Climate Imaginaries at Sea speculates possible futures in and around water through various artistic and participatory research practices. Three collaborating research groups bring the project forward: Art & Spatial Praxis at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (GRA), the Lectorate of the Academy of Theatre and Dance at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK) and the Visual Methodologies Collective at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS).
The research groups work in partnership with ARIAS, a platform for artistic research in Amsterdam, and a network of partners that includes Tolhuistuin, the Institute for Sound & Vision and CoECI – Centre of Expertise for Creative Innovation.Starting in 2023, three newly developed artistic research studios will invite artists to develop artistic imaginaries that address rising sea levels. The artistic research studios will pay particular attention to perspectives often missing from mainstream climate change debates: material, indigenous, and interspecies inquiry.
Each studio will work without predetermined disciplinary boundaries through practice-led artistic research and written and non-textual forms such as installations, sounds, movements, images and objects. In addition, students will be actively involved in the research by developing imaginative engagements with rising sea levels as both a future prospect and a present reality in various parts of the world.Imagining the future of climate change is crucial for accepting change, whether in our personal lives, environment or politics. As the author Amitav Ghosh points out, “the climate crisis is also a crisis of the imagination.” Who has the privilege to imagine the future of climate change, and for whom are its effects already present? Acknowledging an unequal present where rising sea levels affect low-income populations and people of colour the hardest is crucial, as those communities are also the most vulnerable and the ones with the lowest amount of emissions responsible for the climate crisis.
The questions leading the studios are:
How can artists connect people to indigenous water and climate knowledges across multiple cultural perspectives where the consequences of rising sea levels are already a reality in the present?
How can we understand the impact of rising sea levels in relation to housing, clothing and soil through material artistic research?
How can interspecies imaginaries help form different relationships with rising seas beyond considering them as merely a threat?
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Climate Imaginaries at Sea speculates possible futures in and around water through various artistic and participatory research practices. Three collaborating research groups bring the project forward: Art & Spatial Praxis at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (GRA), the Lectorate of the Academy of Theatre and Dance at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK) and the Visual Methodologies Collective at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS).
The research groups work in partnership with ARIAS, a platform for artistic research in Amsterdam, and a network of partners that includes Tolhuistuin, the Institute for Sound & Vision and CoECI – Centre of Expertise for Creative Innovation.Starting in 2023, three newly developed artistic research studios will invite artists to develop artistic imaginaries that address rising sea levels. The artistic research studios will pay particular attention to perspectives often missing from mainstream climate change debates: material, indigenous, and interspecies inquiry.
Each studio will work without predetermined disciplinary boundaries through practice-led artistic research and written and non-textual forms such as installations, sounds, movements, images and objects. In addition, students will be actively involved in the research by developing imaginative engagements with rising sea levels as both a future prospect and a present reality in various parts of the world.Imagining the future of climate change is crucial for accepting change, whether in our personal lives, environment or politics. As the author Amitav Ghosh points out, “the climate crisis is also a crisis of the imagination.” Who has the privilege to imagine the future of climate change, and for whom are its effects already present? Acknowledging an unequal present where rising sea levels affect low-income populations and people of colour the hardest is crucial, as those communities are also the most vulnerable and the ones with the lowest amount of emissions responsible for the climate crisis.
The questions leading the studios are:
How can artists connect people to indigenous water and climate knowledges across multiple cultural perspectives where the consequences of rising sea levels are already a reality in the present?
How can we understand the impact of rising sea levels in relation to housing, clothing and soil through material artistic research?
How can interspecies imaginaries help form different relationships with rising seas beyond considering them as merely a threat?
This first episode of the Climate Imaginaries podcast was recorded in early 2023. It took place at the invitation of Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca, as she explains in the episode introduction (see transcript below). Laura invited Rajni Shah to host a conversation between Joy Mariama Smith and Michaela Harrison. All three artists had taken part in the launch of the Climate Imaginaries project in September 2022 but since both Joy and Michaela participated remotely, the three artists had not met prior to this conversation. There are some variations in sound qualities since the recording happened over zoom and was held by fluctuating internet connections. Nevertheless, we hope you will enjoy the many stories and wisdoms that come through.
