Soot Breath: Trans-boarding

What if we image the world as a textured canvas without fixed points, lines, or planes? What if we re/de/compose the world as a dis/continuous assemblage of material figures, which transition (elementally) into, rather than determine (formally), each other? Would such a world, a world without ‘nomos’ (Law or Order) and its formations support existing juridical constructs such as ‘territory’ and ‘body’? Would it be enough to dissipate the force of legal and ethical tools and descriptors which delimit the reach of principles such as equality, dignity, liberty, or sovereignty?

Building on Neuman and Ferreira da Silva’s project 4 Waters: Deep Implicancy, the symposium invites participants to a collective reflection on current legal, ethical and aesthetical presentations of global issues such as colonial violence, migration, environmental destruction, and racial violence. The symposium expresses ways in which these global issues transition into one another and contribute to the design of an elemental ethics capable of dissolving the forms, both juridical and discursive, that support global capital’s extractive and expropriative practices.

Convened with Denise Ferreira da Silva and Arjuna Neuman, the symposium takes place in the context of their film installation 4 Waters: Deep Implicancy on view at The Showroom until 18 May 2019.

Participants include Johnny Mack, Hudda Khaireh, Carl Mika, Ayesha Hameed, Rashne Limki, Jota Mombaça, Carlos Motta, Sarah Keenan.