The arts have long been concerned with highlighting the ongoing histories of resource extraction and its repercussions. This event brings together researchers, artists, designers and activists from a range of backgrounds to consider local projects in intersectional, granular detail. Collectively, we will reevaluate the relationship between the arts, extraction and activism – both historically and in the present.

Extractivism/Activism will take place over two days: Wednesday 13 March and Thursday 14 March. Tickets are available separately for each day of the conference, both in person and online. If you would like to attend the full, two-day event, you must book a separate ticket for each day.

The symposium will be structured into three interrelated strands:
• Colonial and extractive histories: How are long-standing systems of racial capitalism and colonial oppression linked to the current financialisation of nature (using nature for profit maximisation)? What alternatives to these exploitive structures can be imagined, tested and shared in the arts?

• Reparative and fragile ecologies: Reparations for ecological collapse and environmental loss cannot be simply about financial compensation but must include broader systemic changes. What can reparative ecologies look like? How can they be mobilised?

• Environmental justice and legal rights: What roles can the arts play in enacting environmental justice? Can the arts inform and participate in policymaking on topics such as the rights of communities affected by ecocide and extractive capitalism, the rights of nature and the rights of future generations? And how might that intersect with calls to abolish or radically reimagine existing legal and justice systems?

We will Autograph’s website in the coming weeks with the full conference schedule, timings and access information. If you have any questions, get in touch at [email protected]

This symposium is convened by Sria Chatterjee (Paul Mellon Centre), Mark Sealy (Autograph) and Bindi Vora (Autograph).