Culture and Climate Change: And Breathe and Cultivate

Date

19 November 2024

Time

18:00 – 19:30

Location

The Mockingbird Cinema, Gibb Street, Birmingham B9 4AA

Organisers

University of Birmingham

The Event

Join the University of Birmingham for a screening of two highly acclaimed short films by award-winning dance film director, Sima Gonsai.

Breathe, which was screened at COP27 in Egypt, and Cultivate, screened at COP28 at an independent event in Birmingham, both use dance and film as media to explore the climate crisis. The screening will be followed by a discussion panel with the director, choreographer and partners behind the films to illuminate on their production and their response to different aspects of sustainability and climate change.

The discussion panel will feature:

Sima Gonsai: artist-filmmaker, director and producer. Sima has shown work in Craft Council Gallery, Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, MAC Birmingham, Flatpack Film Festival and New Art Gallery Walsall, Grand Union, collaborating with organisations such as Sense Arts, Birmingham Royal Ballet and National Lottery. Award winning Moving Portraits was commissioned as part of the Commonwealth Games Cultural Programme 2022.

Dr Karen Wood: Associate Professor in Dance, Coventry University Karen is Co-Director of Birmingham Dance Network. Her current research interests are exploring concepts of collaboration, ethics of care and responsibility, collective identities and leadership in relation to freelance communities and cultural policy. She is Chair of the Board for Vanhulle Dance Theatre and on Brum Pro Class Steering Group.

Professor Annie Mahtani: Professor of Electroacoustic Composition and Practice, University of Birmingham. Annie is an electroacoustic composer, sound artist and performer. Her output encompasses electronic music composition from acousmatic music to free improvisation. Annie is co-director of SOUNDkitchen, a Birmingham-based collective of curators, producers and performers of live electronic music and sound art and co-director of Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre.

Professor David Hannah: Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability) and Director of the Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action, University of Birmingham. David is a physical geographer with interdisciplinary research interests focusing on complementary themes within hydroclimatology. He is Chair-holder for the UNESCO Chair in Water Sciences at the University of Birmingham, and is a member of the Centre for Environmental Research and Justice (CERJ). David is listed in the Reuters Top 1000 world’s top climate scientists.

This event is co-sponsored by two University of Birmingham initiatives: Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action (BISCA) and Culture Forward.

Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action (BISCA) joins the dots between academics conducting cutting-edge research in vastly different disciplines who are focused on sustainability and climate action.

Culture Forward is an initiative that draws together the University’s experts, students and researchers with organisations across the arts, cultural, creative, heritage and community sectors that are based – or working – in Birmingham and the West Midlands.