Repair Is Broken
Louise Carver examines what is broken about neoliberal capitalist modes of repair in the context of the Anthropocene. (...)
Wars of Armageddon
What does it mean to live in a city already deemed “unsavable” and why is the contemporary art made in Miami that deals directly with climate change often so innocuous? (...)
Born Secret
The video follows this “Anthropocene mode of production” to its top-secret origin at Oak Ridge Laboratory, where the Manhattan Project drew on hydroelectric power furnished by the river-basin development program of the Tennessee Valley Authority. (...)
After Extraction
This field guide combines creative non-fiction and images to depict a partial history of extractive land use in Central Illinois, and is accompanied by a set of exercises, questions, and prompts that act as a tool for learning about the lands where you are. Both texts are complemented by artist Ryan Griffis’ video work on the destruction of wetlands during colonial expansion. (...)
Edible Encounters
Edible Encounters gave us an opportunity to observe the contrast between the wild bursts of biodiversity in the marginal areas along the river and the widespread control of nature exemplified by the endless cornfields in this region. These series of edible encounters and territorial mash-ups offered interpretations of foods that have bioregional origins or are part of long-standing Indigenous traditions or both. It was an opportunity to look to Indigenous knowledge, tradition, and creativity to (...)
Good River, Bad River, Little River, Big River
“Mississippi” is a francophone adulteration of Anishinaabe (Ojibwe, Algonquin) name given to the river, indicating something along the lines of how “great” or “big” a river it is. “People are enthralled by it,” Bob Chance, manager of Itasca State Park told the Star Tribune in 2018: “They are amazed that it is that small.” Way down south, the river is an accumulator, full of the life-effluent of an industrialized nation, its cares, concerns, and contaminants. But here, at Lake Itasca, we hear fro (...)
Head Waters at the Headwaters
The United States of America is just under ten million square kilometers in surface area. Its most conterminous landmass is a topology of creases and folds, mountains and ridges, chasms and embankments. These create, among other divides, hydrological continental separations, sloped divisions for watersheds that flow into either the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River or the Missouri-Mississippi complex. These great, tectonic gutters cascade erosive, mineralized waters into the Atlantic Ocean or (...)
Listening to the Mississippi
Listening to the Mississippi is an iterative project that has unfolded since 2013 and currently manifests as a sound composition and traveling listening station. Using underwater recordings gathered in 2015 by artists Monica Haller and Sebastian Müllauer that span the river from the headwaters to the Gulf, listeners are invited to orient themselves to the river through their sense of sound, rather than by sight alone. (...)
The Shape of a River: Mississippi
Students analyzed case studies on the Mississippi, developed their own questions, exchanged with the case study authors, and designed new maps of relationships. The work considered questions such as, what approaches and methods were used for these case studies? Which relationships between human and non-human actors could be observed? What socio-political relationships become visible through the river? Who is being overlooked? What does this have to do with us here? And: how can we make these rel (...)
A Planetary Praxis in the Anthropocene
Where is the Planetary? curatorial statement (...)
Navigating the Anthropocene River
A traveler’s guide to the (dis)comforts of being at home-in-the-world. (...)
It All Begins on the Surface
A conversation between Dr. Catherine Russell, Anthropocene sedimentologist and Dr. Jamie Allen, an artist and media researcher. (...)
The Geology and Culture of the Anthropocene
In this audio episode, we hear from various participants of the Unearthing the Present event and discuss the science and sociopolitical implications of the Anthropocene. (...)
Clashing Presents: Between Big Melt and Small Governance
Which temporal immediacies and horizons do new forms of collectives, connected through a rising global ocean, need to coalesce? (...)
Clashing Presents: Memory and Oblivion in Times of Extinction
Exploring the accelerating processes and cumulative events of species extinction by examining biotic changes in the sediments of the San Francisco Bay. (...)
Clashing Presents: Reconciling Presents
A conversation that takes the stratigraphic research in Ernesto Cave, Italy, as a starting point for exploring how we might conceive a truly planetary time. (...)
Exchange On Collaboration And Complexity
How best can organizations reconcile alliance building, promote public discussions on environmental crises and nurture cultural shifts? (...)
Exchange On Deep Time And Deep Responseability
How do the geochronologists and geohistorians understand their response-ability to material signals from the past? (...)
