"Storytelling for Earthly Survival" was an elective MA class held at the Royal Academy of Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, in February 2023, and at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in June 2023.
With an imminent “apocalypse” coming and survival tactics and lifestyles permeating our cultural and political scenarios, thinking about the end has become, as Mark Bould argues, the central subject of our collective unconscious. From the end of a stable climatic condition, and massive extinctions to the downfall of global capitalist economies, the end of life as we know it is deemed terrifying. Still, this way of conceiving our relationship with the end serves to think critically about the underlying power structures that hold together problematic practices today.
Storytelling for earthly survival was structured as a workshop to critically explore ideas of survival, climate catastrophe and anthropocentrism. In the course, participants explored speculative writing and feminist methodologies as worldbuilding practices to produce a series of texts that delve into ecological violence, non-linear narratives and the urgencies of the climate emergency.
Throughout the course, students delved into fictional storytelling across both sound and written mediums. These narratives were presented in intimate settings, encouraging discussions and explorations of publishing as a collective practice. Through their imaginative storytelling, participants illuminated the complexities of our current environmental challenges and offered glimpses of alternative futures rooted in resilience and adaptation.
Workshop, Water Zines and Liquid Protocols, 2024
"Water Zines and Liquid Protocols" was an elective MA class offered at the Royal Academy of Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, in February 2024, and at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in April 2024.
Structured as a collaborative workshop, this short course aimed to develop students' zine-making and publishing skills while focusing on watery entanglements, rising sea tides, survivalism and post-human theories. Throughout the course, students followed a series of liquid publishing protocols, enabling them to cultivate a critical voice and explore how water, as a storytelling device, prompts us to reconsider our relationship with the world around us.