Future Ecologies

Presentation Georgina Johnson

Panel Discussion

with Ana Pi and Kyu Choi

Film screening: I Am the River, the River is Me

In 2017, the Whanganui River in Aotearoa/New Zealand became the first river in the world to be granted equal rights with humans. This was the result of over 150 years of legal struggle by the Maori, who see the river as their ancestors, as an indivisible and spiritual being.

Ned Tapa, the Maori guardian of the river, takes the filmmakers, international water representatives and activists on a five-day canoe trip on the impressive river. As river and travelers flow organically together, there is lightness, humor, and room for healing from the echoes of the colonial past.

I Am The River, The River Is Me is more than a journey through a breathtaking landscape and a society that seems so far removed from capitalism and individualism – it is a call for action, a call to rethink value systems regarding our surroundings and community for the sake of all future life on earth.

‘I feel it is my job to ensure that what I’ve been given, I hand on to others’ – Ned Tapa (Whanganui)

I Am The River, The River Is Me is now on show in cinemas.

Workshop: Decolonizing art & earth

by Chihiro Geuzenbroek

Have you noticed climate film, eco music, environmental theater can (and often does) reproduce colonial frames and white saviorism? In this workshop we will look at some pitfalls and some examples of shifting frames. We will practice decolonial climate justice storytelling through a songwriting exercise. Chihiro Geuzebroek is a Bolivian-Dutch activist and artist working as singersongwriter, poet and public speaker the past 15 years. She is also the director of the feature documentary Radical Friends.

*This workshop is for art professional /storytellers.

Official website: chihiro.nl

Workshop: Water as thought

by Weaving Realities Collective

How can something so simple as water be a way to change our relationship with the world around us? Water is not just a resource to be taken. Water has been here since the beginning of life as the most important element and she holds the memories of all living beings. The approach where humans transform life into resources, as owners of the world, has brought us to a condition of Earthlessness and Worldlessness[1]. However, it has not always been the way and it is certainly not our defining human nature. There are other worlds of meaning, where humans hold a radically different relation to Earth, where they become guardians of life, and with less than 5% of the global population, they have protected and conserved 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity.

We want to learn together from these other worlds of meaning which have been protecting life. This means changing our position from owning the land to owing our lives to a living Earth, viewing humans not as the center but as merely one thread in the infinite interweaving of life.

Weaving Realities invites you to a workshop where you activate your body and listen to the memories of water. How can water help us re-member [2] who we are? How can water root us in thinking-feeling [3] with a living Earth? This workshop involves meditative exercise, and body movements followed by a conversation.

[1] Earthlessness is the loss of biodiversity, the loss of our connection to Earth and worldlessness is the loss of words, the loss of meanings, hence annihilating the relational world. Vazquez Rolando, Vistas of Modernity 2020.
[2] Re-member is to acknowledge and bring back what has been dismembered, erased or unacknowledged by coloniality.
[3] Sentipensar con la Tierra, is to change our position of thinking beyond the intellectual in communality with the sensations, emotions and territories. Arturo Escobar 2014

Official website: weavingrealities.com

Closing performance by Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti