Remnants of a Golfball and Bugs exposed to heat from the Megafires across South Eastern Australia during 2019 - 2020
Once, I sat in my room (probably mid mental-breakdown but that’s not the point) discussing the end of the world with two of my closest friends. I had a generally defeatist approach to the climate crisis, politics, economics, and anything to do with life currently. They, well one of them more than the other, weren’t so …dejected. Rather than accepting my pessimistic and somewhat realistic statements, she pressured me to hope that current action can, and will, be a driving force in the wave of social change underway. She made it clear, however, that the people who desire such a change must work together and use their skills to contribute to that cause. Including me.
Social movements are not rigid, they are constantly in conversation with themselves, evolving, thinking, acting, and all the while we need spaces to be able to have those conversations openly, to challenge ourselves and each other, to plan our actions… to prepare to “take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them”. Except, where many of us are faced with a million obstacles at every point, it can be difficult to feel that we have any real control. Those who support protests and social displays of the ‘enough is enough’ are restricted by laws. Those who challenge convention are faced with choosing between compliance or poverty, abuse, and criminalization. Some of us want to make art, or literature, or just be in the room but it can be awfully intangible. Sequentially, disappointment can make one feel like sleeping is quite honestly the better option.
Sleeping is not the better option.
It’s a really good option but it’s not exactly the most effective.
The thing is, we need a space to explore our skills and use them to the advantage of a movement that we want to be a part of. Therefore, we need a Centre for Ecological Philosophy. In essence, this is both a physical and intellectual place for people to work collaboratively on expanding their understanding of the climate crisis and generate solutions or just keep oneself present. Alan has a vision for The Centre and this vision managed to give me the opportunity to conduct research and write outside of an Institution.
Having seen Alan interact with a vast network of creatives and intellectuals, I’ve witnessed how valuable collaboration is and how it can push us to work harder or challenge us to think outside of what we thought we knew. Access to different perspectives is an essential part of tackling our own ignorance and allows us to make better, well-informed choices whether that be in the size of our print, the phrasing of a sentence, or the inclusion of another methodology.
The friend I was speaking about is an Italian Cultural Geographer and Literary Critic, a writer of both fact and fiction, she too would probably love to be in a space where she can use her unique perspective to participate in Ecological Philosophy while surrounded by physicist, photographers, visual communications designers, artists, anthropologists. I haven’t asked her but it sounds like something she would like.
Essentially, The Centre for Ecological Philosophy is, at least right now, an idea; as an idea, however, it has great potential to give people from different disciplines, backgrounds, and specialties to assemble (like the Avengers!) and actually do something. This blog post, for all it’s cringe-worthy sentimentality and exclamations of collaboration, is not just a declaration of what The Centre might be looking to do, but an invitation. So I asked the reader to consider what their speciality is and what they have to offer Ecological Philosophy.
Warmest Regards,
Antoinette Johnson (any pronouns)
Become a subscriber on Patreon and Support our Team, call yourself a Center member, or be an Eco Patron.
Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram.
On The Line, 2019 is available at The Whitechapel Gallery Bookshop, The Photographers’ Gallery Bookshop, and Claire De Rouen Books. It is available for research at the British Library.