We’re told we’re in a climate emergency—but whose is it?
For Extinction Rebellion, reducing atmospheric carbon is a global urgency; for green neoliberals, it’s entrepreneurial, a time of economic opportunity; for Indigenous communities, this emergency continues centuries of colonial violence and genocide; for authoritarian nationalists, it’s a migration threat best addressed through military security. How might one’s emergency erase or empower another’s?
By considering the becoming-activist of aesthetics in relation to both climate mobilizations and the weaponized atmospheres of militarized streets and border zones (highlighted in the Whitney Museum’s “teargas” biennial and corresponding protests), this presentation considers the complexity of emergency politics, as well as how emergency might give way to the emergence of emancipated futures through intersectionalist social movements.
This lecture has been organized with the support of SIBUR.
