgent. We must prepare for what is already arriving.
The symposium will unfold over three locations - Volos on June 30th, Makrinitsa on July 1, and Stagiates on July 2 - and attempts to create a true space of exchange and encounter through participatory activities and multimodal formats (assemblies, documentary screening, collective audition of podcasts, collective kitchen).
The public symposium “Strange Weather: Ecologies of Resistance and Repair”, held in the context of the 5th Pelion Summer Lab on “Ec/o/ntologies”, takes for granted the imbrication of state power, material phenomena and atmospheres, the strangulating grip of racism, colonialism, patriarchy and capitalism on the water, the air, the land. We must now learn to live with these more-than-human traumas, whether inflicted or endured. This strange weather has a way of catching up with us all.
Our aim in this three-day symposium is to seek out and sound out alternatives to despair and paralysis, on the one hand, and to a naïve faith in techno-capitalist solutions, on the other. We bring together activists, researchers, artists, from near and far, to join local community members responding to what we see as a planetary imperative: to regroup and ground our respective imaginative powers, everyday experiences, and multi-sited struggles for racial, historical, political, and environmental justice. Yes, all these things, all at once. The stakes could not be greater, the timing more urgent. We must prepare for what is already arriving.
The symposium will unfold over three locations - Volos on June 30th, Makrinitsa on July 1, and Stagiates on July 2 - and attempts to create a true space of exchange and encounter through participatory activities and multimodal formats (assemblies, documentary screening, collective audition of podcasts, collective kitchen).
