Imagine…

The constellation of perspectives on how societies view and interact with the natural world need not be confined in its expression through the exclusivity of language but through the more universal means of alternative artistry. 

So too, should we not confine ourselves to the concepts of the Blueprint explained according to the predominant paradigm that is solely anthropocentric but to recognise and contemplate the existence of a plurality of knowledges. These are they that advocate a society of deep reciprocity, where there is a human-nature synergy of living within Earth’s biophysical limits.

We all possess the power of the imagination of how we may steward  our Earth back to the Holocene – the epoch in which our biosphere thrives.

The exposition of your story may read as follows – the engine of Capitalism, and the  fuel that drives its growth is in its death throes, for this system is  dependent upon a thriving Earth:  the co-existence of both are now incompatible. We have overshot our planetary boundaries and gone into ecological debt. But there is hope to retreat from this overshoot.

Imagine the just and feasible path we should take…

The Holocene is the geological  epoch – a period that began 11,650[1] years ago- that marks the geological age when the biosphere was conducive to such habitable conditions so as to enable human civilisation to evolve into organisational,  settled societies. This shift from nomadic to settled livelihoods  beckoned in the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions and the very institutional foundations that allowed the Modern Age to come of age as the globalised, scientifically enlightened, technologically precocious web of complexity: the globalised human civilisation as we know it today. Albeit, imbalanced by extreme inequity.

[1] https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-1443-2_3

We stand now to witness the genesis of the Athropocene[2] , a term coined to denote the abrupt shift out of our clement home of the Holocene and into the  epoch of ‘hothouse’[3]   Earth as a consequence of human activity. However, much of our global society – especially those in power – have been resistant to such enlightenment in  how human behaviour has been at fault in its overreaching into resource -grabbing excess.  What’s more,  humanity’s response by those most responsible  has been fraught with pushback and denials. [2]http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene/ [3]https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1810141115

As early as the 1930s, the Callendar Effect[4] (1938), was postulated by an amateur meteorologist that global atmospheric warming was connected to human activity (research much dismissed by the scientific community at the time), and at the dawn of the nuclear age[5] (in 1945 in the development of the atomic bomb), there has been predictions of the coming of the geological signal that would identify the Anthropocene epoch[6]; an era  so soon to be  etched in time and acknowledged as such , like the portent of a self- inflicted apocalypse that we will be called upon to avert. [4] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/02/climate-change-global-warming-carbon-dioxide-fossil-fuels/ [5] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-13335683 [6] https://www.dw.com/en/canadian-lake-shows-start-of-anthropocene-era-scientists/a-66195820

What can we do about it? The philosophy behind our societies may need shifting in order to counter the climate-nature crisis, requiring the use of plural knowledges and imagining a reversal back to the Holocene requires accessing our creative capacity, Art has always provided room for the unspoken.

Conexion-es São Paulo

The project conexion-es Sao Paulo

Building Connections. We explore art as a means to relate to space, mobility and life stories. Art disturbs the everyday, gives another narrative and cures. The  project Conexões carried out two workshops in São Paulo open to the public with performance dancer Ana Kavalis and visual artist Rosamaría Bolom. The project forms part of the Urban Narratives of Conviviality-Inequality  program 2023 by Mecila. 

http://www.conexoessaopaulo.com.br

Siia ekobé ita maramunhã

The livrinho uses digital art in telling the story of Brazilian community leaders. Access the book Boas_Praticas_3_ALTERACOES

In this encouraging book, we hear in Portuguese, Tupi-Nheengatu, Finnish and English from individuals, young and old. The voices of the leaders of Northeastern Brazil tell us that unity, perseverance, and hope are key to building transformative presents.  Flip through the book to find their stories told by digital collage. The book is the result of the work carried out by the Boas Práticas, Good Practices for Covid19 Project.