In the Autumn of 2020 as part of our Borrowed Time series we are hosting a series of interviews / conversations with significant voices speaking to our discussion of death and dying. Each of these events takes place on a Friday lunchtime UK time to allow as many participants from other countries as time zones will reasonably allow. Each lasts around an hour and time will be set aside for audience questions and comments.
We are delighted to open the series with a conversation between poet Pascale Petit and Borrowed Time convenor Mat Osmond at 13.00GMT on Friday October 30, 2020.
Mat Osmond says:
‘Previous collections of Pascale’s – especially The Zoo Father and Mama Amazonica – have affected me powerfully in their mingling of personal and familial trauma with the all-encompassing mystery of the non-human world. Having sometimes found eco-poetry to be a quite dry affair, not always connected with the mess and confusion of our emotional lives, Pascale’s poems have given me a new take on what this term can and does include. I’ve long been interested in how artists and thinkers who’ve suffered intense human cruelties in their childhood – Derrick Jensen and Mary Oliver both come to mind – have found a healing for, or maybe just a holding of this in turning to the non-human biosphere. Pascale’s newest collection Tiger Girl has returned me to these themes very powerfully, especially to the obscene cruelty human beings are capable of – in their treatment of non-human life, and of each other. With no clear solution or fix on offer to the ubiquitous presence of such casual monstrosity, why am I so helped by hearing voices like Pascale’s witness to it? One idea around this that’s come to the fore in the last couple of years is to rebel. What does it mean for writers and artists to declare themselves in rebellion in the face of ecocide? I’m looking forward to Pascale joining us to speak about these and other questions. ‘
The cost to attend is £5 (free for art.earth members).
Borrowed Time: on death, dying & change is our Covid-postponed major gathering for 2020-21. We don’t yet know what form the final event will take in November 2021, so in the meantime we are programming a series of events starting on October 2020.
The call for participation is still open (deadline December 13.
Borrowed Time is an art.earth summit in partnership with Dark Mountain and Falmouth University. Dark Mountain have a parallel call for submissions for their Issue 19: Requiem (deadline November 13)
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