Visual Art Forum: Imre Szeman

"Transitions: On Energy, Pipelines, Art and Justice"
At the heart of the environmental crisis lies one key issue: we moderns are creatures of energy. Access to energy has allowed us to do remarkable things. However, the energy we’ve shaped our lives around is dirty energy. To be modern is to live a contradiction. Energy use expands possibilities; those same possibilities are threatened by the environmental and social implications of the expanding use of energy. How can we make sense of this contradiction? A narrative of the 21st century told through five interconnected vignettes about art, literature, pipelines, justice and transitions.

Bio: Imre Szeman teaches communication and cultural studies at the University of Waterloo. He conducts research on energy and environmental studies, critical and cultural theory, and social and political philosophy (especially 20th and 21st century left theory, globalization and nationalism). His most recent books include Contemporary Marxist Theory (co-ed, 2015), After Oil (co-author, 2016); Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory (co-ed, 2017), Energy Humanities: An Anthology (co-ed, 2017), Fueling Culture: 101 Words for Energy and Environment (co-ed, 2017) and Petrocultures: Oil, Politics and Culture (co-ed, 2017). On Petrocultures, a collection of his recent work, will be published in 2018. He is currently at work on At the Limit: Reckoning Energy Impasse, Forging Energy Transition and Energy Revolution, both for MIT Press.

This Visual Art Forum is presented by the Audain Faculty of Art at Emily Carr University of Art + Design in partnership with Trading Routes and the School of Communication and the Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology, Simon Fraser University.
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