On Friday 18th December we will be broadcasting an exclusive discussion co-curated by Fabrica and ONCA galleries. Dr Louise Purbrick and Alice Owen from University of Brighton and Leny Olivera Rojas from the Bolivia-based organisation TerraJusta will be talking about the Anthropocene from a feminist viewpoint. Sign up to be invited to this intimate conversation on YouTube Premiere by registering for this free event.

Inspired by our current exhibition Earthworks by Semiconductor this discussion will unpack the conventional perspectives that gave rise to the term the Anthropocene, the ‘extractive’ behaviours that characterise this recent phase of geological history, and the key ideas that underpin these cultures of behaviours. Paying close attention to those directly affected by extractivism, the talk goes on to appraise alternative ways of working the earth, both ancient and contemporary, that seem to offer relationships between the environment and people that can be sustained.

Dr Louise Purbrick is Principal Lecturer in the History of Art and Design at the University of Brighton. Her work encompasses publications on the industrial and material culture of the Great Exhibition of 1851, a monograph on the use, preservation and valuing of objects given and received upon marriage (The Wedding Present, 2007), and a history on the Long Kesh/Maze prison site in Northern Ireland. Her most recent work, Mining Chile: Traces of Nitrate explores the histories and legacies of British investment in Chilean nitrate mines and involvement in its global trafficking. Through an examination of sites, artefacts and images, the project traces nitrate’s route from natural mineral state processed in the oficinas of the Atacama desert through transported commodity and stock market exchange value to become, ultimately, part of the material and symbolic inheritances of London mansions and of estates in the capital’s surrounding countryside.

Alice Owen is researching the knowledge politics of fracking and unconventional fossil fuel extraction in the UK, critically examining whose knowledge comes to matter in this unfolding conflict over the environment and over contemporary democracy. Adopting approaches from Feminist Political Ecology, Science and Technology Studies and Environmental Justice, Alice is researching with the communities who have been mobilising diverse expertise and tactics to contest the arrival of the industry.

Leny Olivera Rojas is a Bolivian member of TerraJusta an international organisation whose campaigns, research and communications efforts support communities fighting for social, economic and environmental justice, especially those affected by extractive projects in Latin America.