Public Talk: Making Art in a Changing Climate
Friday September 18th 6PM – 7:30PM
Sunshine Coast Arts Centre • 5714 Medusa St., Sechelt
Free, food + drinks for nourishment
This lecture and discussion considers how artists and curators are thinking with a rapidly changing climate. How can art provide a space for more than contemplation and awareness, towards the possibility of transformation? What creative forms and material responses invite us to consider art as a site for urgent action?
Dr. Amanda White is an artist and researcher using art to engage with ecological systems, climate change, and human-nature relationships from a critical white settler lens. A key focus of her work is creative practice and critical plant studies, examining plants as living technologies that regulate climate, sustain ecosystems, and hold cultural significance. She is Canada Research Chair in Sustainability, Ecological Justice, and Climate action in Creative Practices (Tier II) and Assistant Professor of Critical Studies at Emily Carr University. amandawhite.com
Laura Kozak is a community-based designer, researcher and Assistant Professor in Emily Carr’s Faculty of Culture and Community. She works to practice relational, place-based ethics, asking how designers contribute to relationships with communities, land, water and ecological beings through decolonizing and anti-oppression practices. Her research focuses on climate justice and the local food system. In 2023, she co-led a Climate Justice Field School for senior sustainability planners and policy-makers at the City of Vancouver in collaboration with a renowned group of cultural and social justice practitioners. She is currently part of an interdisciplinary team working on a project called Mapping swiya, which draws on shíshálh ways of knowing to re-envision stories of time and place. Laura was co-lead of the Circular Food Innovation Lab, in partnership with numerous food businesses, food rescue organizations, health authorities, food justice advocates, Squamish Nation and City of Vancouver Solid Waste Services. laurakozak.ca