Pollution as a Weapon of War – a conversation with Svitlana Matviyenko
"Pollution as a Weapon of War" – a conversation with Svitlana Matviyenko, Associate Director of the Digital Democracies Institute, as part of the launch of the book Climate: Our Right to Breathe, Gothenburg City Library, October 12, 2022.
Climate: Our Right to Breathe is a book in response to vast, mutually exacerbating planetary conditions: the accelerated collapse of the biosphere under climate change and the increasingly crushing dynamics of toxic politics. But, the reactionary, divisionary politics driven by ruthless forms of authoritarianism, denialism, nationalism, and other globalized forms of oppression and dispossession are also a call to action.
In L’Internationale’s most recently published anthology, more than twenty-five voices from the arts and culture form an internationalist chorus that emphatically responds to a collective need to develop common strategies for solidarity when many limits of the Earth system have already been surpassed. Because racialized capitalism cannot be separated from ecological disaster, vulnerable and often marginalized communities are forced to endure the worst effects of the climate crises. It is imperative to work in solidarity against the uneven violence of these times.
Mobilized by diverse practices and backgrounds, a number of contributors to this book gather in Gothenburg to offer both speculative perspectives on and pragmatic relays from the intersectional fight for climate justice and multispecies survivance, intentionally on the date of 12th October, the day that marks a point in the colonialism of the South Americas.
This video was produced as part of the launch of the L'Internationale Online publication Climate: Our Right to Breathe, in late 2022. Camera and editing: Thomas Frank and Orlando Nigro.
The views and opinions published here mirror the principles of academic freedom and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the L'Internationale confederation and its members.
Related activities
-
HDK-Valand
Climate Forum I
The Climate Forum is a space of dialogue and exchange with respect to the concrete operational practices being implemented within the art field in response to climate change and ecological degradation. This is the first in a series of meetings hosted by HDK-Valand within L'Internationale's Museum of the Commons programme.
-
–Van Abbemuseum
The Soils Project
‘The Soils Project’ is part of an eponymous, long-term research initiative involving TarraWarra Museum of Art (Wurundjeri Country, Australia), the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, Netherlands) and Struggles for Sovereignty, a collective based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. It works through specific and situated practices that consider soil, as both metaphor and matter.
Seeking and facilitating opportunities to listen to diverse voices and perspectives around notions of caring for land, soil and sovereign territories, the project has been in development since 2018. An international collaboration between three organisations, and several artists, curators, writers and activists, it has manifested in various iterations over several years. The group exhibition ‘Soils’ at the Van Abbemuseum is part of Museum of the Commons. -
–tranzit.ro
Non-Western Technologies for the Good Life
The experimental course ‘Non-Western Technologies for the Good Life’ (November 2023–May 2024) celebrates as its starting point the anniversary of 50 years since the publication of Tools for Conviviality, considering that Ivan Illich’s call is as relevant as ever.
-
–Moderna galerijaZRC SAZU
Open Call – Summer School: Our Many Easts
Our Many Easts summer school takes place in Ljubljana 24–30 August and the application deadline is 15 March. Courses will be held in English and cover topics such as the legacy of the Eastern European avant-gardes, archives as tools of emancipation, the new “non-aligned” networks, art in times of conflict and war, ecology and the environment.
-
–Institute of Radical Imagination
Gathering into the Maelstrom
‘Gathering into the Maelstrom’ in Venice at Sale Docks is a four-day programme curated by Institute of Radical Imagination (IRI) and Sale Docks.
-
–Institute of Radical Imagination
Gathering into the Maelstrom (exhibition)
‘Gathering into the Maelstrom’ is curated by Institute of Radical Imagination and Sale Docks within the framework of Museum of the Commons.
-
–SALT
Warm Earth Sounds for Plants and the People Who Love Them
‘Warm Earth Sounds for Plants and the People Who Love Them’ is a series of sound installations by Özcan Ertek, Fulya Uçanok, Ömer Sarıgedik, Zeynep Ayşe Hatipoğlu, and Passepartout Duo, presented at Salt in Istanbul.
-
–SALT
Sound of Green
‘Warm Earth Sounds for Plants and the People Who Love Them’ at Salt in Istanbul begins on 5 June, World Environment Day, with Özcan Ertek’s installation ‘Sound of Green’.
-
–Museo Reina Sofia
Open Call: Research Residencies
The Centro de Estudios of Museo Reina Sofía releases its open call for research residencies as part of the climate thread within the Museum of the Commons programme.
