T A Burneo et al: Transformations with Nature

Teresa Armijos Burneo, Jeremy Phillips, Ella Britton & Liam O’Connor:: Transformations with Nature: living beyond a volcanic disaster

WORKSHOP

“As soon as I felt it, I lost consciousness. At sunrise, I didn’t know where I was. I could hear people crying, people laughing, and greeting each other. Then I saw my father. I asked where my mother was […] He cried. He then said that we will always be together. And we were never apart, until the day he died”. 

Zarina Bocanegra. Survivor of the Nevado del Ruiz Eruption 1985

In November 13^th 1985, Nevado del Ruiz, a large volcano in Colombia produced a powerful explosion that melted the volcano’s icecap, and generated a flow of mud and rock down the volcano’s slopes. Despite warnings from scientists, this ‘avalanche’ or lahar, killed more than 23,000 people, many woken from sleep only seconds before it hit. Several towns were destroyed, landscapes transformed and entire ways of living and being in this world changed for ever. 35 years on, a forest has grown over the abandoned towns. People have rebuilt their lives elsewhere. Scientists know more about volcanoes. Policies to protect those at risk have been put into place. Memories remain. 

This multimedia and creative workshop will run as a hosted conversation and a reflexive exchange between participants. It will explore how sudden loss, of place, of people and ways of living impacts us in different ways. What can we learn from each other and from these seemingly far away and extreme experiences of sudden and unexpected death in Colombia? Using our senses, and experiences, we will seek to reflect on what rebuilding and remembering entail after loss.  

This session will be a facilitated conversation led by a multidisciplinary team whose aim is to explore and decolonise the relationship between humans and the environment through art, design, science and emotion. Those who join the reflexive workshop will explore these themes through images and stories related to Nevado del Ruiz, and also through your own offerings and stories of change. In order to co-create reflections during the workshop we invite people to register in advance (10 max people) and to bring along an object that helps you to connect to a significant place or time that is out of reach. This object will be used in a drawing exercise so please have drawing materials to hand, for example, paper, card, pencils, pens, string, glue, old newspaper/magazine, ink, paint brushes, etc.

Preparatory materials:

Video –Nevado Del Ruiz Remembering 1985 SUBTITLES