Deep Time is an exhibition that brings together 14 Iberian artists invited to explore, through comics, the concept of “deep time”—the passage of time recorded in geological layers. The chemical and biological markers of our planet’s transformation carry a poetics familiar to comics, where the juxtaposition of elements produces a chronological sequence. Deep Time reflects on the necessity of integrating the human scale into the geological scale, at a moment when we have already profoundly altered the Earth’s systems.

Artists:

Amanda Baeza / Ana Maçã / André Pereira / Begoña García-Alén / Bruno Borges / Cátia Serrão / Daniel Lima / Hetamoé / Irkus / Mao / Martín López Lam / Ricardo Paião Oliveira / Roberto Massó / Rudolfo

The Earth system has become increasingly destabilized, with growing
evidence that human activities are the primary cause. However, our
current financial, economic, social, political, and industrial systems are
not evolving fast enough to address the pace and scale of planetary
change. The concept of the Anthropocene (인류세, 人類世) has
provided a novel framework for debating scientific methods of sensing
these transformations, discussing more-than-human ways of inhabiting
together, and exploring artistic imaginations for alternative futures. This
symposium will bring together experts from various disciplines, including
Earth sciences, biological sciences, electrical engineering, mobility
studies, humanities, social sciences, industrial design, new media art, and
documentary production, to project our better futures in the Anthropocene.

The rapid and intense fashion in which humanity is changing the very foundations on which our existence and well-being on this planet rest is starting to attain a magnitude that—according to the opinion of many—threatens to put the future of humanity on Earth in peril.

In order to secure a livable habitat for us on our planet we have to rethink how humans gain understanding about these global changes, make decisions and act on them. These questions have to be dealt with adequately and rapidly in order to successfully meet the challenge of securing our sustainable future on Earth.

This is a multifaceted challenge, involving scientific, political, social, economic, psychological and ethical aspects. We will address this comprehensive challenge with the present meeting in the „Crossing Boundaries in Science“ series. This series of meetings is organized by Leopoldina, the German National Academy of Sciences.

This conference will be hosted by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology (MPI GEA) in Jena and will mark the new direction of the institute in addressing issues of the Anthropocene. It will feature three days of lectures and panels with leading researchers from a range scientific disciplines.

In person and online event

The Canadian Museum of Nature invites you to join us at a ceremony for the transfer of the official sediment core from Crawford Lake to the museum’s National Biodiversity Cryobank of Canada.

Science Gallery Bengaluru’s next exhibition-season will critically explore carbon in its diverse forms and tackle the challenges of the Anthropocene head-on.

For their 2023 expedition, the Mississippi Open School plans to travel from the Headwaters to the Gulf of Mexico.

The scientists of the AWG will present their proposed Anthropocene GSSP candidate in a joint online press conference with the Max Planck Society and former members of the HKW.

The Seventh Conference of East Asian Environmental History (EAEH) on “Multiple Crises and the Asian Anthropocene: Climatic, Ecological, and (Post)Colonial Perspectives” will be held at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Institute for Basic Science (IBS).

What might it mean to articulate environmental transformations as outcomes of a Plantationocene?

Annual meeting of river hubs to share past activities and plan for the coming year and the Fall 2023 River Semester.

The exhibition Insurgent Ecologies is curated by Imani Jaqueline Brown & Shana M. griffin and organized by Antenna and the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University, with support from the Gulf South Open School, PUNCTUATE, and TU Newcom Art Department.

Join us online for an exchange on projects, upcoming events, and ways to engage with the Anthropocene Commons network.

Join a celebration of the Environmental Humanities Laboratory’s past decade of activities and the launch of its new start as a center of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.

Talk by environmental historian Gregory T. Cushman—and roundtable discussion with Chamoru poet and scholar Craig Santos Perez and multispecies scholar Maya Kóvskaya.

The search for the coordinates, overlaps, convergences and tensions that arise when myriad cosmologies converge around a common intent.

By linking five research questions to a series of activities, the search for a common planetary practice becomes tangible.

The first day of Where is the Planetary? sets up the search for a model of sustainable collaboration under planetary conditions and explores perspectives on planetary practice.

How can shared planetary-scale practices emerge from material knowledge practices like the sciences to enable equitable cohabitation on Earth?

AC initiatives from around the world come together to envision a transformed future for the long-term collaborations of the network.

Workshop open to graduate students, emerging and independent scholars, researchers, and activists residing in Thailand.

The Disaster Haggyo is a disaster studies school aimed at accelerating the implementation of cutting-edge disaster research for maximum benefit to communities.

Science Gallery Bengaluru is hosting a residential summer school exploring the role of carbon in the Anthropocene.

