Anthropocene Campus Venice 2021

Water Politics in the Age of the Anthropocene

• Monday, Oct 11, 2021

  6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

  Keynote: Beyond the Great Derangement

  Amitav Ghosh (anthropologist and writer, New York) in conversation with Francesca Tarocco (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) and Serenella Iovino (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

  Amitav Ghosh will reflect on the anthropogenic condition from the vantage point of his recent works, since his groundbreaking book The Great Derangement. The Indian writer will be in conversation with Serenella Iovino (University of North Carolina), an international authority in the environmental humanities, and Francesca Tarocco, a historian of Asian religions and member of the board of the Center for the Humanities and Social Change at Ca’ Foscari. They will address topics such as the role of the humanities face to the environmental crisis, ecological migrants and refugees, the role of Venice in Ghosh’s work and in the international imaginary of sea-level rise, Asian and Western perception of the environment.

• Tuesday, Oct 12, 2021

  11:30 am - 1:00 pm

  Screening & Artist Talk

  (Opening event of the online exhibition and project Aquaphobia: Fear of Water)

  Jakob Steensen (artist, Berlin) in conversation with Daniel Birnbaum (director and curator, Acute Art), introduced and moderated by Cristina Baldacci (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) and Valeria Facchin (producer and independent curator, London).

  How can immersive technologies help us embrace a more resilient future?

  For the Aquaphobia: Fear of Water online exhibition launch, this talk will explore the possibilities offered by immersive technologies in pre-/re- enacting endangered ecosystems and possible future scenarios taking as a starting point Jakob Kudsk Steensen’s practice and his 2017 VR work Aquaphobia.

  Aquaphobia: Fear of Water was specially conceived for the Anthropocene Campus Venice, in collaboration with Steensen, with the support of the Danish Arts Foundation. www.aquaphobia.world

• 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm

  Keynote: Water as a way of life (and death): Holland, 20th-16th centuries

  Florike Egmond (University of Leiden)

  Much of the Netherlands would be under water – and would have been under water for the past 500-800 years – if its inhabitants had not managed to artificially keep out the water of the sea and the rivers that created this delta. This talk focuses on the Dutch river delta as an area comparable in many ways with the Venetian lagoon; it goes back in time from the 20th to the 16th centuries. It looks at how natural disasters shaped a country; at notions of control over nature and of land as a manmade resource; at water as both enemy and safeguard; at early modern perceptions of the sea as a resource; and at a historiographical discourse of technological success that needs revision.
• Wednesday, Oct 13, 2021

  5:30 pm - 6:30 pm

  Keynote: Water Politics in the Anthropocene – A Systems Perspective

  Mark T. Brown (Dept. Environmental Engineering Sciences, University of Florida), Water Politics in the Anthropocene: A Systems Perspective.

  We humans have unknowingly embarked on a grand experiment with our planet. The outcome of this experiment is unknown, but it has profound implications for all of life. During the early decades of the Anthropocene, we humans have emerged as a new force of nature. We are modifying physical, chemical, and biological systems in new ways, at faster rates, and over larger spatial scales than any species recorded on Earth. The only other recent event with comparable magnitude of change was the Chicxulub Impact Event that lead to the demise of the dinosaurs and the eventual dominance of humans on planet Earth.

  In this presentation we will embark on a deep discussion of fundamental questions and issues in relation to humans, water and politics in the 21st century. By the very nature of the subject matter and our method of inquiry we cannot just look at water, but instead the whole system of which water and politics are a part.  Along the way we must encounter such topics as: the politicization of science, the role of the scientist in the political arena, managing the commons, globalization, human carrying capacity, among others… all within a systems framework.

  We will endeavor to answer such questions as: what is water anyway? Is it really politics, or is it economics? Can science (and scientists) be apolitical? What are common pool resources? Can we really manage the geobiosphere? …among others.
• Thursday, Oct 14, 2021

  10:00 am - 12:00 pm

  Event

  Inauguration of the Max Planck Partner Group The Water City.

