A Compendium of Climate Literacies
This is the digital archive of the experimental intensive/symposium ‘Turbulence / Emergence / Enchantment: A Compendium of Climate Literacies’ that took place at Cove Park between 4-7 November 2021. It brought together artists, writers, performers, academics, and activists from a wide range of backgrounds to discuss climate literacy.
In the Western tradition, language has been viewed as our most powerful tool for ordering and mastering the world around us. And yet more and more we are having to acknowledge our struggle in communicating the current environmental crisis and its unequally distributed effects.
How do language and action relate to each other in climate science, narrative and activism? How can we rethink our responses to classical and premodern legacies of environmental thinking to create new understandings for the present? How can we open ourselves to new kinds of environmental literacies that give space to the agency of the other-than-human and more-than-human worlds? How do we ensure that languages have an impact on global discourse, in a context where the privilege of climate speech is still dominated by the elite discourses of the Global North?
TURBULENCE, EMERGENCE and ENCHANTMENT, with their unsettling mix of positive and negative connotations, acted as guiding metaphors for the week.
The SoundCloud link below features:
Introduction to Turbulence, Emergence, Enchantment by Maureen Penjueli, Coordinator of Pacific Network on Globalisation.
TURBULENCE
The first chapter includes discussions around the theme of ‘Turbulent are climate, geo-politics, and living beings.’ The Turbulence YouTube playlist features:
Video 1: Climate Clarity/Confusion/Change by Derya Akkaynak (Oceanographer)
Video 2: Disaster, grief, apocalypse and empire in ancient ecological thinking by Jason König (Professor of Greek, Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies, University of St Andrews)
Video 3: After Ice by Kieran Baxter (Heritage Landscape Visualiser, University of Dundee)
Video 4: ‘Restore to us the necessary blizzards’ by Christina Alt (Lecturer in English, University of St. Andrews)
The Turbulence SoundCloud playlist features:
Track 1: Purple Haze by Deborah Dixon (Professor of Geography, University of Glasgow)
Track 2: Turbulence by Andreas Malm (Associate Professor of Human Ecology, Lund University)
Track 3: Turbulence by Oana Aristide (Novelist)
EMERGENCE
The second chapter includes discussions around the theme of ‘Emergent is metamorphosis.’ The Emergence YouTube playlist features:
Video 1: The Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes by Radha D’Souza (Professor of International Law, Development and Conflict Studies, Westminster Law School)
Video 2: Worm: art and ecology by Angela YT Chan (Independent Researcher, Curator and Artist)
Video 3: Listening with Another Ear by Annalee Davis (Artist, Cultural Instigator, Writer)
Video 4: Oceans in Transformation by Territorial Agency (Artists)
Video 5: The Swamp – a theory, a school, a design by Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas (Artists)
The Emergence SoundCloud playlist features:
Track 1: At the far end of the cave of gold by Col Gordon (Farmer & Podcaster) and Iain MacKinnon (Assistant Professor, Centre for Agroecology, Coventry University)
Track 2: World Making by Ashish Ghadiali (Film-maker and Activist)
Track 3: An Inland Promenade by Fernando García-Dory (Artist)
Track 4: Emergence by Karen Guthrie (Artist, Film-maker and Gardener)
ENCHANTMENT
The final chapter includes discussions around the theme of ‘Enchantment is possibility of participating in the creation of just and environmentally thriving futures.’ The Enchantment YouTube playlist features:
Video 1: Small Acts of Hope and Lament by Janice Parker (Choreographer, Dance-maker)
Video 2: Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils by David Farrier (Professor of Literature and the Environment, University of Edinburgh)
Video 3: The Ecological Literacies of St. Hildegard of Bingen by Michael Marder (Ikerbasque Professor of Philosophy, University of the Basque Country)
Video 4: Marginalia by Katharine Earnshaw (Lecturer in Classics, University of Exeter) & Laura Hopes (Artist, Researcher)
Video 5: Language, silence & storytelling: to survive in the marine environment by Zoé Le Voyer & Justine Daquin (curators and co-founders of collective Calypso36°21)
The Enchantment SoundCloud playlist features:
Track 1: Epistemology of Caring by colectivo amasijo (Artists, Researchers, Food-makers)
Symposium participants also included: Tamara Colchester & Hermione Spriggs (Artists), Aka Niviâna (Poet, Activist), and Nada Tayeb (Architect, Food-maker).
This event signals a pivotal stage in the development of Cove Park. In its 21st year the organisation is moving beyond the boundaries of the traditional ‘time, space, freedom’ residency to include an enquiry-based model for facilitating cross-disciplinary work and collective intelligence around pressing global concerns. We are expanding the artforms and disciplines that are welcome to the residency, and enlarging its horizons towards other sectors, such as those of academic and scientific research, including the creative industries as a whole. On the occasion of COP26, Cove Park launched its first – and soon to become permanent – enquiry focussed on the environmental crisis and the radical change that our collective intelligence can affect in terms of climate action.
“Turbulence/ Emergence/ Enchantment: A Compendium of Climate Literacies” was organised in partnership with the Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies and Professor Jason König at the University of St Andrews, London-based curator Lucia Pietroiusti, TBA21-Academy and Markus Reymann, and the School of Classics and the College of Arts and Humanities (Environmental Humanities Research Strand) of University College Dublin and Dr. Giacomo Savani. The symposium was made possible by funding from Arts & Business Scotland: Culture & Business Fund. Thanks to the Green Art Lab Alliance for their support and friendship.
