I’m very excited to announce the 31st Eco-Arts & Media Festival: Fugitive Ecologies, I organized and curated with
@liiiisamy and Lou Holloway. From March 17–28, we gather across York University’s grounds to unlearn settler logics of permanence and embrace fugitive possibilities. From the oceanic breath of Blue Devil to the decaying brickwork of Stong House, artists engage in liberatory acts where dissonance and haunting fuel communal healing and resurgence.
At Stong House, Unbuilding as Ceremony transforms the 19th-century building and symbol of Loyalist settlement and Indigenous dispossession into a space of spectral reckoning.
@hannewatson ’s An Ecology of Home dissolves temporal walls, weaving earth’s deep memory with human dwelling. Ever Palma and Megan Tay’s Te’tik: Forests of Entangled Belonging intertwines Indigenous plants and histories.
@coleswansonart ’s The Hissing Folly reimagines invasive phragmites as symbols of colonial transfer. In Plants, Resurrection, and the Sun,
@farida.archives invites participants to create phytograms with foraged plants, honoring the land through camera-less photography. Plus works by
@phyllis.novak , Paulette Moore, Laura Pitkanen, and more.
The festival opens with Blue Devil Pedagogies by
@iamnataliewood and
@bluedevilmokojumbiemas , blending Black liberatory practices with oceanic and Carnival traditions. Tuning in Transition by Atonal (
@gloomdarling &
@houseycult ) reclaims the pulse of decay through experimental soundscapes.
@abolishedbauble and
@adrian.russouw close the festival with Stong House Séance, tuning into the house’s whispers through double bass and amplified voice.
As part of Nature’s Wild exhibition series by
@natureswildthebook , Crossroads features Let Us Rot by
@sabrinarosecapista , embracing decomposition as vital to life.
Workshops by EUC faculty, graduate students, and YorkU’s Indigenous Caucus include Lisa Myers, Kenzie Allen, and Angele Alook’s Decolonial Love, Media Arts, and Ecological Justice;
@alexansimp ’s fieldwalk exploring colonial and environmental impacts of Enbridge’s pipeline, and much more.
All programs are free and open to the public. Full schedule and registration linked in bio.
