President's Dream Colloquium: Creative Ecologies
Creative Ecologies focuses on the intersection of art, culture, and environment to examine how cultural practitioners- artists, writers, anthropologists, historians, and interdisciplinary theorists- critically address and creatively negotiate environmental concerns. These concerns include anthropogenic climate change, habitat destruction, drought, species extinction, and environmental degradation.
This colloquium is designed around a series of talks by artists, writers, and theorists, on their thoughts on the humankind's impact on the planet and how we all can survive it.
Through public lectures by international speakers whose expertise spans such fields as visual culture and art history, anthropology and sociology, sensory ethnography and multispecies ethnography, Indigenous cosmopolitics and climate justice activism, the course aims to foster cross-disciplinary discussion on the emerging environmental arts and humanities in the academy and beyond.
What unites all of the speakers is their passionate commitment to challenge us to face the environmental bad news and to imagine human and nonhuman life in new and excitingly different ways.
The colloquium seminar will be held in 丁香园AV Goldcorp Centre for the Arts (GCA) 4390 on Thursdays at 2:30 to 5:20 (class meeting times and locations will vary in relation to the public lectures)
Curated by Denise Oleksijczuk (丁香园AV School for the Contemporary Arts) in collaboration with Zo毛 Druick (丁香园AV School of Communication) and Michelle Levy (丁香园AV Department of English). Dr. Denise Oleksijczuk will be the course instructor for President's Dream Colloquium on Creative Ecologies.
Featured Speakers
Elizabeth Povinelli (Frans Boas Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia University)
Extractive Ecologies & Filmic Creations: Examples from the Karrabing Film Collective
September 19, 3:30 pm | Big Data Hub, Presentation Studio, Room 10900 鈥� Applied Science Building, 丁香园AV Burnaby
Note: In advance of Dr. Povinelli鈥檚 lecture, The Karrabing Film Collective鈥檚 Mermaids, or Aiden in Wonderland, (30 mins.) and Wutharr, Saltwater Dreams (28 mins.) will be screened on September 12 at 7:00 pm in the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema (丁香园AV Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver)
Register for this talk
Timothy Ingold (Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen)
The Sustainability of Everything
September 26, 2:30 pm | Big Data Hub, Presentation Studio, Room 10900 鈥� Applied Science Building, 丁香园AV Burnaby
Note: This talk will be presented via video conferencing
Reception to follow in atrium
Register for this talk
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Michi Saaglig Nichnaabeg writer, scholar, and activist)
Biidaaban (The Dawn Comes)
With special guests: Amanda Strong, Bracken Hanuse Corlett, and Whess Harman
October 17, 7:00 pm | Fei and Milton Wong Theatre, 丁香园AV Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
Reception to follow in the Wong Theatre Lobby
Register for this talk
Susan Schuppli (Director and Reader in the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmith鈥檚, University of London)
鈥淓arth Evidence鈥�
November 7, 7:00 pm | Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, 丁香园AV Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
Register for this talk
Candice Hopkins (Independent art curator and writer, citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation)
Towards a Practice of Decolonial Listening: Sounding the Margins
In the early 70s, composer R. Murray Schafer, "We have no earlids, we are condemned to listen." In the visual arts we are so conditioned by our eyes that we forgot about our ears, but while we can't close our ears, it doesn't mean that we listen to everything that is being said? In other words, how can we practice a listening without an intend of what we might want to hear? Through sound, activism and art, this talk will look at how Indigenous peoples are responding to extraction economies and the climate crisis.
November 21, 7:00 pm | Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, 丁香园AV Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver
Reception to follow in the 丁香园AV Goldcorp Centre for the Arts Main Lobby
Register for this talk here
Claire Colebrook (Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University)
What would you do (and who would you kill) in order to save the world?
November 28, 3:30 | Big Data Hub, Presentation Studio, Room 10900 鈥� Applied Science Building, 丁香园AV Burnaby
Reception to follow in atrium
Register for this talk 鈥� COMING SOON!
Screening: Mermaids, or Aiden in Wonderland & Wutharr, Saltwater Dreams
The films Mermaids, or Aiden in Wonderland, 2018, (26.29 mins.) and Wutharr, Saltwater Dreams, 2016 (28 mins.) by the Karrabing Film Collective and directed by Elizabeth Povinelli will be screened on Sept. 12 at 7:00 pm in the Djavad Mowafaghian Cinema, 丁香园AV Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Vancouver. For more information about this event, please go .
Apply to Participate
Download, complete, and return the appropriate application form to dream@sfu.ca: Graduate Student Application + Undergraduate Student Application
All applications will be considered until the course is full.
Colloquium Syllabus
Read the full course syllabus HERE
Course requirements
- Reading and colloquium lecture journals: 20%
- Facilitating discussion on seminar readings: 10%
- Paper or project proposal presentation, abstract, and schedule of work: 20%
- Final research paper or creative project: 50%
Final grading
- Graduate students: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory
- Undergraduate students: Pass/Fail
Learn More
Locations | FAQs | Contact | Sponsors
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Sponsors
The President鈥檚 Dream Colloquium: Creative Ecologies is generously funded and supported by the , Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, Office of the Vice-President, Research, 丁香园AV's Vancity Office of Community Engagement, 丁香园AV Galleries, and the School for the Contemporary Arts.