-
HDK-Valand
Climate Forum II
The Climate Forum is a series of online meetings hosted by HDK-Valand within L’Internationale’s Museum of the Commons programme. The series builds upon earlier research resulting in the (2022) book Climate: Our Right to Breathe and reaches toward emerging change practices.
-
HDK-Valand
Climate Forum III
The Climate Forum is a series of online meetings hosted by HDK-Valand within L’Internationale’s Museum of the Commons programme. The series builds upon earlier research resulting in the (2022) book Climate: Our Right to Breathe and reaches toward emerging change practices.
Related contributions and publications
-
Decolonial aesthesis: weaving each other
Charles Esche, Rolando Vázquez, Teresa Cos RebolloThe Soils ProjectClimateVan Abbemuseum -
Climate Forum I – Readings
Nkule MabasoThe Climate ForumClimateHDK-ValandEN es -
Editors' Picks: Cathryn Klasto
Cathryn KlastoEditors' PicksHDK-Valand -
…and the Earth along. Tales about the making, remaking and unmaking of the world.
Martin Pogačar... and the Earth alongClimatePast in the Present -
Art for Radical Ecologies Manifesto
Institute of Radical ImaginationArt for Radical Ecologies ManifestoClimateInstitute of Radical Imagination -
Pollution as a Weapon of War
Svitlana MatviyenkoClimate -
Climate: Our Right to Breathe
ClimateThe Climate Forum -
A Letter Inside a Letter: How Labor Appears and Disappears
Marwa ArsaniosThe Climate ForumClimate -
Seeds Shall Set Us Free II
Munem WasifThe Climate ForumClimate -
Pollution as a Weapon of War – a conversation with Svitlana Matviyenko
Svitlana MatviyenkoClimateClimate book launchHDK-Valand -
Françoise Vergès – Breathing: A Revolutionary Act
Françoise VergèsClimateClimate book launchHDK-Valand -
Ana Teixeira Pinto – Fire and Fuel: Energy and Chronopolitical Allegory
Ana Teixeira PintoClimateClimate book launchHDK-Valand -
Watery Histories – a conversation between artists Katarina Pirak Sikku and Léuli Eshrāghi
Léuli Eshrāghi, Katarina Pirak SikkuClimateClimate book launchHDK-Valand -
THE MUSEUM YET TO COME. Exercises of institutional imagination
Pablo MartínezHDK-ValandMACBA -
Onåbara (Unreachable)
Aleksander MotturiHDK-Valand -
Drinking from Our Own Wells: Endarkened Feminist Epistemology as Praxis in a Persistent Economy of Lack
Nkule MabasoHDK-Valand -
Our Movements Are Loud
Bridge RadioModerna galerijaHDK-Valand -
Tuning, Bias, and the Wild Beyond
Nora Akawi, Khyam AllamiModerna galerijaHDK-Valand -
Indra's Web
Vandana Singh... and the Earth alongPast in the PresentClimateZRC SAZU -
One Day, Freedom Will Be
Françoise VergèsArt for Radical Ecologies ManifestoTowards Collective Study in Times of EmergencyInstitute of Radical ImaginationClimate -
Art and Materialisms: At the intersection of New Materialisms and Operaismo
Emanuele BragaArt for Radical Ecologies ManifestoInstitute of Radical ImaginationClimate -
To Build an Ecological Art Institution: The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life
Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu, Raluca VoineaArt for Radical Ecologies ManifestoClimateSituated Organizationstranzit.ro -
Art, Radical Ecologies and Class Composition: On the possible alliance between historical and new materialisms
Marco BaravalleArt for Radical Ecologies ManifestoInstitute of Radical ImaginationClimate -
‘Territorios en resistencia’, Artistic Perspectives from Latin America
Rosa Jijón & Francesco Martone (A4C), Sofía Acosta Varea, Boloh Miranda Izquierdo, Anamaría GarzónArt for Radical Ecologies ManifestoClimateInstitute of Radical Imagination -
Unhinging the Dual Machine: The Politics of Radical Kinship for a Different Art Ecology
Federica TimetoArt for Radical Ecologies ManifestoInstitute of Radical ImaginationClimate -
Cultivating Abundance
Åsa SonjasdotterThe Climate ForumClimatePast in the PresentHDK-Valand -
Climate Forum II – Readings
Nkule Mabaso, Nick AikensThe Climate ForumClimateHDK-Valand -
Eating clay is not an eating disorder
Zayaan KhanThe Climate ForumRecette. Reset. Recipes in and Beyond the InstitutionClimatePast in the Present -
Graduation
Koleka Putuma–The Climate ForumClimate -
Depression
Gargi BhattacharyyaThe Climate ForumClimate