Artist talk with Giulia Bruno & Armin Linke

What could a single major infrastructural decision tell us about the situational contexts of bringing about lasting change?

Exploring the competing time horizons, latency effects and accelerations that run counter to the pulse of late-Holocene societies.

Eight sessions in three stages examine how a particular chemical or biological fingerprint becomes a demarcation for the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene.

For the opening night of Unearthing the Present, scientists, researchers and artists undertake a series of close readings in the stratigraphic archives of the Anthropocene.

An exhibition by artists Giulia Bruno and Armin Linke explores the scientific and social conditions producing the new geological epoch, the Anthropocene.

What is the new geological epoch made of? This event series connects the geological analysis of the present with a discussion of the changing scope for social and political agency.

During Unearthing the Present, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) will present the conclusive stratigraphic findings from twelve sites that hold the potential to become a GSSP for the formal demarcation of the Anthropocene.

Inauguration Event of The Anthropocene Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago. A laboratory is a place for experiments. The experiments that are to take place at the UIC Anthropocene Lab (AL) have a distinct object of inquiry: a transformed Earth.

Workshop by Environmental Humanities South, University of Cape Town, South Africa, that will help participants develop a critical methodology that combines critical zone theory and ecofeminism.

Book launch of a new publication edited by Benek Çinçik and Tiago Torres-Campos that explores how discursive and material conditions around the Anthropocene might transform the way we think about representation.

Workshop by Environmental Humanities South, University of Cape Town, South Africa, that will help participants develop a critical methodology that combines critical zone theory and ecofeminism.

Seeking interactive, participatory and experimental works for an exhibition-season that will call into question our relationship with carbon.

This three day conference invites its audience into both a consideration of the ecological and political urgencies at large in our global present, and an awareness of the strategies that are being crafted to address them.

The Chicago edition of an artist-run exhibition and retrospective that curates new and existing work related to the 2019 project Mississippi. An Anthropocene River. Hosted by the artistic research group Deep Time Chicago and conceived in collaboration with the Backward River Festival.

Organized by Freshwater Lab at the University of Illinois Chicago, this event that will uplift the voices of those whose lives and communities have been disrupted as private interests manipulate the Chicago River, and reimagines the river’s future.

Over the span of a week in Venice, Italy, this forum will take the water city as a point of departure to collectively reflect on geo-environmental politics, providing a space for co-learning, interdisciplinary collaborations, and comparative studies.

An artist-run exhibition and retrospective that curates new and existing work related to the 2019 project Mississippi. An Anthropocene River. Gathers energy with an opening in Minneapolis before setting out on meanders further downstream.

A look into some of the imaginative and dedicated ways that artists and culture bearers from across the state of Minnesota are engaging with water.

In this episode of ongoing podcast series, “Migration: Perspectives on Displacement in the Anthropocene”, which brings together researchers, politicians and activists, Abbéy Odunlami sits down with those who have recently migrated to Europe.

There are uncountable ways to look at a river—a multitude of habitats, a landscape of politics, a place of spirits and lore—but many remain invisible in today’s cartographic depictions. Alongside a live stream of the river Danube, participants discuss the challenges of representing a river.

In this episode of ongoing podcast series, “Migration: Perspectives on Displacement in the Anthropocene”, Abbéy Odunlami sits down with policy and data experts who research migration patterns and advocate for climate policies that incorporate migration.

The practice of archiving is to preserve material that has been generated by individuals, communities and institutions, and that is considered to have long-term value. In this session, participants reflect on and unpack the last week’s seminar discussions.

When communication fails, the response usually doesn’t enable one to address the underlying power structures that continue to shape communicative practices. In this reflective session, moderators facilitate discussion on the past week’s seminars.

Closing a week of events and streamed from a kitchen in Carbondale, Illinois, this convivial meal-at-a-distance will bring speakers to the transatlantic kitchen table along with so-called invasive species from both the US and Germany.

Experiencing the Anthropocene is multidimensional and sensory. Artists present the concept of participatory ecology and a guided listening session that enables one to enter the Mississippi River’s historical, social, and environmental materiality.

Witnessing how a landscape changes requires accounts, traces, and ways of documenting that are hard to pin down. Two case studies focus on two very different landscapes and attempt to account for the changing relationships that make them.

After a week of seminars, participants take the chance to reflect and unpack how their case studies were re-oriented around their capacities and modalities for “sensing” the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene is riddled with challenges to coordinate action and research. This series of conversations will highlight the many challenges of coordinating Anthropocene related projects at different scales, both spatially and temporally.

