Feminist and postcolonial critique has drawn attention to conceptions of gender and race that are inherent to that which they consider to be anthropocentric, or even androcentric, thinking, which underpins the term Anthropocene. Named as the era of Man and his tools, this geological period reiterates the figure of homo faber as an agent and centre of knowledge. But who is homo faber? In the opinion of many thinkers and scientists, by reducing historical agency to the liberal male subject of Enlightenment modernity, the term excludes the diversity of people who populate the planet, and obliterates the colonial legacy of capitalist accumulation, that has caused long-lasting ecological damages.

Ecological issues, the politics of the Anthropocene and the postcolonial context that conditions our interaction with the natural world will be discussed in this conversation, between the philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva (1963, Brazil), professor and director of the Institute of Social Justice of the University of British Columbia, and the artist Ursula Biemann (1955, Switzerland). Moderated by the collective Pipi Colonial, the guest speakers will discuss the conceptions of humanity that are proposed and excluded by the Anthropocene, and the role of aesthetics and criticism in re-imagining the fragile and complex relationship that mankind upholds with nature.

Simultaneous interpretation