Arctic Connections (From social landscapes to landscapes of trauma)

Activity: Talk / Presentation / Podcast / Webinar › Oral presentation

Description

I am exploring creative practice as a means to communicate issues linked to societal threats, the nuclear threat and climate crisis with reference to geopolitical consequences, climate justice, human and environmental impact. In this presentation I will I begin by introducing ways I work in relation to archipelagic thinking and social engagement then frame my research in relation to ideas of landscape, social landscape and landscape as metaphor. The critical landscapes I explore are social, through community based projects in Shetland, and those of trauma and crisis linked to the nuclear threat and the industrialisation of the Shetland landscape in response to calls for the energy transition and carbon neutrality. While my research practice is embedded in Shetland it spans the northern and Arctic regions due to the geopolitical consequences of contemporary societal threats, particularly links that arose with the nuclear threat during the Cold War period when Shetland and other northern communities became strategically significant to NATO. In my most recent project, Landscape in Pain, I am concerned to find out how we can effect a just energy transition that will maximise the social and economic opportunities of climate action, while minimising and carefully managing challenges – including through effective social dialogue among those who are impacted. How we can achieve sustainability in our lives, and leverage renewable energies, without causing harm? While this research project began in response to the construction of the industrial scale Viking Energy Wind Farm on Shetland’s Mainland, it has expanded significantly in response to a combination of factors, including my ongoing learning and increased knowledge and awareness of the complexity of the issues; public responses to the research outputs disseminated to date (publications, exhibitions, conference talks and media coverage) and the constantly changing landscape of proposals for renewable energies and implementation of a just transition in Shetland, and further afield.
Period23 Jun 2023
Event title17th International Conference on Small Island Cultures 2023: Island Innovation, Resilience, and Revitalisation: Special Panel 03 - An Island-Based Initiative [SP-3] Special Panel from UHI Shetland Centre for Island Creativity
Event typeConference
LocationMiyajima, Hiroshima, JapanShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • societal threats
  • nuclear disaster
  • climate crisis
  • critical landscapes
  • climate justice

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