With gratitude for Climate Storytelling 2075’s Guest Speakers, Critics and Reviewers
It is with reverence and the utmost gratitude that we extend our thanks to the guest speakers, critics, and reviewers who have worked with this year's cohort of Climate Storytelling 2075 fellows.
🌍 We kicked the program off in March with a "State of the Climate" address by Climate Futures Studio Co-Steward Robert Dellinger.
🖼️ We met in April for an interdisciplinary artist panel with Supermrin (Mrinalini Venkatachalam), Joshua Ashish Dawson and Rob Reynolds. Collectively, we pondered "How might we de-center the human and why might we want to?" with Rob, the potential of "using compost materials to transform matter into a spiritual seeking, or a question," with Supermrin, and how we might "build the roadmap toward this equitable, irresistible future," with Joshua.
🔭 In May, we gathered to revisit the lenses the cohort brings to their visions of just climate futures with Afrofuturist cartoonist Stacey A. Robinson and Indigenous futurist and ceramicist Taty Hernandez, Ed.M. We considered Stacey's call for an "algorithm of black healing" in collaborating the Afrofuture, and Taty's framework of "the quotidian as high tech."
✊🏾 In June, Kumi Naidoo and Yessenia Funes joined the cohort for a riveting conversation on Artivism, regenerative storytelling for justice, and, “merging the radical imagination of artists with the fury on the streets," as Kumi put it. Yessenia walked us through the process of writing a story on southern border migration in the US and extreme heat, centering foremost that, "every person is a universe."
✨ July brought in guest critics for our July Group Critique: Two sessions in which our climate storytellers presented their works-in-progress with their visions of a desirable climate future in 2075. We welcomed Rebeca Mendez, Whitney McGuire, Saskia Randle, Jennifer Buonocore-Nedrelow, and Joshua Ashish Dawson returned to share their transformative invites at this pivotal stage in the Climate Storytelling 2075 fellowship. Guest critics offered wisdom on methodologies, framings and re-framings, the interactivity of gallery work vs. digitally presented work, and more.
August has been dedicated to the completion of all work for this cohort, with writers workshops and climate fiction review by Brandon McWilliams. We look forward to sharing their urgent visions of our collective future next month at our Queens Council on the Arts exhibition with Ofrenda Fest, where we will be joined by a curation of Grist's Imagine 2200 artworks.
Thank you again to these guests for sharing invaluable wisdom with the artists and storytellers comprising this year's cohort: Anastasia Onyango, Byssan Samny, Cindy Xie, Crystal Barajas, Elizabeth Dawson, Harmony Richards, Joshua Ralph, Kristen Howard, Laiyonelth Hurtado, Lovinia Reynolds, Makayla Smith, Mariana Castro Azpíroz, Michael Dudley, Pamela Eyre Victoria Lira, Rachel Cranmer, Robin Moulton, LFA, Shirene Shomloo, Summer Dean, Victoria Fauve Desvaux, and Yumi Rodriguez!
Climate Futures Studio is Co-Stewarded by Laken Sylvander, Carrick Reddin, and Robert J. Dellinger.
