<div dir="ltr"><div> I'm so glad Lucia you mentioned Marisol de la Cadena's work in your last post, as I think of her often, and how she works to make possible both 'eventfulness that exists outside of history,' as she puts it, and modernity -- in her work with Quechua and Earth Beings in Peru.</div><div><br></div><div>From her 2015 Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice, she writes:</div><div><br></div><div>"Undoing the coloniality of history would require recalling both history as a generalized ontological regime and "cultural belief" as mediating the possibility of what which cannot provide evidence. Following these recalls, events may not need to be either historical or beliefs to be possible. In other words, the ahistorical may be eventful without translation into a cultural perspective (a belief) on otherwise inanimate things." (148)<br></div><div><br></div><div>Perhaps this idea can be continued into next week.<br></div><div><br></div><div>On another note, I brought my Carrier Bag to Haraway's event that Ciclón mentions. It's a foraging bag made of birch bark that I have used to collect herbal medicine since I was 19.... There is a thick layer of potent dirt at the bottom. Maybe something will grow there eventually! I last used it to collect Hawthorne berries this past fall. Hawthorne is a significant tree for me, as it is for many, and has been a focal point of many projects and musings --- <i>Crataegus spp.</i> grows on most continents.... It figures in APRIORI's cosmovision that I described in Week 1 as The Turned: When a Food Forest Becomes a Fence -- In pre-capitalist Europe it was a tree central to the commons, and as waves of enclosure speak across Europe, it starts to become used as a fence in hedgerows....</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div dir="ltr" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div><br>--<br></div><div dir="ltr"><span style="color:rgb(204,204,204)"><a href="http://beforebefore.net" target="_blank">beforebefore.net</a></span><br><div>--</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, Nov 18, 2019 at 3:12 AM Lucia Monge <<a href="mailto:lmonge@alumni.risd.edu" target="_blank">lmonge@alumni.risd.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span>Hello todxs,</span></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span>Thank you lucian, WhiteFeather, Caitlin, Stephanie, and Ciclón for sharing your practices/perspectives/experiences. I’ve been thinking much about this conversation and will surely continue to digest and return to it in the next days.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0);min-height:14px"><span></span><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span>WhiteFeather, I really like the ritual you describe where people exchange breathing with the ground and find your comment on giving back and not only taking very important. I wonder if it's the word remediation that can be a trap since it implies a fixing or restoring to a previous state and with that a very specific kind of relationship, that of management. But despite the name, the act of feeding, nourishing or tending to the land can be/is part of a (more) present tense.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0);min-height:14px"><span></span><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span>To me remediation is a form of thank you so perhaps a new term could have less of "I need to fix this" tone and more of a this is "how I choose to relate to" so that it can represent a way of exhaling back at the land (to follow the beautiful exchange you described). And if we change the name, maybe we can rethink what the remediation practices mean and involve. Have them include a wider variety of actions that differentiate between a need for "doing something" and a need for "giving space," as well as incorporate acknowledgements and appreciation to those engaging in the labor (plants, fungi, bacteria). I realize now that this way of thinking about "remediation" rituals and practices is similar to pagos a la tierra, traditional Andean rituals in which offerings are buried in the land to give thanks, give back, keep happy, as part of a relationship that is understood as reciprocal.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0);min-height:14px"><span></span><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span>I appreciate your question about carrier bag contents Ciclón because I've been thinking how one way to avoid appropriation is to create your own site- and culture- specific rituals, but learning is communal/social so there needs to be some form of dialogue with others. I keep asking myself what ways can be imagined to exchange and share methods and tools? Margaretha, perhaps the manifesto can also include actions, intentions, recipes that humans are willing to share? and furthermore can we imagine/create a format that serves and incorporates teachings from a multiplicity of species? </span></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0);min-height:14px"><span></span><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span>To answer your question, my carrier bag includes Marisol de la Cadena, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Paulo Freire, Augusto Boal, Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway, árboles de Lupuna, trees from the Schefflera genus, Nasa poissoniana, Pleurotus Ostreatus, uff hard question because this list can get really long, real fast.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0);min-height:14px"><span> </span></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span>Finally, as for reports on how people felt about their body parts, I honestly don’t know, although now I wish we'd asked a week later!!! We didn't offer to heal workshop participants (thankfully to them!), the intention behind this ritual was to share a means of tracing and discussing connections between soil, fungi, plants, and other people.</span></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0);min-height:14px"><span></span><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><span>Thank you again to everyone for your contributions, I have really loved learning about your work and perspectives. And thanks Ciclón for starting this conversation. </span></p><p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></p><p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)">Mucho best,</p><p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)">Lucia</p><p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></p><p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></p><p style="margin:0px;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></p><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div><font size="4" color="#00ff00"><b>...............</b></font><font color="#000000"><br></font></div><div><a href="http://luciamonge.com/" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">http://luciamonge.com/</font></a></div><div><a href="http://plantonmovil.org" target="_blank"><font color="#000000">http://plantonmovil.org</font></a></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sun, Nov 17, 2019 at 7:06 PM Stephanie Gonzalez <<a href="mailto:sgonza61@asu.edu" target="_blank">sgonza61@asu.edu</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">
