Artistic Responses from Latin America to Environmental Crises

Organised by the Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS) and the Environmental Humanities Research Hub 

In this event we open a space to discuss how artists from Latin America are using their work to interrogate our relationship to the environment, our role in climate change and its impact upon our bodies and lives in the future. Two contemporary artists whose work addresses how to represent, understand and respond to current environmental crises will be in dialogue with academics from CLACS and the Environmental Humanities Hub. Audience members online and in person will get an opportunity to see and hear examples of works by these artists, as well as to learn more about how they are produced, and there will be an opportunity for the audience to pose questions. The event explores how art can raise challenging questions about our interactions with the environment, the sources of our commodities and our role in perpetuating ecocide. Through raising awareness, these works also seek to encourage audiences to act to bring about change. This event coincides with a double bill of Mónica Maffía’s plays at Barons Court Theatre (details below).

Programme

3.00 - 4.00pm Roundtable discussion: In what ways do Indigenous artistic practices intersect with activism to address environmental crises?
With Olinda Tupinambá and Jamille Pinheiro Dias (speakers joining online).

4.00 - 4.15pm Break

4.15 - 5.15pm Roundtable discussion: How can theatre expose, complicate and question our role in climate change? 
With Mónica Maffía and Sophie Stevens (speakers joining in person).

5.30 - 6.30pm Reception (SAS Lobby, 2nd Floor, Senate House)

Artist Bios
Olinda Tupinambá (Brazil)

 Olinda Tupinambá is a multidisciplinary artist known for using her body as a political statement to address environmental issues and human-nature entanglements. Since 2015, she has directed several independent audiovisual works, including documentaries and fiction. She has curated and produced film festivals such as Cine Kurumin and the Kaapora Festival of Indigenous and Environmental Film. In 2024, she was an invited artist at the 60th Venice Biennale with her installation "Balance," featured in the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion (the renamed Brazil Pavilion). Her work has also been shown in the Véxoa: We Know (2020-2021) exhibition and the Modern Acts (2022) program, both at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo. Tupinambá was recently nominated for the Pipa Prize, Brazil's most prestigious art award.

Mónica Maffía (Argentina)

 Mónica Maffía is a playwright, opera and theatre director born in Buenos Aires. She completed her studies at the Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colón and Middlesex University, UK, and is a PhD candidate (Universidad del Salvador, Argentina). She has staged over 60 plays by Aeschylus, Shakespeare, Molière, Strindberg, Berkoff, Pinter, Caryl Churchill, and she also directs repertory and contemporary opera including Lilith, Black Moon for which where she also wrote the libretto.

As a playwright, her recent work has focused on eco-dramaturgy; this includes Cimbelino en la Patagonia [Cymbeline in Patagonia] and En Carne Viva [Raw]. From 5-9 November 2024, a double bill of Maffía’s plays En Carne Viva [Raw] and Sexo Total [Complete Sex] will be performed in English translation, both translated by Sophie Stevens, at Barons Court Theatre as part the Solo Play Festival (Information and ticket info here). Her award-winning play La Anémona y el jabalí [The Anemone and the Boar, trans. S.Stevens] received the "Women Creating” Prize awarded by Water People Theatre, Chicago for plays addressing human rights. Her plays have been published and translated into English, French and Arabic. In English they have been staged as rehearsed readings in London at Omnibus Theatre, as part of the Out of the Wings Festival, and Barons Court Theatre as part of the Reboot Festival.

All are welcome to attend this free event being held in person and online via zoom. Please register in advance to attend by clicking on the  Book Now button at the top of the page and selecting the correct ticket. The zoom link for those joining online will be sent automatically by email when registration is complete. Please check your junk or spam folders as emails can sometimes be found there.
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