Call for Submissions: INDIGENOUS VISIONS OF THE GLOBAL EXTINCTION CRISIS

1 June, 1-5 PM (with workshop to follow June 2-3)

Balsillie School of International Affairs, 67 Erb St. West, Waterloo

 

Call for Art Submissions

On June 1, the Balsillie School of International Affairs will host “Indigenous Visions of the Global Extinction Crisis”, an art exhibition and public event that grapples with indigenous and non-indigenous understandings of the global extinction crisis. Join us for a sharing circle and exhibition of art featuring international and local Indigenous thinkers, leaders and artists. As part of our exploration of Indigenous responses to the global extinction crisis, we would like to showcase the work of local Indigenous artists who are grappling with this issue in their own work. We invite Indigenous artists and performers from the Waterloo region to submit their work for inclusion in this public event. We are considering all artistic formats, including (but not limited to): painting, sculpture, readings (stories, poems, etc), short films,  song, dance and ceremony.

Even if you don’t have work to submit, consider attending the public opening on June 1, from 1-5 pm, at the BSIA, 67 Erb St W, Waterloo. All are welcome, and it is sure to be a provocative, engaging show!

Guidelines for submissions:

• Performances should be less than 1 hour in length.
• Plastic arts will be displayed in the BSIA foyer throughout the duration of the event
• Submissions should address the global extinction crisis from Indigenous perspectives
• Meet the health and safety requirements of the CIGI campus (to be provided by the organizers)
• Engage a wide and diverse audience.
• Be assembled and transported by the artist (a small amount of funding may be made available for these purposes) the day prior to the public event.

 

Background

In just four decades, more than half of the known species on Earth may have gone extinct (WWF 2014). Western scientists studying patterns of extinction warn that in just a few centuries, more than 75% of life forms may be gone. In short, the planet is confronting a global extinction crisis, which may turn into the Earth’s ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’ event (Kolbert 2014). How can and should diverse human communities respond to this crisis? Indigenous Visions of the Global Extinction Crisis starts from the belief that Indigenous forms of knowledge offer rich sources of inspiration and wisdom for approaching the global extinction crisis, including ontologies that recognise the relations between humans and other beings, cosmologies that reflect deep time and cosmic scales, and ways of knowing that emerge from deep connections to place and other beings. As such, it is important to ask Indigenous communities around the world how they are experiencing this crisis, how they are making sense of it, and how they are responding to it. Instead of instrumentalizing these forms of knowledge as ‘Traditional Ecological Knowledge’ or empirical data to be used by Western science, this project aims to re-think Western scientific concepts extinction, survival and the relations between beings from diverse Indigenous perspectives. Rather than treating Indigenous knowledge simply as a source for localised empirical data (Kuokkanen 2007), it will engage with contemporary Indigenous thought and its visions for global governance and ethics. Through these efforts, the project aims to decolonize narratives and public perceptions of mass extinction and possible responses to it. To this end, IVGEC will bring together leading Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars, communities, knowledge keepers, activists and artists to re-imagine the global extinction crisis and to generate multiple visions for responding to it.