<div></div><p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">Hello everyone,</p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:14px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">What great conversations. I have been working through the forum, and I am really drawn to the concept of “two-eyed vision” and its relation to storytelling and narratives. I’m happy to say that this past week, I have been installing my thesis exhibition and passed my oral defense on Thursday. I would like to share my artist statement for the work as it relates to cosmology theories in physics and cosmology narratives found in Mexica (Aztec) culture. I was inspired by my time spent in the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile this past summer.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:14px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">While there, I experienced slow time. I participated in an artist residency, that had a big impact on me. I connected with the land, was invited to participate in ceremonies that gave thanks to Pacha Mama, and had conversations about the urgency that Pacha Mama herself<span> </span>was communicating through the very distinct presence of colonization and attempts to further extract resources from sacred lands. I began to question my understanding of western science and the indigenous narratives that were shared with me.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:14px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">Halfway through my residency, I wrote a breakup letter to colonization and began my storyboard and narrative for my experimental/animation/performance video. In the video, I take a journey to the center of the galaxy and sacrifice my body to a black hole to then be reborn into the cosmos with new sacred cosmic knowledge and the understanding that to in order to connect to the galaxy and universe, I had to consciously and physically surrender myself. This video also became an act of resistance, and a way to decolonize my body.<span> </span>The following is taken from a portion of my statement.</p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:14px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">Nāntli Cemanāhuatl is driven by a culmination of the psychological effects caused by world politics, immigration policies, and news and events surrounding climate change, and my personal experience of connecting to the planet as a whole. I am one of many who is concerned for the present state and future of humanity and the planet. My personal experiences become collections in an archive that reflect the human condition. </p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:14px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue""> I am a Mexican-American Woman living on planet earth. I am an immigrant living in a border state. I am a colonized body, I consume technology. I understand that my actions have repercussions. We have failed our responsibility to take care of our planet. I understand that we are consumers in a world that has detached itself from nature and our planet, the thing that provides us with resources to live out our lives. I understand that I myself am a walking contradiction. I understand that my light skin allows me to walk through the world with more ease. I understand Spanish. I understand English. I speak Spanglish. I understand that stars are masses made of hydrogen that create their own energy to sustain themselves, and so do plants. I understand that the ‘star stuff’ we are all made of resides not only within every single human, but it dances throughout distant galaxies. I understand that when I sit on the earth and give thanks to all she provides, I am connecting to Madre Tierra in the humblest way that I know how. I understand that I am not the only one who has a narrative to share. </p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:14px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue"">It is my hope that this narrative inspires others to think of their own origin story. It is my hope that these narratives can be shared with one another as ways to relate, care, and show compassion. This work is dedicated to migrants all around the world who make dangerous journeys in search of more prosperous futures and to those who have had their own personal journey in life, whatever that may be. We are all a part of this world, each, with a story to tell. Each narrative holds a place in this cosmos, a star of sorts, each one lit with a bright light, shining brightly in our night sky. <span> </span></p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:14px"><br></p><p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:14px">Below are some stills from the video.</p><div><img src="cid:ii_k33u2qkw3" alt="NC3.JPG" width="452" height="225"><br></div><div><div><img src="cid:ii_k33u3j8m4" alt="NC2.JPG" width="452" height="241"><br></div><div><img src="cid:ii_k33u3r6a5" alt="NC1.JPG" width="452" height="235"><br></div></div><p style="margin:0px;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-stretch:normal;font-size:12px;line-height:normal;font-family:"Helvetica Neue";min-height:14px"><br></p></div>
</blockquote></div>
_______________________________________________<br>
empyre forum<br>
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<a href="http://empyre.library.cornell.edu" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">http://empyre.library.cornell.edu</a></blockquote></div>