Lecture by Susan Schuppli
As part of the Mellon Sawyer Seminar, Deep Horizons: Making Visible an Unseen Spectrum of Ecological Casualties & Prospects
Tomorrow! — TUES, OCTOBER 13, 2020 at Noon (MST), via Zoom Registration (Register in advance for this meeting. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting)
Lecture:Cold Rights in a Warming World "This presentation builds upon a body of work that I have been developing over the past few years exploring the many different knowledge practices that are mediated by "ice" from scientific expertise to local knowledge and indigenous traditions. My first phase of research explored ice cores as a planetary archive comprised of “material witnesses” that are capable of recording the Earth’s complex atmospheric histories. Ice acts a natural storage medium for recording climatic events because of its unique ability to capture and store evidence of greenhouse gases over hundreds of thousands of years. The air bubbles trapped in ice are not simply data-proxies that scientists read in order to understand the past in the ways that they might decode trees to gain insight into historic temperature variations, rather, it is literally ancient air and thus provides unique and direct evidence of climate change. This research also resulted in a documentary film shot in the Canadian Ice Core Archive and at a US Geochemistry lab where I spent time with the scientists that undertake its complex gas analysis. It also entailed conversations with the labourers who manage these icy infrastructures such as the drillers who extract cores under conditions of extreme cold and the archivists whose role it is to preserve and catalogue these fragile frozen samples of the Earth’s history in national ice core repositories. More recently I've been filming in Svalbard Archipelago as part of inquiry into sea ice and the geopolitics of the Circumpolar North, whereas the next phase its focus to glaciers. Specifically the Hindu Kush Karakoram ranges of the Himalayas. This is an area of the world where the changing material conditions of glacial ice are not only impacting directly upon local communities but also weather systems globally. In developing these sequenced projects over a number of years, each with multiple outputs, my research aims to coalesce disparate—and oftentimes incommensurate—forms of knowledge across a wide range of spatial scales and contexts that, when taken together, create a more complex understanding of our current ecological condition."
Biography: Allyson Burbeck graduated from University of Colorado Boulder with her master’s in art history in May 2020. She holds a BA in art history and a BS in strategic communication from Texas Christian University, where she graduated summa cum laude. Her research falls within the realm of public art, specifically muralism, graffiti, and street art, and the discourses of public sphere theory and urban theory. Her master’s thesis examines the history and legacy of Chicana/o muralism in the neighborhood of La Alma-Lincoln Park in Denver, Colorado. However, street art murals in the neighborhood have begun to transform its distinctly Chicana/o public spaces, negatively affecting longtime residents’ sense of belonging and signaling the gentrification of public space. Her thesis challenges public sphere theory by emphasizing the importance of public space to marginalized communities. During her time at CU Boulder, Allyson also served as a teaching assistant for the History of World Art and US Art Across Cultures. In the future, she hopes to facilitate community-based public art projects and to continue teaching and working with college students.
Image: La Alma (The Soul) mural created by Emanuel Martinez and located at the La Alma Recreation Center in Denver
Capping off CU Boulder's 2020 Research and Innovation Week, take a virtual open lab tour and learn about the ATLAS Institute's inventive exploration and interdisciplinary research in fields like human-robot interaction, human-computer interaction, computing for health and wellness, e-textiles, visual cognition, wearable technologies, personal diagnostics, nanoscale engineering, the technology of visual language and more.
FRIDAY, October 23rd at 11 AM (MST) Join Zoom Meeting (Meeting ID: 940 0782 1191)
Part of Art & Art History's fall 2020 online forum for professional development in the arts. Students working in all disciplines are welcome to join the discussion.
Libby Barbee is program manager at the Colorado Creative Industries a division of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade and a practicing artist. Barbee grew up on the southeastern plains of Colorado and currently lives in Denver where she straddles multiple roles as an artist, curator, and arts administrator. As an artist, Libby creates work focused on the relationship between culture and nature, specifically examining American frontier myth and the mediating role it plays in the construction of both American identity and the American landscape. Libby believes that art has the power to illuminate ideas, to move people to action, and to unite communities. As an arts administrator, her work has focused primarily on supporting cross-sector work through the arts and socially engaged artists. As a Program Manager with Colorado Creative Industries, she works to support artists and communities across the state in their efforts to create thriving and resilient economies, relationships, and systems of support.
