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Workshop: Cli-fi Writing with Taey Iohe – when Asian queers are writing cli-fi, saving humans isn’t the priority
Sunday 23rd July 2023 , 2:30pm to 4:00pm
Unleash your imagination with artist and writer Taey Iohe in a thoughtful workshop to envision a future that goes beyond conventional climate narratives and fosters a deeper understanding of our interconnectedness with the environment. Explore the rest of the Second Nature programme here.
“It’s too scary to visit disaster destinations close to home, don’t we need to be distanced somewhat from our ordinary lives — from the blankets we sleep under, and the bowls we eat from every day — in order to see the situation more objectively?”
Excerpt from ‘The Disaster Tourist’, Yun Ko-Eun
How much temporal distance is needed to feel a sense of urgency about climate change? How far away is “far enough” when it comes to understanding the gravity of the situation? These questions, inspired by Yun Ko-Eun’s ‘The Disaster Tourist,’ set the stage for a collective thought experiment.
In this workshop, we delve into the vulnerabilities of the lands of multiple Asia to various climate impacts, including rising sea levels, increasing microdust, extreme weather conditions, water scarcity, land excavation, and loss of biodiversity. These effects are a result of historical profit and growth-driven mind invasions over time. Together, we explore how climate justice discourse in Asia challenges the dominant power structures, such as neocolonialism, that perpetuate ecological injustices, land exploitation, and the marginalisation of interspecies queer communities.
Led by artist and writer Taey Iohe, our workshop takes a playful and collaborative approach to weaving narratives around climate justice. We’ll discover the powerful potential of cli-fi as a dystopian forensic tool, enabling us to investigate the implications of climate change through a decolonial lens.
Prepare to unleash your imagination, challenge conventional narratives, and embark on a literary journey that transcends the boundaries of traditional climate discourse. Together, we’ll explore trans-historical narratives, interspecies interactions, the scale of deep time, and the concept of the third space.
Join us in this inclusive and welcoming space, where we celebrate the voices of Asian queer writers. Let’s collectively envision a future that goes beyond conventional climate narratives and fosters a deeper understanding of our interconnectedness with the environment.
This event is part of ESEA climate organising group Green Lions’ takeover of our Bow Road site to bring our Second Nature: imagining climate futures week to a close. Second Nature is a focused week of events on sustainable practices, reparative habits, and imagining climate futures.
More About Taey Iohe
Taey Iohe (@taey.iohe) is an artist and writer whose work spans across diverse media, including text, moving images, social practice and assemblage through an Asian crip/queer feminist lens. Their practice fuses research-based works with personal narratives that challenge socio-botanical entanglements in social medicine and climate justice.
Taey is a co-founder of the Decolonising Botany Working Group and has presented a performance, A Refusing Oasis at Documenta 15 (2022). Taey holds a PhD in the programme of Gender, Identity and Culture at the School of English and Film, University College Dublin, funded by Writing On Borders. Currently, Taey is a working member of the Feminist Duration Reading Group and a resident at Somerset House.
Website: http://www.taey.com
Access information
The Bow Arts Trust courtyard room has step-free access throughout from street level, including to the accessible toilet, and is service animal friendly. This venue does not have a hearing loop system. Accessible parking is not available on-site but blue badge parking can be found 500m away on Fairfield Road.
If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this venue or event, would like to make us aware of any access requirements that you have in advance of visiting, or would like this information in an alternate format including Easy Read, please email nunnery@bowarts.com or call 020 8980 7774 (Ext. 3)
Access requirements could include things like providing equipment, services or support (e.g. information in Easy Read, speech to text software, additional 1:1 support), adjusting workshop timings (e.g. more break times), adjustments to the event space (e.g. making sure you have a table near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!
Transport Information
Opening hours: Mon-Friday, 9am to 5pm
Address: Bow Arts Trust, 183 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ
Nearest station(s): Bow Road (District and Hammersmith and City lines) is a 6-minute walk away, and Bow Church (DLR) is a 3-minute walk away.
Bus: 205, 25, 425, A8, D8, 108, 276, 488 and 8 all service the surrounding area.
Bike: Bicycle parking is located at Bow Church Station. The nearest Santander Cycles docking station is at Bow Church Station.
