The Charge That Binds: Relational Ecologies Intensive at ACCA

Fri 21st February, 2025 – Sat 22nd February, 2025
ACCA
111 Sturt Street, Southbank
Price: Free - registration essential
Join a two-day program that dives into climate-aware creative practices with conversations merging art, ecology and Indigenous land justice.

This February, the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) hosts the Relational Ecologies Intensive, a two-day program exploring climate-aware creative practices and their intersections with Indigenous land justice. It’s part of the ACCA summer season exhibition The Charge That Binds, which celebrates the dynamism, vitality and power of natural phenomena and the more-than-human world.

Taking place on Friday and Saturday, February 21 & 22, the Relational Ecologies Intensive features workshops, reading groups, panel discussions, “walk-shops”, speculative design sessions and performances led by artists and members of the Climate Aware Creative Practices Network (CACP).

Curated by CACP member Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris with Tristen Harwood and Tara McDowell, in collaboration with ACCA curatorial team members Shelley McSpedden and Elyse Goldfinch, the intensive questions how we study and teach climate-aware creative practices, and how climate, art and learning networks are deeply interdependent and influence one another.

The theme for day one is Strategy & Critique, with a specific focus on pedagogy, property, aesthetics and land justice. Led by Tristen Harwood, it’s a day of dialogue and study, borrowing the yarning circle model from Indigenous practice to facilitate shared knowledge building and respectful discussions following presentations and panel discussions. The program extends into the evening, with Jakarta-based artist duo Tita Salina and Irwan Ahmett leading an hour-long walking procession from ACCA around the Birrarung (Yarra) river, showcasing the invisible points of civilisation which often go unnoticed when we walk too quickly.

The second day of the intensive, Actions & Alliances, features a number of workshops, including dancerly and writerly forecasting practices around the instability of the weather; an intimate “watershop” that responds to the exhibition’s themes of water and circulation; tarot reading as a form of “affective cartography” that weaves together stories and plans of action; and an art workshop centred around native succulents. Debuting that evening is Feather Star by multidisciplinary artist Alicia Frankovich; the work is derived from a child’s existential questions and jointly commissioned and presented by The University of Queensland Art Museum (UQAM) and ACCA.

Bookings are free but limited – find out more on the ACCA website and on socials.

Broadsheet is a proud media partner of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.

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