PLATFORM: ‘C Words’ – 3 Oct-30 Nov
at Arnolfini’s ‘100 Days’ to Copenhagen – 29 Aug – 6 Dec
Marking the countdown to the 15th United Nations Conference of the Parties on Climate Change (COP 15), opening in Copenhagen on 7 December, the artist-activist group PLATFORM and their collaborators are presenting ‘C Words: carbon, climate, capital, culture. How did you get here and where are we going?’ from 3 October – 29 November at the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol.
- The PLATFORM events are the centrepiece to the Arnolfini Gallery’s 100 Days, from 29 August to 6 December, a season of exhibitions, performances, screenings and debate around issues of climate change, social justice and the relationship between art and activism.
C Words cross-examines the present and looks to the next two decades. It investigates how everything from carbon offsets and transport, to racism and bank accounts play their part in the carbon web. How will culture be produced in a low ene rgy future? Can we imagine our way from here to there?
PLATFORM members will be in residence at Arnolfini throughout the project. The season will build towards a public departure to COP 15.
Seven new commissions are part of C Words:
- Ackroyd & Harvey: The Walking Forest -Â In the spirit of slow travel, people are invited to bring a small tree or sapling to add to The Walking Forest, Ackroyd & Harvey’s Bristol time-based artwork.
- African Writers Abroad: All Change! -Â African Writers Abroad (PEN) presents new commissioned work and workshops from poets Dorothea Smartt and Simon Murray on climate change and justice.
- Hollington & Kyprianou with Spinwatch: Adams and Smith – Adams and Smith are auctioneers of late capitalist period artefacts, with provenance and history provided by Tamasin Cave and Spinwatch. Live auction included.
- Institute for the Art & Practice of Dissent at Home’s Half-Term Holiday – Two adults and three children will set up a homemade activist cell to take action against Carbon, Climate Chaos and Capitalism. Join them for their half-term holiday.
- Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination: Experiment Number 10 – This will involve building an irresistible weapon of creative resistance, which will be unleashed during the COP 15 summit.
- Trapese Collective: Experiments against Enclosure – Tools to reclaim the Commons – The Trapese Collective present dayschools, film nights and an installation for your participation.
- Virtual migrants: The Centre Cannot Hold – Multimedia installation, live dialogues and music performances explore the racial underpinnings of climate change, and the potential for a super-holocaust in the global south.
Arnolfini’s ‘100 Days’
The title ‘100 Days’ refers back to the project for Documenta V (1972) by Joseph Beuys, the influential artist/activist, as well as aiming to give a sense of urgency in the lead-up to the Copenhagen conference. In addition to the PLATFORM events, the season includes exhibitions by Ursula Biemann, Ocean Earth and Barbara Steveni of the Artists Placement Group, and an ongoing Speakers Corner.
www.100days.org.uk has details of events and how to get involved, either by attending or posting news of other events and comments.
‘C Words: carbon, climate, capital, culture. How did you get here and where are we going?’