In this webinar we explore extractivism as a worldview, and the worlds otherwise that persist and resist, despite extractivism. We welcome exhibition contributors and the communities they engage with guide us through their reflections on the theme of ‘worlding’.
The third event, on February 17th, was on the theme of ‘Worlding’
Something we pay attention to in Feminist Political Ecology is how systems of power operate across scales, and we decided to theme our exhibition event series around this idea, starting with the body and embodiment, expanding to community and today considering ‘worlding’. Of course these themes are overlapping – embodiment and community are also central to the ways in which we explore worlding. We consider how the works and contexts presented in Despite Extractivism invite us to relate and act ‘otherwise’ in different ways and through different registers. Working with the Zapatista definition of the pluriverse – ‘the world we want is a world in which many worlds fit’ – this webinar provided a common space to share stories and conversations across our differences.
To begin, María Faciolince Martina and Daniel Macmillen Voskoboynik invited us to consider extractivism as a worldview or an act of worlding in a guided meditation.
María Faciolince Martina is an anthropologist, multimedia communicator and ecofeminist artist-activist working to shift dominant narratives around ‘development’, climate and gender justice. She’s currently a fellow at the Climate Vulnerable Forum, working with the Agam Agenda, an initiative reimagining the climate agenda through stories and art, and works with Culture Hack Labs on opening narratives and possibilities of world-making.
Daniel Macmillen Voskoboynik is a campaigner, poet and researcher, working at the intersections of climate justice, historical memory, and transformative economics. He currently supports the Global Green New Deal, and Healthy Food Healthy Planet initiatives.
We then invited Dewi Candraningrum to present the Kartini Kendeng singers she works closely with. In North Kendeng Mountain Central Java Indonesia, cement minings and German based cement corporations have deforested and mined their way to profit and are met with Kartini Kendeng’s resistance. Kartini Kendeng are women ecological defenders against cement mining. The women from Kendeng sing a kidung or song every time they protest, in defiance against the extractive industries. Kidung is a chant of worship and prayer, dedicated to the giver of life, the creator of the universe and in appreciation of nature, which is the source of food, clean air, and the home of all humans, animals, and plants as sentient being. Kidung is a part of life for the women of Kendeng and is a reflection of their hopes and prayers. Kidung is sung by these women during all of their daily activities, when working in the rice fields and terraces, cooking, helping their children to study, and even during fighting for ecological and social justice. These kidung are religiously sung to initiate protests in the North Kendeng Mountains.
Dewi Candraningrum is an Indonesian painter known for her uncompromising and passionately vibrant colored of portrait paintings that deal with such themes as ecology, identity, the women faces and human bodies which she called as “womb document”. She founded studio Jejer Wadon & Alas Wadon and runs regular discussions on ecology, feminism, and gender with the community. In addition to her artistic work, she also currently teaches gender studies in several universities.
You can check out the original post and the lyrics to a Kidung chant reflecting on mining on the Extracting Us Collective website.