What does disaster mean to you?
Slow Futures Laboratory presents the Slow Disaster Program, a 2 month long experimental education program addressing our ignored, hidden, and forgotten relationship with disaster in the anthropocene. The program will feature 2-3 week workshops from a diverse set of artists and designers redefining our relationship with nature,technology, and ourselves in an era of disaster.
“It is generally accepted among environmental geographers that there is no such thing as a natural disaster. In every phase and aspect of a disaster – causes, vulnerability, preparedness, results and response, and reconstruction – the contours of disaster and the difference between who lives and who dies is to a greater or lesser extent a social calculus.”
Neil Smith, There is no such thing as a natural disaster
The term ‘disaster’ today requires a much needed rethinking. Historically and colloquially, the psychology behind disasters is that they are chaotic, instant, with great ramifications enacted in a sliver of moments. Think ‘the day before tomorrow’ or any post-apocalyptic movie you have seen before, the disasters we are all too familiar with- usually lasting minutes to hours and perhaps a few days if the runtime allows. (insert information about how disasters are talked about in politics, the nature of ‘natural disasters’) The term ‘natural disaster’ is an even sinister one, capturing the minds of neoliberal, hyper capitalist thought. Blaming ‘nature’ amidst great shock (especially for the weak, have nots, etc) invites the human or more than human institutions to ‘take charge’ and reform from the calamity. However contrary to contemporary imaginations of disaster, there is much evidence to suggest that our definition of disasters is far lacking, if not harmful to our understanding of our ecology. Disasters usually happen over an extremely long span of time, sometimes passing invisibly until it is too late to stop. And while general optics suggest disasters affect everyone, sociological research in disasters suggest the near opposite, stating that (fact here). Disasters filter for social stratification whether it means to or not, because in a crisis it is usually the have nots that suffer, and the haves that stick it out till the end and make out with handsome rewards. In this workshop we will examine and redefine the notion of disasters. Disasters as evidence of massive climate change, and disasters as results of our relationship with our industrial, political, and ecological systems. What future imaginaries will the notion of disaster hold?
In this workshop, participants are asked to reflect on the variety of experimental experiences that the workshop will hope. During the course of the program partcipants will have to move their bodies, roleplay, take pictures, share ideas, suspend belief and most important reflect on behalf of the program contents.
The workshop is designed to learn together, instructors and participants alike. We are ignorant schoolmasters (think Ranciere) hoping that in the disaster era we will hold ideas with plurality and empathize rather than rationalize.