10:00
Cambridge University
June 5
Various
The ecological crisis has been described as “global weirding”, a term that encompasses both anthropogenically changed worlds (including complex, unpredictable manifestations of climatic destabilisation) and the disorienting experience of dwelling within them (Turnbull et al., 2022). The term “weird” has also been used within literature to explore questions of what does (not) belong, and our experiences of alienation, estrangement, fascination, entanglement and ambivalence in encounters with the more-than-human world. “The weird is unearthly, gesturing towards and veering away from Earth…[and] is concerned with boundary crossings and blurrings, interruption and change. In the Anthropocene, the weird involves (un)earthly belonging.” (Turnbull, 2021: 275) Weirding might therefore invite ways of thinking “beyond the rational bioeconomic narrative, at the level of myth rather than the level of objects, products, services, ‘solutions’ and so forth embedded in…’sustainability’” (Escobar et al., 2024: 189). In this two-day event series, we explore the potential for weirding sustainability; going beyond conventional discourses that reproduce business-as-usual, to ask: What does global weirding mean for us as researchers and creative practitioners? How might a weirding of our own imaginations and practices spark more radical and meaningful change?