E Lindsay & J Pond: A New Survivalism

Emma Linsday & Julia Pond: A New Survivalism

Embodied workshop using movement and walking practices, both live and audio-guided.

Survivalism-

A movement of individuals who actively prepare for potential future emergencies which include disruptions to environmental, social or political order.

We propose a New Survivalism, an alternative stockpiling of sensory experience, so that we might tell embodied stories of what once was to future generations. This collecting of the sensuous will take place during a 90-minute online/offline video call session including movement exploration and audio guide. We will focus on tuning into the sensory world, being-with places of decomposition and decay, as well as exploring a practice of remembering. We will investigate the notions of ‘once’ and solastalgia, as well as the questions: What is here? What is no longer present? Where are the gaps? How might be inhabit and sit with the gaps within the current sensuous world? 

Within the movement exploration and audio-guide, we will encourage a tuning into the physical present in the hope that we might foster a kind of storytelling that moves beyond the scientific facts and figures of predominant environmental discourse. In the west, we often turn to archaeological excavation in order to illuminate the past, digging the archive of the earth. Connecting to the biosphere though a sensitivity to movement, we hope to explore an alternative kind of archaeology, a non-linear, anti-colonial unveiling of eternity within the present moment, a tapping into deep time, a deviation from capitalist clock-time.  

Through various movement prompts, we will encourage moving from listening, moving from the memory of touch, and moving from sight. We will draw attention to spaces of decay, decomposition and fungal growth. Through movement invitations we will explore these decaying spaces, not through the lens of loss, but rather as a place of cyclical regeneration. 

Participants will be invited to explore their local patch, park or garden. All participants are advised to prepare weather/terrain appropriate clothing as well as water and a phone and headphones in order to listen to audio.