May 14, 2023
The Call of Things uses ‘talking objects’ to challenge anthropocentrism, foregrounding the entanglement of advanced capitalism, colonialism, and environmental injustice in the North and South Poles. Viewers can ‘call’ objects with their phones and listen to oral narratives and field recordings related to each polar artifact. The contributors range across disciplines, including ecologists, Indigenous leaders, sea ice, philosophers, poets, whales, and writers. Speaking to the variety of interventions that privilege the human over the beyond-human spaces and species, many voices offer alternative possibilities for stewardship and sustainability.
The contributors range across disciplines and life forms, including former chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, Okalik Eegeesiak; Berkeley Scholar-in-Residence and author Lisa E. Bloom; glaciologist Dr. Richard Alley; sea ice; and whales. The Call of Things situates the climate crisis in relation to social justice, questions of sovereignty, Indigenous rights, and political histories of land. It creates a platform for non-anthropocentric experiences, where stories are also told through animal songs and sounds of ice. Knowledge is situated and embedded in its polar contexts, drawing upon the convergences of multiple perspectives and temporalities needed to collectively re-imagine our world. - Jessica Houston, artist Environmental Design Library - 210 Bauer Wurster Hall
The contributors range across disciplines and life forms, including former chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, Okalik Eegeesiak; Berkeley Scholar-in-Residence and author Lisa E. Bloom; glaciologist Dr. Richard Alley; sea ice; and whales. The Call of Things situates the climate crisis in relation to social justice, questions of sovereignty, Indigenous rights, and political histories of land. It creates a platform for non-anthropocentric experiences, where stories are also told through animal songs and sounds of ice. Knowledge is situated and embedded in its polar contexts, drawing upon the convergences of multiple perspectives and temporalities needed to collectively re-imagine our world. - Jessica Houston, artist Environmental Design Library - 210 Bauer Wurster Hall