Acknowledgments and credits The waves you hear in this episode are recordings of the waters of Gichi-aazhoogami-gichigami (Lake Huron), recorded at Singing Sands on the west of the Saugeen Peninsula (Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario). These are the traditional lands and waters of the Anishinaabeg, and specifically the Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, and the Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation. This territory is covered by the Upper Canada Treaty No. 72.
The river sounds in this episode come from the O:se Kenhionhata:tie (Grand river) and were made at the Elora Gorge Conservation Area (Ontario, Canada), located on the on the traditional lands of the Attawandaron (Neutral Nation), Haudenosaunee, and the Mississaugas of the Credit, and on the present day lands of the Six Nations of the Grand River covered in the 1784 Haldimand Treaty.
All recordings were made by Fili 周 Gibbons with care and respect for the lands, waters, winds, trees, and creatures being recorded.
This podcast is part of the project Climate Imaginaries led by Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca, Sabine Niederer, and Patricia de Vries. With thank to Andy Dockett for web and technical assistance. Climate Imaginaries is part of the Art Route NWA-project ‘Bit by bit, or not at all’ financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and an Imagination Laboratory within the SPRONG project Imagination in Transitions. It is also made possible with the support of Centre of Expertise for Creative Innovation (CoECI) in Amsterdam. Editing, mixing, sound design, and cello by Fili 周 Gibbons and Studio Apothicaire Contributors: Michaela Harrison and Joy Mariama Smith Conversations hosted by Rajni Shah, and edited by Rajni Shah and Fili 周 Gibbons
Brief biographies Fili 周 Gibbons (we/them/us) are a musician, sound designer, and audiovisual recordist working across a range of community and professional contexts to support plural voices, expressions, and sonic experiences. As well as leading community workshops they frequently work with other sound and video artists, drawing on listening, memory and intuition as guiding forces in collaborative making practices. https://studio-apothicaire.com
Joy Mariama Smith is native Philadelphian and currently based in Amsterdam. An ongoing question in their work is: What is the interplay between the body and its physical environment? Smith has a strong improvisational practice spanning twenty years and has been active as a performance/installation/movement artist, activist, facilitator, curator and architectural designer. https://joy-mariama-smith.tumblr.com/
Michaela Harrison is an international vocalist and healer whose career is rooted in relaying the elevating, transformational power of music through song and supporting others in accessing the fountain of healing energy available in nature through ritual and creative practices. Harrison has facilitated and participated in numerous workshops and retreats and is currently engaged in a project called “Whale Whispering,” a musical collaboration on water, healing and ancestry with humpback whales based in Bahia. https://www.michaelaharrison.org
Climate Imaginaries
Climate Imaginaries at Sea speculates possible futures in and around water through various artistic and participatory research practices. Three collaborating research groups bring the project forward: Art & Spatial Praxis at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy (GRA), the Lectorate of the Academy of Theatre and Dance at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK) and the Visual Methodologies Collective at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS).
The research groups work in partnership with ARIAS, a platform for artistic research in Amsterdam, and a network of partners that includes Tolhuistuin, the Institute for Sound & Vision and CoECI – Centre of Expertise for Creative Innovation.Starting in 2023, three newly developed artistic research studios will invite artists to develop artistic imaginaries that address rising sea levels. The artistic research studios will pay particular attention to perspectives often missing from mainstream climate change debates: material, indigenous, and interspecies inquiry.
Each studio will work without predetermined disciplinary boundaries through practice-led artistic research and written and non-textual forms such as installations, sounds, movements, images and objects. In addition, students will be actively involved in the research by developing imaginative engagements with rising sea levels as both a future prospect and a present reality in various parts of the world.Imagining the future of climate change is crucial for accepting change, whether in our personal lives, environment or politics. As the author Amitav Ghosh points out, “the climate crisis is also a crisis of the imagination.” Who has the privilege to imagine the future of climate change, and for whom are its effects already present? Acknowledging an unequal present where rising sea levels affect low-income populations and people of colour the hardest is crucial, as those communities are also the most vulnerable and the ones with the lowest amount of emissions responsible for the climate crisis.
The questions leading the studios are:
How can artists connect people to indigenous water and climate knowledges across multiple cultural perspectives where the consequences of rising sea levels are already a reality in the present?
How can we understand the impact of rising sea levels in relation to housing, clothing and soil through material artistic research?
How can interspecies imaginaries help form different relationships with rising seas beyond considering them as merely a threat?
