05 Jan Symposium: Theater in Crisis. Ways and possibilities of theatrical action.
Thursday 10.02. | 7 pm
“This is the great burden that now rests upon writers, artists, filmmakers, and everyone else who is involved in the telling of stories: to us falls the task of imaginatively restoring agency and voice to nonhumans. As with all the most important artistic endeavors in human history, this is a task that is at once aesthetic and political” — Amritav Gosh
The climate crisis is a consequence of a cultural crisis. It is the result of a culture that sees the earth as inactive, as matter, as a resource. Part of this worldview are ideas of the superiority of Western civilization, which in the past has led to colonization, oppression, and violence against indigenous cultures. Because in this worldview, people, primarily non-white, non-male, non-privileged people are also just that: resources.
So when we talk about climate catastrophe, about its cause, we have to talk about imperialism, about enslavement, conquest, colonization.
And we need to talk and think about how to de-colonize our bodies and histories. How we can give right and voice to landscapes, ecosystems and their inhabitants, how we can listen to them, and with which means and strategies theater can accompany and strengthen this process.
In the symposium we will address these and other questions.