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The Centre for Alternative Technology and Aberystwyth University are delighted to collaborate on the exhibition ‘The Lives We Want: Life and Earth Beyond Covid-19’ and invite students at both institutions to respond to a call for entries.
The Idea
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic is affecting all areas of life, and living with the coronavirus has thrown into relief many of our habitual ways of being and our ways of living on this planet, including our entanglements with the non-human world. Covid-19 has provided a tragic reminder of the interconnections on which we all depend, underlined by the continuing threats of climate change and biodiversity loss. In the light of these intertwined issues, we need cultural, artistic, and technological responses which help us to rearticulate new visions of what matters and how to engage with planetary realities and relationships – human and non-human.
Following this theme CAT and Aberystwyth University students (undergraduate and postgraduate) are invited to submit proposals for scholarly, creative, or critical/creative crossover contributions to a multi-site exhibition which will run physically at CAT and Aberystwyth University later in the year and in an online space curated by both institutions from June 2021 onwards.
Adrian Watson, Head of CAT’s Graduate School said “During their courses, CAT postgraduate students gain the knowledge and skills to reflect upon practical solutions to climate change and biodiversity loss. During one of the core course modules, they participate in futuring exercises where they consider ‘what does a zero-carbon future look like?’ This exhibition allows our students to put their ideas into creative practice.
Many of our students come not just from environmental science backgrounds but architecture and the arts too, so we are looking forward to seeing how they interpret the exhibitions’ brief and what media and artefacts they create to discuss what does a healthy, just, and creative post-COVID world look like, in the context of both environmental and social crises? And what steps might be made towards a more socially inclusive, ethical, and sustainable planetary co-existence?”
Themes
The exhibition will be curated by a group of staff from both institutions and contributions should address the overall theme of the exhibition and rearticulate new visions of what matters and how to engage with planetary realities and relationships, from any of the following perspectives, or a combination thereof:
- Health, wellbeing, future generations, work, mobility, and home
- Social justice, equality of access to services/space, employment, participation, and equity
- Culture, heritage, identity, communication/s, creating and making
- Biodiversity, nature conservation, regeneration, land-use, food
- Net-zero, emissions, energy systems, low carbon futures, sustainable design
Kim Knowles, Senior Lecturer within the Film, Theatre and TV department at Aberystwyth University said “By using both an online space and physical locations at CAT and at the Aberystwyth University campus for this exhibition we are encouraging students to think creatively with the media they propose using in their entries. We are looking forward to seeing the contributions which can be in any of a range of media – or a combination – including but not limited to: written, spoken, video, visual, performance, artefacts and installations, web-based media, augmented or virtual reality”
The Lives We Want is a gender-inclusive project. Proposals that consider and/or reflect the diversity of human experience during and after Covid-19 are welcome. The exhibition also welcomes contributions in both Welsh and English.
Further information
The invitation for proposals will be open until 31 July 2021, with the online exhibition scheduled to launch in June 2021 and growing over time as entries are added. Further information about the physical and online exhibitions will be announced in due course.
Students can find out more details about creating a proposal here and submit their proposal by emailing theliveswewant@aber.ac.uk or tll@aber.ac.uk at any point from 1 April to 31 July 2021.
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