Harsh Light: Angela Chan & Farah Ahmed
Wednesday 23 September, 7 – 8:30pm
Online (via Zoom)
Accompanied by BSL interpretation
Free & open to all
* we are currently adding subtitles to the footage above, apologies for any inconvenience.
Bloc Projects is excited to announce a new series of webinars in September called Harsh Light, in which we will explore the changing role and work of the visual arts in unprecedented times.
The series feels through reverberations of different kinds in 2020: of pandemic, social insurrections, and arts sector strategy. Just weeks after Arts Council England (ACE) released its 10-year vision for “a country transformed by culture”, life as we knew it came to a halt in the UK. This has been accompanied by political movements worldwide, the most salient of which -- for the British art world(s), at least -- has been the Black Lives Matter movement. As we are living the throes of interlinking health and social crises, what do ACE’s four investment principles of inclusivity and relevance, ambition and quality, dynamism, and environmental responsibility now mean?
Harsh Light explores the discrepancies between arts sector frameworks and arts worker lives through conversation. In other words, how do practitioners feel about the art world(s) projected for us by ACE? And how do we, in fact, live out and imagine these worlds from our respective points of view?
Climate Knowledges, MAMA, Rotterdam, 2020. Programmed by Angela Chan
For the second webinar in the series, we are delighted to invite Angela Chan and Farah Ahmed to talk about the intersection of climate activism and the arts in the UK. The speakers are steeped in both worlds and are having an ongoing conversation about the challenges of merging the two in different ways. Amongst other things, Angela and Farah will explore bringing activism into art production, the disconnect of the art world from decolonisation and movement organising, and the problematic curation of climate emergency.
About the speakers
Angela Chan
Angela Chan is a ‘creative climate change communicator’, an umbrella under which she works on a range of curatorial, research, art making and writing projects that are focused on intersectional approaches to climate change.
Angela is also the founder of Worm: art +ecology, a long-term curatorial project that communicates climate change issues through contemporary art and creative practices. It produces online and gallery exhibitions, interviews with practitioners and also delivers public workshops and talks focused on intersectional climate justice issues.
She holds an MA in Climate Change: History, Culture, Society, and her research interests span decolonial climate justice, geography, feminist sciences and contemporary sinophone science fiction.
Farah Ahmed
Farah Ahmed is a co-founder and facilitator of Diaspora Dialogues for Our Futures, a reflective space for people of colour to centre collective care in the face of the climate crisis. Her interests lie in understanding the complex ecology of environmental, racial and social justice, colonial histories, ancestral connections to nature, creative activism, and how art can reshape climate narratives.
Farah is also the Events & Network Coordinator at Julie's Bicycle, a charity working at the intersection of arts and sustainability. She supports the delivery of events, campaigns and marketing, and produces podcasts The Colour Green and Green Heritage Futures.
The webinar will be recorded and available to view via our website following the event.
This event is free but booking is essential.
Farah Ahmed facilitating a workshop
Bloc Projects is proud to maintain a public programme that is free for everyone. However, attendees are encouraged to donate to the S2 Foodbank, who are carrying out essential work during this time. To donate either follow the link on our homepage or click the button below.
This programme of events has been generously supported by The Sheffield Town Trust