Change Generators: Closure and Hope As We Move into a Post-Carbon Future
Be in the audience for this keenly anticipated panel. ABC Radio National’s Natasha Mitchell leads a session to debate the future for our region and the world.
As Liddell changes from coal-generation to renewables and storage (even nuclear?!?), what other generators of change are going to be important?
Ecological concept-creator Dr Glenn Albrecht, futures anthropologist and community mapper Dr Hedda Askland, Residency artist Fiona Lee and AGL’s Rob Cooper are in their own way “change generators”. It promises to be an engrossing lunchtime discussion.
Where: Muswellbrook Regional Arts Centre, 1-3 Bridge St Muswellbrook.
When: 12 noon for a 12.30 start Thursday 27 June 2024 – the session will run a little under 90 minutes.
Nibbles? Yes, nibbles will be provided.
Free! Bookings essential – Change Generators ticket link.
Dr Glenn Albrecht over the last 20 years has developed the theme of negative and positive emotional states connected to the state of the Earth. He is a ‘farmosopher’ whose new concepts have been taken up by academics and artists. While he is best known for creating the concept of solastalgia, or the lived experience of negative environmental change, his most recent work develops the mega-meme of the ‘Symbiocene’, a future state where humans re-integrate with the rest of nature. His concepts and books, such as Earth Emotions, have given him a unique place in debates on our future.
Dr Hedda Askland is an Associate Professor in Anthropology at The University of Newcastle. She is a futures anthropologist, engaging in critical conversations and theories of how to build a sustainable and just future. She is leading two projects in the Hunter exploring pathways of collaboration and engagement within communities in transition. My Muswellbrook: Place Identity and Pride in Place uses “thick mapping” to understand local residents’ connections to place and future dreams. Mining voids and just transition uses arts-based methods to interrogate the social and affective dimensions of mining voids and discover how these landscapes can help shape a just transition.
Fiona Lee is one of the 16 LiddellWORKS Residency artists. She’s a multi-disciplinary artist and climate justice activist working across non-violent direct action, sculpture, installation, photography, and video. After losing her home to bushfires in November 2019, Fiona Lee undertook a 12-month Bushfire Affected Artist residency at The Creator Incubator in Newcastle. It was there that she shaped unapologetically provocative works from her home’s scorched remnants that spoke to both her personal loss and the impact of climate change on us all. From this, she had a touring solo exhibition titled Carbon Tax, with works made from her home’s scorched remnants. Her LiddellWORKS piece creates new “machines” from new castings from casting moulds from the Power Station.
Rob Cooper is the Community Programs Manager at Liddell. With a background in teaching and music, he moved into the energy industry at Liddell and neighbouring Bayswater Power Stations almost 20 years ago. At the time it was owned by the State Government, before being sold to AGL in 2014. Rob has worked with colleagues, the local community, and others with a shared stake in navigating the journey towards Liddell’s closure, redevelopment of the site, and planning for new energy projects.
Possible topics (though we only have 90 minutes!):
- The mood on the ground – fears and hopes
- The drivers of change and the things that are stopping us (loaded words, uncertainties, inertia)
- Bridging past and future – creativity, tapping into skills, existing infrastructure, letting go
- Examples of successful and unsuccessful transformation (Germany, LaTrobe Valley)
- Honouring the legacy
- Visions the panellists have – “thinking tools” they might offer
- What’s already in the pipeline & how we give local communities some ownership
Images: Clockwise: Dr Glenn Albrecht courtesy the author, Dr Hedda Askland courtesy the thinker, Natasha Mitchell courtesy ABC, Fiona Lee courtesy the artist, Rob Cooper courtesy AGL.
Artwork by Fiona Lee from the LiddellWORKS exhibition.
