“Habitus”: A Celebratory Event of Focus and Futurity

June 21, 2013, 7-10pm

Zhou B. Art Center, Bridgeport

The arts and humanities (their survival and autonomy as disciplines in public schools and the University) are endangered under corporate capitalism, to say nothing of the ecosystem itself.

The environmental humanities have arisen in the past decade as interdisciplinary movements that examine cultural production as mediated by one’s physical environment:  instead of accepting our historic moment as “post-human,” eco-artists, critics, and scholars create a competing ethic (solidarity) to commodification.  Eco-themed conferences, festivals, scientific research, and literature and critical theory all testify to a growing need to challenge profit-based global capitalism by the reestablishment of a model of self- and other awareness based on indigenous philosophies of interrelation between nature and culture, urban and pastoral, humans and other species and ecologies.

In today’s state of environmental exigency, the choice to live within the abstractions of conceptualism or the lived praxes of community and political engagement is ours.  Habitus is an grassroots organization raising local awareness about ecological crises, to increased pressure on the government and corporations to implement policies and join national and international efforts (the food-to-table movement, environmental safety, GMO and agribusiness reform) striving for a sustainable future beyond capitalist exploitation of natural resources, and inequity of global food and water supply and distribution.  20 Chicago area artists, educators, and activists will co-host a Fluxus-inspired interactive event entitled Habitus, on June 21, 2013, at Zhou B. Art Center, featuring readings, performances, a panel with environmental activists, visual art, and dance, held in honor of Earth Day 2013, and World Day to Combat Desertification on June 17, 2013, raising awareness about the risks of drought and water scarcity in the drylands and beyond, and the importance of sustaining healthy soils as part of post Rio+20 agenda, as well as the post-2015 sustainable development agenda of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

Since 1916 (from Dada-Surrealism-Fluxus-Situationist International-Third Cinema- Language Poetry-Post-Avant), aesthetics has searching for ethical, non-prescriptive ways of being and acting.   The artists, teachers, and activists that comprise Habitus come from a variety of affiliations and backgrounds:  we align as shared inhabitants of an ecosystem that now requires our collective imagination, vision, and coalitional action in order for the future of art, audience, and the “natural” and “cultural” spaces in which we live, work, and have our being, to survive.  

Contributor: Virginia Konchan