A workshop by Radical Tenderness, a collaboration between Vanessa Machado de Oliveira and Dani D’Emilia.
This is a weekend series exploring worlding and life cycles through the lens of ecology. Part of the Infinite Ecologies Marathon.
Space in this workshop is limited. You can apply to attend by registering your interest here by Friday, 20 September at noon. Successful applicants will be notified by Tuesday, 24 September.
This workshop starts from the idea that a different future depends on the quality of our present relationships. It looks at ways of deactivating human exceptionalism to focus on a wider sense of care, kinship, relationality and visceral responsibility.
Moving with the concepts of re-fusing, abscising, and the guiding force of Radical Tenderness, central to artist Dani d’Emilia’s art-life investigations over the last decade, participants are invited to actively explore what we may need to let go of, both personally and systemically, to open up possibilities for new forms of coexistence and mutual care within the wider metabolism we are all part of.
We will consider what it takes to un-numb to the pains and pleasures of our entanglement with non-human beings and the systems by which they are subjected to extraction and extinction. How can we develop stamina and resilience for the slow and challenging work of moving through difficult ethical and practical complexities of repairing relations as we collectively face the ever-widening social and ecological collapses?
The Infinite Ecologies Marathon is a long durational project that looks at the world-building potential of culture in the face of ecological destruction. Committed to working towards planetary thriving, this interdisciplinary series centres artist-led reimaginings for environmental action.
Ecologies is Serpentine’s new interdisciplinary department, dedicated to developing a holistic, flexible and adaptive approach to embedding environmental purpose throughout Serpentine’s programmes, infrastructure and networks. Our mission is to place culture at the core of environmental efforts, demonstrating how environmental commitment can steer the cultural sector. Ecologies emerged from the insights gained through the General Ecology project and Back to Earth.
Artist Bios
Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti is a Brazilian educator and Indigenous and land rights activist. She’s the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria and holds a Canada Research Chair in Race, Inequalities and Global Change at the Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia. She is also the author of the book Hospicing Modernity. Her teaching and research focus on analyses of historical and systemic patterns of reproduction of knowledge and inequalities and how these limit or enable possibilities for collective existence. de Oliveira Andreotti is one of the founders of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Arts/Research Collective and Teia das 5 Curas network of Indigenous communities in Brazil.
Dani d’Emilia (they/them) is an artist and educator working at the intersections of performance, radical pedagogy, social justice and eco-relational care practices. Guided by the force of Radical Tenderness, and grounded in transfeminist and decolonial sensibilities, d’Emilia is especially interested in political practices of healing that intertwine artistic, somatic, affective, ecological and spiritual spheres. They have been a part of the collective Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures (CA/BR) since 2017, was a member of the collectives La Pocha Nostra (US/MX, 2011-16) and a collaborator of AND Lab Centre for Research in Art-Thinking & Politics of Coexistence (PT/BR, 2018-21). www.danidemilia.com
Curated by Lucia Pietroiusti, Head of Ecologies, and Daisy Gould, Assistant Curator, Live Programmes.
Produced by Isobel Peyton-Jones.
The Infinite Ecologies Marathon is curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Lucia Pietroiusti, Head of Ecologies, Kostas Stasinopoulos, Curator, Live Programmes, and Daisy Gould, Assistant Curator, Live Programmes
