About

Framework for Resilience is a three-part series of online conversations which bring together activists, artists, researchers and educators to think about the world we are creating, the world we are destroying, the systems which will fall, and those which should prevail.In this first episode of the series, we focus on the dismissive and destructive ways colonial powers have overtaken the natural world, extending the same attitudes to those who call these spaces home. Foregrounding the importance of empathy and practices of care, we discuss the effects of taking a more mindful and generous approach to the places we live, and our neighbours. Reframing our role as one of caretakers (of culture, the planet, one another), and encouraging positive action and education, we can begin to see the way to a more inclusive form of co-existence.This episode is hosted by Lesley Taker (Exhibitions Manager at FACT), mediated by Dr. Luiza Prado de O Martins (Artist, Researcher) who are joined by Dr. Edna Bonhomme (Historian, Writer, Interdisciplinary Artist), Céline Semaan-Vernon (Founder of Slow Factory Foundation, Designer, Writer, Activist) and Shonagh Short (Artist, Socially Engaged Practice).The reading list for this conversation can be found here.------ABOUT FRAMEWORK FOR RESILIENCEThis online conversation is part of The Living Planet, FACT’s year-long season which focuses on the non-human, and deals with themes such as climate change, ecology and communication, as well as the violence of ‘othering’. This series will inform our programme for the rest of the year which focuses on systems of knowledge and classification in the formation of identity and the exercise of power. They also form part of Artsformation, a research project which seeks to identify new ways of working, specifically at the intersection between art, society and technology, to overcome current social crises including justice, democracy and climate. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.The title for these sessions is taken from the artwork, PESTS, by Shonagh Short. Commissioned by FACT in 2020 for FACT Together.ABOUT DR LUIZA PRADO DE O MARTINDr. Luiza Prado de O. Martins is an artist and researcher whose work examines themes around fertility, reproduction, coloniality, gender, and race. We invited Luiza to mediate the discussion for her extensive speaking experience, and doctoral research interests. In 2019, she was selected as the recipient of the Vilém Flusser Residency for Artistic Research with her project “The Councils of the Pluriversal: Affective Temporalities of Reproduction and Climate Change.” She was also, in 2019, the recipient of the first Dieter Rückhaberle Förderpreis, awarded by the Künstlerhof Frohnau. She is a founding member of Decolonising Design.ABOUT DR EDNA BONHOMMEDr Edna Bonhomme is a writer, historian of science, and cultural worker. She holds a PhD in the History of Science from Princeton University and a Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University. As a researcher, Edna’s work interrogates the archaeology of (post)colonial science, embodiment, and surveillance. A central question of her work asks: What makes people sick? She answers this by exploring the spaces and modalities of care and toxicity that shape the possibility for repair. Edna's creative work is guided by decoloniality, care, and African diaspora world making. She has collaborated on and exhibited multimedia projects at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Galerie im Turm, Display Gallery, Savvy Contemporary, and other interdisciplinary spaces. Edna has written for publications such as Africa is a Country, Al Jazeera, analyse & kritik, The Baffler, Der Freitag, The Nation, The New Republic and more.ABOUT CÉLINE SEMAAN-VERNONCéline Semaan-Vernon is a Lebanese-Canadian designer, writer, advocate and public speaker. She is the founder of Slow Factory Foundation, a 501c3 public service organization working at the intersection of environmental and social justice, which produces a conference series promoting sustainability literacy called Study Hall, and the first science-driven incubator in fashion called One X One. She is on the Council of Progressive International, became a Director's Fellow of MIT Media Lab in 2016, and served on the Board of Directors of AIGA NY, a nonprofit membership organization that helps cultivate the future of design in New York City from 2016-2017.ABOUT SHONAGH SHORTShonagh Short is a socially engaged artist based in Bolton, Greater Manchester. They make participatory, playful work that uses language in its widest sense, including metaphor and everyday visual language, as a lens to explore class, gender and society. Aesthetically they are influenced by their working-class background, utilising everyday items as materials in order to unpick preconceived notions and distinctions between high and low art, cultural value and societal status. They use humour as a site of resistance from which structural inequalities can be made visible. They have been artist-in-residence on the Limehurst estate in Oldham since 2016, they have also completed residencies for Kahoon Projects and the Nasty Women International Art Prize and have exhibited work at galleries across the UK.