Cassandra and the agency of hope A workshop on translation, performance arts, and climate activism.

Speakers: Emily Pillinger and Rowan Gard (KCL)

Last year a group of researchers from the diverse fields of Geography (Rowan Gard), Classics (Emily Pillinger), Music (Toby Young), and Performing Arts (Priyanka Basu), came together at King's to create an experimental installation exploring the fear and frustration — and glimmers of hope — that accompany looking into our world's uncertain future. This future is defined by climate change: extreme weather events, rising sea levels, food insecurity, forced migration. But having a vision of this future does not mean having either the ability to communicate it or the agency to change it.

The project, initially called ‘A Temple for Cassandra', foregrounds different ways of knowing and experiencing this foreboding. It starts from the Greek words of the prophet Cassandra, but is underpinned by elements of indigenous Polynesian storytelling, digital soundscapes, and classical Indian dance. Our aim was to create a mythic world in which Cassandra's prophecies have been transformed into twenty-first century global communications with the natural world, with the spiritual / divine, and with our future selves.

This workshop by Rowan and Emily will explore why the project came about, in what directions it might develop, and how its workings might be relevant to classicists and other academics working in different areas. We will invite participants to engage in some gathering and discussing of ideas, sounds, and imagery; it will help if participants bring a device that will allow them to share material on a collaborative digital platform.

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This is a School of Classics event, part of the research seminar series.
For further information please contact [email protected]

If you wish to join this event on Teams, sign up to our seminar mailing list. E-mail [email protected], putting “subscribe classics-ressem” in the subject line.