Socialising the Anthropocene or "Staying with the Trouble"

“From the 1960s through most of the 1990s, the Left considered environmentalism to be ‘soft politics’. While the bold action of Greenpeace and the extremes of 'eco-terrorism’ had to be acknowledged, for the most part those who supposedly cared more for the earth and its creatures/creations than for people's revolutions were perceived as acting from a kind of political suburbia. Today, sparked by indisputable proof of human agency in climate change, the environment is in the centre foreground. It has become the radical edge.” Lucy R. Lippard, “Beyond the Beauty Strip” Vassilis P. Karouk, "Prima Materia", 2016, HD video (work commissioned by curator Nadja Argyropoulou for PCAI) One of the most interesting subjects within the complex context of environmentalist concerns is the engagement of the arts; the cultural discourse and political debates that have been developed; the urgencies identified by theorists and artists alike and the rich visual vocabulary ...

Is nature a primeval, unattainable, vengeful entity, distinct and separate from all human presence and activities? Are humans another part of nature? Shaping it as it shapes us, living within it, from it, for it. An important and recurring theme in debates about development, conservation and nature in general begins with how we define nature and what the term ‘natural’ really means. I could expand on these notions, their implications , histories and consequences , but instead I will only present you with two videos, which I find to be representative of each of the two aforementioned perspectives on what Nature really is. In this visual and cognitive juxtaposition you see in the first video an organised attempt by Floridians to ‘shoot at Hurricane Irma’ to deter or stop it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLFGfssUH8Y The second video is a trailer for the movie ‘Baraka’. A stunning array of visuals alternating between human-dominated landscapes, pristine nat...

The present blog will approach the largest issues currently faced by the environmental movement through the critical lens of political ecology. Using a combinatory analysis, drawing on present, past and (why not? even) future material from philosophy, the academia, art, environmentalism, popular culture and multiple other knowledge sources, this platform calls for the reader to be alert, curious, attentive, involved. Think we must. We must think. —Stengers and Despret, Women Who Make a Fuss A recurring theme of the blog will be the idea that the world’s biggest crises, the socioecological disaster we are facing, cannot be fixed unilaterally; it demands an interdisciplinary, collective, democratic grassroots involvement, commitment by each and every one of us. Feminist theorist Donna Haraway is asking us to ‘ Stay with the Trouble ’ and this is a call we may want to respond to and even amplify. Moving on to the first subject: Defining the Anthropocene. This ter...