York University’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change (EUC) is inviting all members of the York community to the 26th annual Eco-Arts & Media Festival. The festival events begin Monday, March 7 and conclude Friday, March 11.
Founded in 1994, the Eco-Arts & Media Festival is typically a week-long event and features an array of art mediums and workshops that express perspectives on environmental and social issues.
This year’s festival, FRACTURE, will take place online and in person and will examine the restorative phases after disruption. This year’s theme invites conversations across disciplines that consider pedagogical, environmental and artistic approaches to the concepts of rupture and wreckage and how humanity and the environment can heal and progress in the aftermath.
Last summer, graduate students in EUC Professor Andil Gosine’s Cultural Production Workshop studied artists featured in Everything Slackens in a Wreck, an exhibition at the Ford Foundation Gallery that Gosine is curating. “We looked at how these artists were contending with crisis in different contexts, and more importantly perhaps, about the persistent survivability of humans – our ability to create joy and hope, and also to find practical solutions in the worst of situations,” says Gosine.
Many of the artworks featured in this year’s festival began as a project. Undergraduate assignments across two courses generated a visual arts exhibition curated by graduate student Sharifa Riley, as well as a series of performances from students studying this term with actor and PhD student Robin Morgan.
The festival offers a collection of personal, social, cultural and creative resources in the form of artistic footage, interactive performance, artists-in-conversation sessions and a new exhibition entitled “Properties of Animality.”
Here is a full list of the festival events:
Properties of Animality – In Conversation with Artists
Monday, March 7 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
March 8 marks the beginning of the week-long multimedia installation, entitled “Properties of Animality,” curated by Riley, an arts and heritage specialist and York University art history graduate student. The installation explores the subjugation of animal characteristics on humanity. Inspired by themes presented in the novel Nature’s Wild by Gosine, the student/artists from the fall course ENVS 3122 display an array of work illustrating humanity’s fissured perspective of the “power concept” that designates humanity and animality. More information here.
PolyRupture Film Premiere
Monday, March 7 from noon to 1 p.m.
Join a lunchtime film premiere of PolyRuputre produced by Alireza Gorgani Dorcheh and Fati. The short film blurs constructed societal gender roles and explores the multifaceted avenue of love and relationship. The film’s theme of gender identity and relationships is exemplified through the motif of hair play. Register here.
Community Cooking Workshop
Tuesday, March 8 from 6 to 7 p.m.
Addressing the fracture between research practice and public access to academic knowledge, EUC graduate student Jess Ross will highlight the digital barriers of online socializing, a new “ordinary” for many in the current pandemic era. Ross’ project will unfold in the form of a cooking class. The baking space will welcome interested participants to prepare a pie crust as well as invite guests who would like to watch and listen. Register here.
Art Open House
Wednesday, March 9 from noon to 2 p.m.
Using a variety of different art practices, students from the course ENVS 4122 reflect on their relationship to a particular place and the ways that this place comes into conversation with themes of environmental and social justice. Register here.
Amargo&Dulce – In conversation with Artist
Thursday, March 10 from 2 to 3 p.m.
This event will be led by EUC graduate student Flora Gomez. Exhibited in the Crossroads Gallery, Gomez’s Amargo&Dulce sculptures illustrate the history of mate (a South American tea) through the lens of an Argentinian mate drinker living in Canada. Exploring the themes of migration patterns, colonization, and ecological destruction/crisis, Gomez utilizes the yerba mate leaves as the main ingredient in her sculptures. Register here.
Properties of Animality – In Conversation with Artist’s
Friday, March 11 from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Riley sits down with students/artists of the Properties of Animality exhibit for an in-conversation session. The event will include creative readings of essays, poetry and a dialogue of expression on the question: “Am I an animal?” Register here.
Additional information about the festival can be viewed here.