Yesterday I had the very enjoyable experience of participating in an ‘Arctic/Antarctic Symposium‘ connected with the Centre of Gravity (CoG) contemporary art exhibition.  Originally planned as an in-person event in the old Soapworks in Bristol, which was turned over to the CoG artistic collective for a month of artistic and creative outreach, the symposium unfortunately had to be moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  It was a wonderful couple of hours nonetheless, and a real privilege for me to sit on a panel alongside writers and scholars of the Arctic whose work I know and admire, as well as artists whose work I was delighted to learn about.

My own short presentation on the ‘moral geography’ of the Arctic was a very brief and updated precis of a couple of more extended lectures that I’ve recently given.  I hope the other panellists and the audience found it enlightening.  Panel presentations were followed by questions from and discussion with the audience, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Many thanks to artist, professor and CoG member Mariele Neudecker for the invitation to join the panel.

A copy of my presentation slides are available online. You can also watch a recording of the presentation on CoG’s website.