Kimberly Skye Richards visits the UFV Abbotsford campus on Thursday, Feb 15 to talk about living on a damaged planet.
The upsurge in wildfires, heatwaves, droughts, and floods, and the concomitant dispossession of people from land can make it feel like we are living in a perpetual state of crisis. Unsurprisingly, an awareness of the unsustainability of the existing order of things is resulting in climate anxiety and “doomism,” the sense of overwhelm, disempowerment, and immobilization. This talk will look at how theatre and performance artists are responding to this situation, and how performance practices might help us to adapt to living on a damaged planet. The conjoining workshop will experiment with art/life practices for hospicing modernity and cultivating response-ability to the land, waters, more-than-human kin, and each other.
Richards is a settler scholar and dramaturg who engages performance as a vehicle for resisting extractivism, inspiring just transitions, and moving through impasses. She obtained a PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California-Berkeley in 2019, and she was a 2021 Public Energy Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow in Transition in Energy, Culture, and Society at University of Alberta. She currently teaches in the School of Journalism, Writing, and Media at the University of British Columbia. Her recent dramaturgical work focuses on climate grief and transition anxiety.
Richards will speak for one hour, from 10 to 11 am. A workshop with post-reflection follows from 11 am to 12:50 pm in room D104.
Snacks will be provided. Register for the Artist Chat through Eventbrite. If you’d like to take part in the workshop, email giuseppe.condello@ufv.ca. For more information, contact Jocelyn Thiessen at jocelyn.thiessen@ufv.ca.
Thu, Feb 15, 2024
Lecture (10 to 11 am) followed by workshop (11 am to 12:50 pm)
UFV Abbotsford room D104