Liverpool Medical Institution: October Gathering 2019: From the Rainforest to the Deep Sea
Venue: Liverpool Medical Institution
Date(s): 25.10.19
Time(s): 13:00 - 17:00
October Gathering 2019: From the Rainforest to the Deep Sea
Mind-travel with us to the rainforest and the deep sea.
In an afternoon of talks, screenings and a lecture-performance, leading researchers and practitioners will explore notions of the body, politics of care and alternative forms of knowledge.
The October Gathering is a new knowledge production platform laying the conceptual ground for Liverpool Biennial’s public programmes over the coming year. Our first gathering is organised around two metaphors – the rainforest and the deep sea. Both are ecosystems where complex entanglements of life co-exist. They manifest the qualities of circulation, interdependency and interconnectivity, and it is within this context that we propose to expand our understanding of the body. Circulation of bodies and their knowledge is a recurring theme within the artistic practices which Liverpool Biennial 2020 is engaged with.
In the rainforest, we will pay attention to Amerindian configurations of the body which challenge the distinction between human and animal, culture and nature. In the deep sea, we will consider contemporary forms of exploitation such as the global turn towards the ‘blue economy’. On the other hand, this is also a zone that hasn’t yet been colonised by modern systems of knowledge. It opens up a different possibility of interconnectivity that can be taken as portents for the future body.
Programme
Introduction: The Deep Sea and the Rain Forest
Je Yun Moon and Manuela Moscoso
Keynote Lecture: Dissident Bodies and Possible Worlds
Pedro de Niemeyer Cesarino
Respondent: Silvia Battista
Short Film Screenings: Sensing the Ocean
Margarida Mendes
Creative Reading: When Lions Write and When Telling is Listening: Thoughts on Carrier Bags, Ports and Stomachs
Sarah Demeuse
Presentation: Introducing Anti-Slavery Knowledge
Lennon Mhishi
Respondent: Diana Jeater
Lecture Performance: Black Atlantis: The Plantationocene
Ayesha Hameed
Respondent: Joasia Krysa