Climate Fiction Posthuman Artist Laboratory

Description

As a research team, we consider posthuman theory and climate change fiction, exploring the artistic and emotionally supportive possibilities of collaborative storytelling. Our research considers how collaborative narratives of more hopeful optimism might counter affective responses of solastalgic anxiety. In this session we will facilitate a Posthuman Artists’ Laboratory, utilising innovative creative writing strategies to consider how the coming together of professional writers might produce writing that challenges the current plethora of dystopian imaginings. The laboratory is a unique iteration of research-in-practice, focussed on the posthuman possibilities of collaborative storytelling. The participating writers will write “in place” in response to posthuman writing prompts and envision a new form of climate story. ‘To live in the Anthropocene,’ Dan Sherell argues in Warmth: coming of age at the end of our world, ‘is to realize that your attention must be broadened far beyond the bounds of your individual circumstance—expanded to encompass people, species, objects, and eras with which you are both utterly unfamiliar and inextricably bound’ (2021). Here we wish to consider the ways in which re-thinking the givens of creativity might challenge the ongoing focus of late capitalism on production of fictional texts born from a singular author’s voice, disconnected from political intent.

This research is supported by the Flinders University Assemblage Centre for Creative Arts Research Grant Scheme.

Period	30 Nov 2023
Event title	AAWP Conference: We Need To Talk
Event type	Conference
Conference number	28
Location	Canberra, Australia, Australian Capital TerritoryShow on map
Degree of Recognition	National