22 JAN 2009 – 14:00-24:00 – KAAISTUDIO’S
Re-ROUting mobility
In the twentieth century, mobility became the symbol of freedom and progress. But at a time of greenhouse gases and peak oil, the symbolic value of mobility is being rapidly reversed. The exponential increase in the number of cars, air travel, food miles and so on is having a huge impact. And the other side of the story is a different, more distressing form of mobility: that of climate refugees.
14:00-18:00 | AFTERNOON SESSION
In the Burning Ice afternoon sessions we bring together artists, academics and culture critics. They will discuss the topic of the day and the role that art can play in all this, with each other and the public. The moderator is the critic, dramaturge and curator Jeroen Peeters.
Stijn Neuteleers – Environmental refugees versus ‘classical’ refugees:
do they generate different obligations?
At first glance the problem of environmental refugees might seem a simple one. Industrial countries are causing environmental problems and these problems cause streams of refugees. Environmental problems undeniably contribute to the refugee problem in general, but it is nonetheless difficult to name a particular group as ‘environmental refugees’. The notion environmental refugees encompasses a wide diversity of subgroups and particular migrations are always the consequence of an interaction of factors. Therefore, an environmental refugees policy requires a classification of environmental refugees. Indirectly, however, the notion of environmental refugees shows that pollution contributes to human suffering and confronts industrial countries with their environmental responsibilities.
Stijn Neuteleers is a research assistant
(Ph. D. Fellowship of the Research Foundation Flanders) at the Centre for Ethics, Social and Political Philsophy (K.U.Leuven). He writes a doctorate in political philosophy and his research focuses on justice, environmental problems and value pluralism.
Donatien Garnier (Collectif Argos) – On Climate Refugees
Collectif Argos is a Parisian group of journalists and photographers that specialises in documentaries on climate refugees, as well as other social, geopolitical and environmental issues.
> www.collectifargos.com
Petra Ardai & Luc Van Loo – On ‘Holland Tsunami’
Ardai and Van Loo will talk about their latest production Holland Tsunami. It is a theatrical mockumentary. A ‘what if’- scenario about a tsunami threatening to flood Holland. It is Hungary, of all countries, that come to aid the Dutch. Holland will be entirely evacuated and the Dutch must try to build up a new life in Hungary.
> www.spaceworld.nl
Sacha Kagan – East African pastoralism and climate change
As stewards of the commons, semi-nomadic pastoralists in East Africa promote biodiversity and plants’ resilience to climate change. But longer and more frequent droughts reduce their mobility and harm their ecological habitat. In need of a larger area to maintain their activity, also national borders turn out to be a hindrance for adaptation to climate change.
> Sacha Kagan is a sociologist at the Leuphana University in Lüneburg. He coordinates the international network Cultura21, which unites artists, scientists and cultural actors engaged in cultures of sustainability.
www.karamoja.eu
Panel discussion: The Performing Arts – Local or Global
Working and driving provide the primal scenes of the modern subject, writes Peter Sloterdijk, who also observes their excess in our society: ‘The current mass culture celebrates mere expenditure, the absolute energy potlatch, which no longer revolves around transportation.’ That mobility is constitutive of the modern self-image also holds for many contemporary artists and curators, who seem to have made travelling the core of their practice, hopping from festival to biennial to residency. Doesn’t the claim of artistic autonomy come uncannily close to the ‘activism’ (sic!) of the neoliberal subject? And what about the medal’s other side: the distressing reality of environmental refugees?
What does all the travelling actually bring to the arts?A rich narrativity informed by myriad localities? A desire for truth that punctures the endless circulation of detached images and information? A critical view upon globalisation? Or is the generic circuit of residencies not altogether different from non-places such as gated communities and tourist villages? Is there a need to develop a certain ethics of travelling for artists?
As mobility is such a strong token for freedom and innovation, it currently hosts an air of taboo. Confronted with global warming, an open discussion of mobility in order to aim at more ethical and sustainable forms of travelling, is more than ever needed. How can we approach travelling and mobility in the future, on the levels of our imagination, productional practices and daily lives?
