TALKING TIME ︎TALKING TIME ︎
TALKING TIME ︎TALKING TIME ︎
23 JULY 2023
16:00 -18:00
2 Cygnet SQ, SE2 9FAFree event
TALKS, dICUSSION and PRESENTATIONS
THE ALTERNATIVE SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
Talking Time is an afternoon of talks and discussion about human relationships with perceptions and models of time, including capitalist time, neoliberal time, deep time, crisis time, and tree time.
The afternoon includes short presentations, readings and imaginings from speakers that includes The Alternative School of Economics, Chamkaur Ghag -professor of physics at UCL, Chiara Famengo- curator and researcher working at the intersection of art and ecology, and artist Dean Kenning.
Talking Time is the first public event of Tree Time, an ongoing research project by The Alternative School of Economics that has been commissioned by TACO! Tree Time explores the relationship of trees with our expansive notions of time as a useful tool for thinking about and understanding our connection with the natural environment, ecological complexity, and imagining the future.
The project looks at the value ascribed to both trees in the context of an urgent climate crisis; the role of financial capitalism, green economies and neoliberal life in contributing to or mitigating climate change. It will also uses scientific analysis of a particular tree/s as a way to investigate the local ecosystem it supports.
The Alternative School of Economics are undertaking activity around Thamesmead including walks, reading groups, screenings, talks and workshops that engage local people in a conversation about ecology and place. Outcomes from this learning together will be shared to a wider public through events, radio broadcasts and publications.
The Alternative School of Economics is a collaboration between artists Ruth Beale and Amy Feneck, formed in 2012. They make art that questions economic doctrine and knowledge hierarchies. Working and collaborating with communities, they explore global political issues in relation to the complexity of lived experience. Using feminist and alternative economics and pedagogies as forms of resistance, they produce film, graphics, photography, texts and clothing, as forms of activation, dissemination and reflection, shared to publics in art and non-art contexts. Recent projects include Artists’ Economies, UKS, Oslo, The End of the Present, Arts Catalyst, London & Sheffield, and True Currency: About Feminist Economics, Gasworks, London.
Chamkaur Ghag is a Professor of Physics at UCL. His research focus is the experimental search for Dark Matter, working on world leading experiments looking for thermal relics generated in the Big Bang 14 billions years ago. He is the current spokesperson for the word-leading LZ Dark Matter Experiment, operated 1 mile under the Black Hills of South Dakota, and also leads experimental searches for Dark Matter with levitated nano-scale quantum sensors at UCL. Chamkaur also teaches Climate & Energy covering topics such as the atmosphere, climate change, regenerating natural ecosystems, and renewable energy systems.
Chiara Famengo is a curator and researcher working at the intersection of art and ecology. They are currently researching and working with Phytology at the Bethnal Green Natural Reserve, London, developing hyper-localised, long-term cultural programmes centred around ecology, horticultural knowledge, and non-Western plant knowledge. They are curator of the 2023 Venice Design Biennial and a producer at Three Rivers Bexley.
Dean Kenning is an artist, writer and research fellow at Kingston University London. He makes motor and sensor based kinetic and robotic sculptures that seek to generate nervous and affective responses (‘vitalist kinetics'). He also has a wide-ranging diagramming practice (‘exploratory diagrams’) utilised as a method for thinking through aspects of art, economics, philosophy and science. With Emma Hart he co-organised Poor Things at Fruitmarket (2023), an exhibition of sculpture about class. He has worked as part of the Capital Drawing Group, the Social Morphologies Research Unit and (currently) the Diagram Research Group.
The afternoon includes short presentations, readings and imaginings from speakers that includes The Alternative School of Economics, Chamkaur Ghag -professor of physics at UCL, Chiara Famengo- curator and researcher working at the intersection of art and ecology, and artist Dean Kenning.
Talking Time is the first public event of Tree Time, an ongoing research project by The Alternative School of Economics that has been commissioned by TACO! Tree Time explores the relationship of trees with our expansive notions of time as a useful tool for thinking about and understanding our connection with the natural environment, ecological complexity, and imagining the future.
The project looks at the value ascribed to both trees in the context of an urgent climate crisis; the role of financial capitalism, green economies and neoliberal life in contributing to or mitigating climate change. It will also uses scientific analysis of a particular tree/s as a way to investigate the local ecosystem it supports.
The Alternative School of Economics are undertaking activity around Thamesmead including walks, reading groups, screenings, talks and workshops that engage local people in a conversation about ecology and place. Outcomes from this learning together will be shared to a wider public through events, radio broadcasts and publications.
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The Alternative School of Economics is a collaboration between artists Ruth Beale and Amy Feneck, formed in 2012. They make art that questions economic doctrine and knowledge hierarchies. Working and collaborating with communities, they explore global political issues in relation to the complexity of lived experience. Using feminist and alternative economics and pedagogies as forms of resistance, they produce film, graphics, photography, texts and clothing, as forms of activation, dissemination and reflection, shared to publics in art and non-art contexts. Recent projects include Artists’ Economies, UKS, Oslo, The End of the Present, Arts Catalyst, London & Sheffield, and True Currency: About Feminist Economics, Gasworks, London.
Chamkaur Ghag is a Professor of Physics at UCL. His research focus is the experimental search for Dark Matter, working on world leading experiments looking for thermal relics generated in the Big Bang 14 billions years ago. He is the current spokesperson for the word-leading LZ Dark Matter Experiment, operated 1 mile under the Black Hills of South Dakota, and also leads experimental searches for Dark Matter with levitated nano-scale quantum sensors at UCL. Chamkaur also teaches Climate & Energy covering topics such as the atmosphere, climate change, regenerating natural ecosystems, and renewable energy systems.
Chiara Famengo is a curator and researcher working at the intersection of art and ecology. They are currently researching and working with Phytology at the Bethnal Green Natural Reserve, London, developing hyper-localised, long-term cultural programmes centred around ecology, horticultural knowledge, and non-Western plant knowledge. They are curator of the 2023 Venice Design Biennial and a producer at Three Rivers Bexley.
Dean Kenning is an artist, writer and research fellow at Kingston University London. He makes motor and sensor based kinetic and robotic sculptures that seek to generate nervous and affective responses (‘vitalist kinetics'). He also has a wide-ranging diagramming practice (‘exploratory diagrams’) utilised as a method for thinking through aspects of art, economics, philosophy and science. With Emma Hart he co-organised Poor Things at Fruitmarket (2023), an exhibition of sculpture about class. He has worked as part of the Capital Drawing Group, the Social Morphologies Research Unit and (currently) the Diagram Research Group.