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Group discussion: New Dawn – Invocations for the Planetary with Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee
Sunday 23rd July 2023 , 1:00pm to 2:00pm
Join interdisciplinary practitioner Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee in a gentle, exploratory group discussion teasing apart what moving towards the end of the Anthropocene could mean for planetary wellbeing and the multiplicity of knowledges available to us now that we can use to imagine more radical, equitable ecological futures. Explore the rest of the Second Nature programme here.
Precarity seems to be of the moment. Economic, environmental, political and cultural fissures are deepening, and society has landed in a multipolar trap — a situation where various parties are made to act against their collective interest, resulting in destruction or entropy.
Concurrently, the shift towards other esoteric cosmologies and planetary systems mark the turn away from the Anthropocene. From new animisms, technopaganism and symbiocenic thinking, these are emergent invocations of imagining ecological futures and worlds beyond the Gaia that we know.
In this hour-long session, we will explore the following:
- How might we think through more-than-human intelligences?
- How can we apply the teachings of esoteric mysticisms and animistic practices to our everyday?
- What can we learn from environmental nihilism and apocalyptic narratives?
- Why is solarpunk and lunarpunk a viable future?
Housekeeping
The session will be a gathering of maximum 20 participants. It will first begin with a space opening ritual, followed by a brief presentation of worldviews. The majority of the session will be a group discussion.
Please note that while the session is hosted in a soft-debate style. The session is a safe, exploratory space where participants are encouraged to expand their minds, rather than delve deep or centre on specific ideologies or affiliations. We ask that participants hold each other with respect and inquisitiveness.
Required Materials
We will send a Reading List that includes essays, podcasts, and videos at the beginning of July. While it is highly encouraged for participants to familiarise themselves with some of the content, although it is not compulsory!
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 Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee
Elizabeth Gabrielle Lee is an interdisciplinary practitioner based between London and Singapore. Her practice slips between the fields of visual practice, cultural research and education. Working across photography, film, writing, oration and curation, her work encounters themes of soft histories, sensuous and sacred ecologies, salvage fiction and mechanics of control. Her practice aims to deviate from monolithic forms of power, shining light on peripheral and spectral forces. She is an associate lecturer in Creative Direction at University of the Arts London and Photography the University for the Creative Arts. She co-runs XING, a research and curatorial platform centred on the poetics and politics of East and Southeast Asian art practices. The platform attempts to dismantle matrices concerned with the region from non-dominant perspectives.
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.