A live episode from Abbéy Odunlami’s podcast series, “Migration: Perspectives on Displacement in the Anthropocene”, which brings together researchers, politicians and activists to grasp the role of Europe as a political agent and a geographical destination in future climates.

How can one reconcile between origins and processes of forming universal ideas, and the unfolding of local practices and specific experiences? Participants discuss the outcomes of a week-long experiment that has run for the duration of the discourse program.

Two case studies exemplify how different types of spaces, both intentional and accidental, come to form the many areas in which Anthropocene related research is able to happen.

Two artist talks focus on work that tells the story of how the corporeal effects of opium relate to colonialist and capitalist extraction, and a speculative tale of the industries that flourished thanks to the Latvian geological landscape.

How do different materials from various forms of research communicate with each other? In this experimental format, five people from different disciplines engage in a dialogue around a table containing materials from their respected case studies.

The most interesting work on the Anthropocene takes place between places, between disciplines, and even between the lines. Four different case studies present research that finds ways of moving between spaces and the lines that connect them.

Screening of a film (work in progress) by Raphaël Grisey in collaboration with Boube Touré. The film focuses on the history of migrant workers’ struggle in France, peasant infrastructures, and the afterlife of colonial developmentalism and forced labor violence.

This event draws on a five-day river expedition that explored the paradox of the vitality of the communities that inhabit the Mississippi River and the harm caused by climate change, settler colonialism, racial injustices, and large-scale river engineering.

In four case study presentations, practitioners share their unique way of building communities that share knowledge about climate issues both locally and at the planetary-scale.

Histories can be told through changes in a landscape; about what has changed, but most of all, what is excluded. Using experimental forms of representation in video, two case studies engage methods for artistically witnessing these concerns.

How does one carry out research about a contentious time in an equitable and contextualized manner? Participants share their practice via video stream, discussing and negotiating their relationship to the place within their projects.

Foodsystems and waterways are essential for sustaining life in every ecosystem. Yet, they are often under threat. In three case studies, presenters approach the problems of the changing relationships and knowledge practices that riddle these systems.

As the physical manifestation of The Shape of a Practice program, this installation presents critical positions and interdisciplinary research that explores the ecological, political, social and technospheric interconnections of the Mississippi River.

Framed as the voice of a temporary continent—materially, geographically and mythically constituted—this sound installation joins the dynamic and always flowing Mississippi, to populate an estuary of media streams evolving from a turbulent river.

This nightly series of screening sessions and artist talks opens with two contributions from Tia-Simone Gardner—artist, educator, and Black feminist scholar, and a performance by artists Beate Geissler and Oliver Sann.

The first conversation of this week-long discourse program takes place between two very different regions that are experiencing transformations in social and political life, prompted by the multiple disasters that are the Anthropocene.

A series of public conversations on the topic of mutual aid and solidarity in response to crises at the intersection of racial inequality, the Covid pandemic and climate change with a focus on recent events in the Twin Cities.

Exhibition and performance program within the frame of The Anthropocene Campus Lisboa: Parallax.

ACL: Parallax is organised by the Portuguese research center CIUHCT and its project Anthropolands taking place at Culturgest in Lisbon, Portugal, between 6 and 11 January 2020.

Closing day of the Anthropocene River Campus Public Program

An evening with American Routes, hosted by Nick Spitzer and featuring Tom McDermott, the Doucet Brothers, Doc Hawley, and Dr.Michael White with Topsy Chapman

Environmental Risk in the Matanza-Riachuelo, Mississippi, and Yamuna River Basins with an exhibition tour and panel discussion.

Ryan Griffis in conversation with Bruce Sunpie Barnes.

Presentations and discussion with Kira Akerman, Shana M. griffin, Kristina Kay Robinson, Dread Scott and Denise Frazier.

Short films and discussion, featuring Anthropocene River Campus participants.

A public program from November 10–16th, 2019, with presentations and discussions by the Mississippi. An Anthropocene River project partners and the Anthropocene Working Group.

The Open Seminars are free, online courses exploring particular themes to facilitate collaboration and education through a curriculum developing in real time over the course of the entire project.

Tour of the Mississippi River Basin Model with Sarah McEwen

An experimental essay-film by Tamara Becerra Valdez

Tour of Cooperative Jackson and panel discussion

A Dialogue Between Anthropologist Jim Barnett and Anthropocene Scholar and Curator Maya Kóvskaya

A day of tours and talks hosted by Jeremy Houston and Maya Kóvskaya

The Open Seminars are free, online courses exploring particular themes to facilitate collaboration and education through a curriculum developing in real time over the course of the entire project.