Panel: theatre maker Dimitri Leue, choreographers Martin Nachbar and
Zoe Knights, artist Vincent Tirmarche (Superamas), Mary Ann DeVlieg, (IETM),
Els Silvrants (Theatre in Motion), and
Els Keytsman (Terra Reversa)
19:00-20:30 | Re-Thinking Food
The Industrial Food Complex is one of the biggest culprits responsible for climate change. We invite five ‘alternative food thinkers’ to cook and tell their story.
Nomadic food & feral trade / FoAM & Kate Rich
FoAM, a cross-disciplinary, trans-local laboratory and the artist Kate Rich complicate the equation of food miles. This meal is prepared with products and ingredients freighted in from around the globe, in the spare luggage space of social and cultural travellers.
Feral Trade is a grocery business trading outside commercial systems. Goods hitchhike on other sources of movement, often using the art world as an energy source, harnessing the surplus freight potential of the many journeys logged by artists, curators and audiences to move grocery items intercity.
FoAM’s food team prepares, presents and reflects on meals in unexpected contexts and uncertain conditions. They scavange ingredients and techniques from regional traditions around the world, as well as contemporary innovations of food science. For Burning Ice, they have sourced ingredients from the Feral Trade catalogue of goods, as well as FoAM’s international network of cultural travellers, to cook up a trans-local feast with ingredients carried in by friends visiting from Australia, the Balkans, Asia, Scandinavia and various European centres and peripheries.
http://feraltrade.org / http://fo.am/feeding
20:30-22:30 | EVENING SESSION
Els Keytsman (Brussels) – Terra Reversa / The end of tourism as we know it [lecture]Manu Luksch – Make it snow! Make it snow! Make it snow! [video]
Part of Stop.Watch, a series of short internet films commissioned by RSA Arts and Ecology and Animate Projects.
Martin Nachbar/Jeroen Peeters (Berlin/Brussels) – Looking for Johnny,
a choreographic expedition [dance/performance]
In 1845, Sir John Franklin left on a voyage of discovery to the Northwest Passage. However, he and his 128 men ended up stuck in the Arctic ice for three years. When they were finally able to leave the ships after three severe winters, a third of the crew had already died. In 2007 Nachbar and Peeters took this as the basis for a dance performance. They asked several questions: how can we construct a horizon out of bodies? How can a stagger be made into a dance? What does a dance performance look like when it is slowly freezing? How come Hollywood stars can walk through the snow in a T-shirt without feeling the cold? What do polar bears have to do on stage?
Collectif Argos (Paris) – Requiem polynésien [diaporama]
For many people climate change is a harsh reality. In years to come, the notion of the ‘climate refugee’ will appear in the media at least as often as the ‘political refugee’. The French photographers collective Argos has for several years been making reports on climate refugees all over the world.
Kris Verdonck (Brussels) – Dancer #2 [performance]
The combustion engine, or its use, is one of the main guilty parties in the climate crisis. Kris Verdonck shows the engine in its naked reality and seeks out a confrontation between the ethical and the aesthetic.
22:30-24:00 | Late Night Documentary Film
Gregory Greene – Escape from Suburbia, beyond the American dreamCanada, 2007, 95 min.
A sobering yet vital and ultimately positive exploration of what the second half of the Oil Age has in store for us.
Burning Ice | 20-24 JAN 2009
a free festival on climate change
Curated by Guy Gypens (Kaaitheater) & Jeroen Peeters
Production by Kaaitheater
In association with People for Earth and Rits
Supported by the Ministry of the Brussels-Capital Region
& the European Commission – Education and Culture DG, Culture Programme
www.kaaitheater.be/burningice
BINNENKORT | PROCHAINEMENT | COMING SOON
PERFORMATIK | 13-21 FEB 2009
CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE ART FESTIVAL
performances / music / lectures / installations / video
Rodrigo Garcia, Kris Verdonck, CREW, Pierre Rigal, Lawrence Malstaf, Stelarc,
Claudio Sinatti, Abattoir Fermé & LOD, Cao Fei, Colette Sadler, Walter Hus, Vito Acconci,
Altenhaus & Ben-David, Defoort & Goerger…
www.kaaitheater.be/performatik