The Ecopoesis Project

“We are and were always, always doing Ecopoesis, and the trouble is, we were doing it unconsciously. Blake says that a religion is a poem that people start believing in, and we've been subjected to all kinds of religions about what the so-called natural world is—it's an inert object, you can manipulate it.... Ecopoesis is the most important architectural project I've seen right now, and I get around. I hesitate to say, 'on the planet' because I don't know the whole planet, but now that I've hesitated let's say it: Ecopoesis has planetary significance."

— Timothy Morton

ECOPOESIS is about re-thinking and re-imagining how people see and feel their own ecologies and their roles in times of climate change.

ECOPOESIS gathers humans together for a meal or coffee to establish shared, collective contexts and understandings, about local wisdoms, about questions, about anxieties – around ecological awareness and climate change.

ECOPOESIS is about models – about how we use words and forms to make mental and physical models of our worlds.

ECOPOESIS is about sharing our models – through sharing our process – through discussion and dialogue, through language and form making.

We believe in the power of gathering – to create a collective context and vocabulary, to see paths forward for humans and more-than-humans alike.

The practice of ecological storytelling by writers, designers, and artists produces texts, objects, and speculative representations often towards a polemic and often in isolation by discipline. The history of ecological storytelling, from paleolithic cave dwellers’ depictions suggesting a unity with nature, to utopian promises and dystopian warnings, illustrates an evolving sense of human relational identity to nature. Within the context of evolving philosophies and ecologies, The Ecopoesis Project at California College of the Arts is a multi-year sequence of collaborative, interdisciplinary gatherings exploring front-line concerns around ecology, climate, and spatial expression. As our everyday lives are increasingly suffused by the impacts of climate change and climate chaos, The Ecopoesis Project explores the language, syntax, diction, form, media, and representations of ecological uncertainty.

The Ecopoesis Project is a collaboration between CCA’s MFA Writing Program and Architectural Ecologies Lab, offering a place for interdisciplinary discussion of ecologies as form and language.

 

RELATED PUBLICATIONS

  • Leslie Carol Roberts, Adam Marcus, and Chris Falliers, “Ecopoesis: Ecological Gatherings Towards Multi-disciplinary Solidarity.” Creative Activism: Research, Pedagogy and Practice. Elspeth Tilley, ed. UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2022 (forthcoming - in press)

RELATED TALKS & PRESENTATIONS

  • Association for the Study of Language and the Environment, annual conference EMERGENCE(Y), 2021. “How We Hear Now: Spatial Practice and the Materiality of Ecological Stories.” (Leslie Carol Roberts and Chris Falliers)

  • Keynote, International Conference for Ecological Arts Therapies, “Ecological/Earth-Based Arts Therapies: International and Multi-Cultural Perspectives”, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2020. “How We Hear Now.” (Leslie Carol Roberts and Chris Falliers)

  • International Feminist Journal of Politics Annual Conference, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2020. “The Ecopoesis Project.” (Leslie Carol Roberts)

  • Maldives National University, Maldives, 2019. “The Ecopoesis Project." (Leslie Carol Roberts)

  • Ganges, France, 2019. “The Ecopoesis Project.” (Leslie Carol Roberts)

  • University of California Santa Barbara, “Next Earth: Teaching Climate Change Across the Disciplines” conference, 2019. “The Ecopoesis Project: Advocating Logics of Future Coexistence.” (Leslie Carol Roberts, Adam Marcus, and Chris Falliers)

Project Credits:
Ecopoesis Chairs: Leslie Carol Roberts, Adam Marcus, Chris Falliers
Project Assistants: Vishnu Balunsat, Jared Elizares, Anise Aiello
Graphic Design: Ryan Legaspi
Staff Support: Matthew Tedford, Dustin Smith, Mike Rothfeld, Leah Kandel, Sarah Meftah, ShawnJ West, Johnny Galvan
Sponsorship: CCA MFA in Writing Program, CCA Architectural Ecologies Lab, CCA Architecture Division, CCA Humanities & Sciences Division