  The inauguration of the Max Planck Partner Group The Water City will take place during the Anthropocene Campus. The inauguration sets in motion a five year collaboration between the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. The group aims to bring the city and the environments of Venice into focus as the basis for historical and comparative studies on global geo-anthropological processes. This effort will take into account the multi-faceted reality of a ‘hydropolis’, which has always constituted a crossroad of environmental, cultural, political, economic, and migratory phenomena. The Partner Group is led by Pietro Daniel Omodeo and will bring together a group of international scholars, whose research is motivated by common environmental and cultural-political concerns about the present state of the world vis-à-vis its scientific and technological transformation.

• 2:30 pm - 4:00 pm

  Artist Talk

  (In collaboration with Science Gallery Venice)
  Emma Critchley (artist, Brighton) and Haseeb Ahmed (artist, Brussels) in conversation with Ariane Koek (creative producer and curator, London/Venice).

  Earth Water Sky is Science Gallery Venice’s 3-year research, commissioning and production residency program at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, celebrating the latest cutting-edge environmental knowledge by scientists and academics at the university. The annual program each year selects by open call an artist to work thematically on one of the elements in the program’s title. The founding curator and creative producer of Earth Water Sky, Ariane Koek, is joined by the first two artists in the program – Emma Critchley (UK)  and  Haseeb Ahmed (USA/Belgium). They will discuss  how, why and what their artistic research into the science of water and wind reveals about our place in the universe and the power of nature.

• 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

  Artist Talk

  (In collaboration with Ocean Space–TBA21–Academy, part of OCEAN / UNI)
  Giorgio Andreotta Calò (artist, Venice/Amsterdam) in conversation with Barbara Casavecchia (curator, Venice/Milan)

  This conversation focuses on the conception and evolution of lacuna (2021), a new site-specific action commissioned by TBA21-Academy for the research cycle The Current III – “Mediterraneans: ‘Thus waves come in pairs’ (after Etel Adnan)”. During the month of June, the Venice-based artist Giorgio Andreotta Calò walked alone along the entire perimeter (about 270 km) of the Venetian lagoon. In Italian, ‘lacuna’ translates as gap, or void. By embodying and situating a set of personal observations around a changing ecosystem, where the border between liquid and solid, wet and dry, submerged and emersed is constantly fluctuating, Andreotta Calò invites us to rethink our ways of seeing  and unseeing.

• Friday, Oct 15, 2021

  4:00 pm - 6:00 pm

  Screening & Artist Talk

  (In collaboration with Teatro Ca’ Foscari Santa Marta)
  Ila Bêka&Louise Lemoine (artists, Venice) in conversation with Miriam De Rosa (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice) and Susanne Franco (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

  This event is inspired by the film series Homus Urbanus: A Citymatographic Odyssey (2018) by artist duo Bêka & Lemoine and offers a special focus on Venice through the film Homo Urbanus Venetianus. After the constraints of lockdown and social distancing that brutally reduced urban space to its strict minimum, where isolated individuals merely cohabit, this film offers a vibrant tribute to something we have been most cruelly deprived of: public space. Taking the form of a free-wheeling journey around the world (10 films, 10 cities), Homus Urbanus invites the viewer to observe in detail the multiple forms and complex interactions bonding people and their urban environments. The Venice film frames the city’s fragile balance, as well as its unique social and ecosystem, before the constant challenges of mass tourism and high tide.

• 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

  Keynote: How to Talk About the Weather – Interventions in Social Infrastructure

  Astrida Neimanis (Canada Research Chair in Feminist Environmental Humanities at the University fo British Columbia, Okanagan Campus)

  Once upon a time, talking about the weather was a neutral way to pass the time while sharing space with strangers at a bus stop or in the grocery queue. Things have changed. Not only has weather—and climate change specifically—become a highly politicized topic, but opportunities for chit chat with people who are not our friends, family or colleagues are also shrinking. Exacerbated by social isolation in the age of COVID-19, one might worry about the atrophying of our social muscles, particularly when it comes to talking across difference. Infrastructures for climate change mitigation most often reference seawalls, solar arrays, and better HVAC, but building, repairing and maintaining social infrastructures are also crucial tasks. How might walking together, swimming spontaneously, or getting a haircut be deliberate exercises towards such ends? Drawing on the work of The Weathering Collective (2015-present), this talk explores notions of stranger intimacy (Berlant 2016), the ecology of cruising (Ensor 2017), and feminist infrastructures for better weathering (Hamilton, Zettel and Neimanis, 2021), as urgent aspects of world-building in a time of climate catastrophe.