‘Turbulence / Emergence / Enchantment: A Compendium of Climate Literacies’ takes place at Cove Park between 4-7 November 2021 and is 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 is made possible by funding from Arts & Business Scotland: Culture & Business Fund.

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?

This experimental intensive/symposium aims to answer those questions by gathering together contributors from a wide range of different backgrounds, criss-crossing its way through a series of lectures, performances and film screenings that together ask the question: How can we progress towards mutual literacy between the arts, the humanities, the hard sciences, and civic responsibility?

Turbulence, Emergence, and Enchantment, with their unsettling mix of positive and negative connotations, act as guiding metaphors for the week. Turbulent are climate, geo-politics, and living beings. Emergent is metamorphosis. Enchantment is possibility of participating in the creation of just and environmentally thriving futures.

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 is launching 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.

Participants include:

Derya Akkaynak, Oceanographer
Christina Alt, Lecturer in English, University of St. Andrews
Oana Aristide, Novelist
Kieran Baxter, Heritage Landscape Visualiser

Emilia Beatriz, Film-maker, Artist
Angela YT Chan, Independent Researcher, Curator and Artist
Tamara Colchester & Hermione Spriggs, Artists
colectivo amasijo, Artists, Researchers, Food-makers
Meehan Crist, Writer in Residence, Biological Sciences, Columbia University
Annalee Davis, Artist, Cultural Instigator, Writer
Deborah Dixon, Professor of Geography, University of Glasgow
Radha D’Souza, Professor of International Law, Development and Conflict Studies, Westminster Law School
Katharine Earnshaw, Lecturer in Classics, University of Exeter
David Farrier, Professor of Literature and the Environment, University of Edinburgh
Fernando García-Dory, Artist
Ashish Ghadiali, Film-maker, Activist
Col Gordon, Farmer, Podcaster

Karen Guthrie, Artist, Film-maker, Gardener

Laura Hopes, Artist, Researcher
Jason König, Professor of Greek, Centre for Ancient Environmental Studies, University of St Andrews
Zoé Le Voyer & Justine Daquin, curators and co-founders of collective Calypso36°21
Iain MacKinnon, Assistant Professor, Centre for Agroecology, Coventry University
Andreas Malm, Associate Professor of Human Ecology, Lund University
Michael Marder, Ikerbasque Professor of Philosophy, University of the Basque Country
Falke Thue Mikailsen, Activist
Aka Niviâna, Poet, Activist
Janice Parker, Choreographer, Dance-maker

Maureen Penjueli, Coordinator of Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG)
Himali Singh Soin, Writer, Artist
Jonas Staal, Artist
Nada Tayeb, Architect, Food-maker
Territorial Agency, Artists
Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas, Artists
Adrián Villar Rojas, Artist

Italics indicates an online presentation.

THURSDAY 4 NOVEMBER

11-11.30: Welcome & Introductions
11.30-12.30: colectivo amasijo
12.30-13.30: Karen Guthrie
13.30-15: Lunch
15-16: Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas 
16–17: Zoé Le Voyer & Justine Daquin
17-18: Fernando García-Dory
18–19: Derya Akkaynak
Dinner*
After dinner: Himali Singh Soin (screening)

FRIDAY 5 NOVEMBER

8.45–9.30: Morning Walk: Tamara Colchester & Hermione Spriggs
9.45-10.45: Radha D’Souza
11-11.45: Aka Niviâna
12–13: Ashish Ghadiali
13-14.30: Lunch
14.30–15.30: Christina Alt
15.30-16.30: Angela YT Chan
16.30-16.45: Break
16.45-17.45: Andreas Malm
18.00–19.00: Janice Parker (performance)
Dinner*
After dinner: Jonas Staal (screening)

SATURDAY 6 NOVEMBER

9.45-10.45: Katharine Earnshaw / Laura Hopes
10.45-11.45: David Farrier
11.45-13.15: Michael Marder
13.15-14.30: Lunch
14.30-15.30: Deborah Dixon
15.30-16.30: Meehan Crist
16.30-17.00: Break
17.00-18.00: Territorial Agency
18.00–19.30: Col Gordon / Iain MacKinnon (with live music interspersed)
Dinner*
After dinner: Evening Walk, Tamara Colchester & Hermione Spriggs

SUNDAY 7 NOVEMBER

9–9.45: Morning Walk: Tamara Colchester & Hermione Spriggs
10-11: Oana Aristide
11-12: Maureen Penjueli
12.00-13.00: Falke Thue Mikailsen
13.00-14.00: Lunch
14.00-15.00: Annalee Davis
15.00-16.00: Jason König
16.00-16.30: Break
16.30-17.30: Kieran Baxter
17.30-18.15: Adrián Villar Rojas
Dinner*
After dinner: Emilia Beatriz (screening)

This will be a hybrid event with some speakers physically present and others intervening remotely. Please note, the event will not be live-streamed. Instead, a ‘Compendium of Climate Literacies’ will be released in podcast and video formats in the weeks following the symposium and COP26.

To book one of a limited number of tickets for this event, please visit our Eventbrite page.

*Guests are welcome to join the participants, organisers and the Cove Park team for dinner. If you want to join us for lunch only, please consider donating £5, if you want to stay for dinner, too, please consider donating £30. Please contact rsvp@covepark.org if you have any special dietary requirements. Thank you.