Friday, April 21, I will present first findings of my field research in Australia at the Fredagsalon of the Art & Earth Research Cluster of the Department of Arts & Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen (DK) (on-site only). (Announcement, program & abstracts see below.)
All are welcome!
In my talk I will focus on a case study from my field research for the Sounding Crisis project in Western Australia: The Aboriginal activist group Save our Songlines fights the endangerment of the rock art of the Murujuga, which is also the starting point of the songlines of the Seven Sisters dreaming. The Murujuga is the world’s largest and maybe most important petroglyph collection. Some of these rock carvings are more than 45’000 years old. They and the sound practices attached to them and their surroundings are proof of the ancient, continuous civilization of Aboriginal Australians. Despite the massacres, exploitation, and oppression their ancestors experienced through colonizers and settlers since the mid-19th century, the activists of “Save our Songlines” still understand themselves as custodians of the land and courageously fight the destruction of their sacred sites of highly spiritual and energetic significance through the mining industry and climate change.
By drawing attention to this case study, I wish to raise awareness of the complexity of the cause of climate change and the impressive tradition and philosophy of Aboriginal connection to country.
Full, official announcement:
April 21, 2023, 14:00 -16:00
Art & Earth Fredagssalon
Department for Arts & Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen
Karen Blixens Vej 1, 2300 København, Room 21.4.13
In this salon, the research cluster Art & Earth offers some insights into its current work. Our task is to practice terra-aesthetic archaeologies and facilitate new ways of thinking, sensing and dealing with the environmental crises of our time by tending to aesthetic and earthly matters. Michael Kjær, Ania Mauruschat, and Christa Holm Vogelius will bring different forms of material-sensuous entanglements between art and earth into conversation: sound practices of Aboriginal Australians related to ancient rock art, which is endangered by mining industries; visualizations of climatic changes created at sea by artists and marine geophysicists; and a coevolution of the human and more-than-human that can be traced through the urban reform at the turn of the century.
Program
14:00-14:15 Introduction to the cluster by Stefanie Heine and Ulrik Ekman
14:15-14:40 Presentation Christa Holm Vogelius and Q+A
14:40-14:50 Break, drinks, and snacks
14:50-15:15 Presentation Michael Kjær and Q+A
15:15 -15:40 Presentation Ania Mauruschat and Q+A
from 15:40 Open discussion, drinks, and snacks
Christa Holm Vogelius (Postdoc SDU, formerly IKK, Modern Culture)
Christa Vogelius will discuss her project on late nineteenth century and early twentieth century urban reform and conceptions of the natural environment. Arguing that biopolitical understandings of the natural world’s impact on the human body and population were essential to shaping the development of the modern Western city, this project traces a natural-cultural history in which the human and the more-than-human have long been understood as coevolutionary.
Michael Kjær (Postdoc, Art History)
In his project, Michael Kjær collaborates with artists and marine geophysicists to develop new ways to sense and visualize climatic changes. During research cruises they are following the seeping of methane from large sub seabed reservoirs located in the Norwegian Sea. Michael will try to take you onboard the RV Kronprins Haakon, where scientists were taking samples, listening, photographing, and measuring in various ways. They partook in the urgent task of changing the current war between human and earth into acts of sensibility.
Ania Mauruschat (Postdoc, Musicology)
In her talk, Ania Mauruschat will focus on a case study from her field research in Australia: The Aboriginal activist group “Save our Songlines” fights the endangerment of the rock art of the Murujuga in Western Australia, which is also the starting point of the songlines of the Seven Sisters dreaming. The Murujuga is the world’s largest and maybe most important petroglyph collection. Some of these rock carvings are more than 45’000 years old. They and the sound practices attached to them and their surroundings are proof of the ancient, continuous civilization of Aboriginal Australians. Despite the massacres, exploitation, and oppression their ancestors experienced through colonizers and settlers since the mid-19th century, the activists of “Save our Songlines” still understand themselves as custodians of the land and courageously fight the destruction of their sacred sites of highly spiritual and energetic significance through the mining industry and climate change. By drawing attention to this case study, Ania wishes to raise awareness of the complexity of the cause of climate change and the impressive tradition and philosophy of Aboriginal connection to country.