HAU’s digital stage
Burning Futures: On Ecologies of Existence
#6 What makes people sick? Racial capitalism and the politics of suffocation
With Edna Bonhomme & Françoise Vergès
Moderation: Margarita Tsomou, Maximilian Haas
Part of the event series “Burning Futures: On Ecologies of Existence”
- Dialogue
- Podcast
The current environmental crises are rooted in racial capitalist exploitation of both humans and nature. The basic elements of life such as water and fire are violently turned into ‘cheap’ commodities and weaponised against unprivileged communities. “I can’t breathe”, echoed by Black communities around the planet, speaks to a politics of suffocation that works both through social oppression and environmental devastation. Activist and theorist Françoise Vergès engages in a discussion with writer and science historian Edna Bonhomme around the feminist and decolonial aspects of the question of what makes people sick, the racially differentiated exposition to environmental risks, the relation between cleaning and care, and the revolutionary potential of dreaming.
Dates
Past
Notes:
Preview – The speakers of 2021
January: Barbara Glowczewski and Angela Melitopoulos
February: Suely Rolnik
March: Maria Puig de al Bellacasa and Dimitris Papadopoulos
May: Maja Göpel
Credits
An event series by HAU Hebbel am Ufer. Supported within the framework of the Alliance of International Production Houses by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