Episode 5 of the podcast series on the Mississippi Delta

Confluence Bus Tour

River Model Demonstration

Asian Carp Convivial Meal

A conversation about creating a caring economy in the region that elevates the needs of both people and ecosystems.

Walk with Scott Elrick and Jeremy Breeden to the old fossil forest beneath Southern Illinois.

Confluence Ecologies reception with talks and gallery tour

Episode 4 of the podcast series on the Mississippi Delta

The online courses explore particular themes to facilitate collaboration and education through a curriculum developing in real time over the course of the entire project.

The open seminars are free.

The project presents a visible, materially enacted practice that “makes edible” thousands of years of human intervention and massive transformation of this earth.

A bus looking at ways the river–as a material, administrative, and conceptual boundary–has troubled the horizon of care and imagination in the St. Louis region

This project considers how the Anthropocene is embodied in everyday activities and landscapes within the community in the Village of Sauget, Illinois.

A ceremony with the Native Women’s Care Circle celebrating the connectivity and life of the river.

A bus tour takes the route from Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site to the disposal area of Weldon Spring.

Exhibitions, talks, walking tours, panel discussions, community dinners, sound performances and film screenings explore the confluence of ecologies, cultures and matter where the Mississippi and the Ohio River meet.

Episode 3 of the podcast series on the Mississippi Delta

The launch party of The American Bottom Gazette Issue 2.

Barge Opening

This project is situated at the largest of the demolished mounds—the so-called “Big Mound” site—on what is now the north riverfont of St. Louis.

The seminar concludes in Saukenuk. The environmental transformations wrought by settlement have not exterminated Indigenous political and ecological practices, which have persisted and adapted to what Kyle Powys White calls the “post-apocalyptic conditions of the present.”

The fourth day of the seminar travels from Wisconsin to Illinois to examine the interplay of displacement, immigration, and engineering in producing the landscapes of extractive agriculture celebrated in the racialized mythology of the American “heartland.”

Join Ellie Irons for a demonstration of pokeweed and Kudzu paint making, alongside discussion about kudzu myths and realities.

The third day of the seminar heads outdoors to explore the landscape on foot and to consider the ways of knowing that such embodied inquiry allows.

Day two of Over the Levee, Under the Plow takes place at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve. Examining Native and non-Native practices of conservation, this full day of seminars will work through the multivalent meanings of the term “restoration”.

Episode 2 of the podcast series on the Mississippi Delta

The online courses explore particular themes to facilitate collaboration and education through a curriculum developing in real time over the course of the entire project.

The open seminars are free.

Opening day of the traveling seminar Over the Levee, Under the Plow, which situates the escalating environmental crisis of the Anthropocene Midwest within settler colonial histories and narratives.

Episode 1 of the podcast series on the Mississippi Delta

Boat and walking tours, sound installations, workshops, panel discussions and film screenings around the Twin Cities region explore the Mississippi River as a space of intervention and experimentation. 

The Listening Station Exhibition presents landscape memory, community history, and multigenerational storytelling at the Anthropocene Archive hub space at The Luminary.

From September 1-5, 2019, an interdisciplinary Field Campus will take place in New Orleans, which explores the region of New Orleans as an anthropocenic site and intends to foster community engagement.

The online courses explore particular themes to facilitate collaboration and education through a curriculum developing in real time over the course of the entire project.

The open seminars are free.

With a regional focus on the Mississippi headwaters, this kick-off event at Lake Itasca will offer public workshop, discussions, and site visits with artists, scholars, and activists.

New Perspectives on the Anthropocene in East Asia

This colloquium and workshop will rethink how to define the democracy in the Anthropocene and seek a new way to the future-planning which overcomes this “Anthropocenic” difficulty.

A workshop on the interlinkage of the production of knowledge of Japan to new forms of engagement with contemporary ecological concerns.

An event on transformative strategies for remaking culture.

A symposium on contemporary art’s ability to productively unhinge scientific theories and certainties in order to reconsider unquestioned beliefs about this living world.

This workshop will bring together various disciplines to collectively investigate the question of how we shall inhabit the world in the face of the current ecological crisis and to rethink concepts and practices, to create a more sustainable and diverse planet.

RIHN 11th International Symposium

A symposium on the recent discourses and practices that define our complex relationship with nature and culture.

If we have entered a new geological epoch because humans have extensively impacted the planet—the so-called Anthropocene—then cities have been one of its drivers and hallmarks. Nancy Klehm and Brian Holmes will discuss various ways that Chicago is both an engine and instance of the Anthropocene.

RIHN 13th International Symposium, December 13–14, 2018, Kyoto – Organized by The Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN)