A Conversation
A story of the relationship between humanity and Earth
It all started with a flame.
The fire provides warmth and illumination. It protects us and makes it possible to cook food. Now, we can be active in the dark.
This is the first transformation of the relationship between humans and Earth. With the first fire, we manipulate Earth, but the manipulation is still a subtle one, the relationship still somewhat harmonious. Fire is also a celebration of our relationship with Earth, used for ceremony and worship. This balancing act between giving in to the relationship, and one part being transformed but it, is a first taste of what is to come.
Was this the beginning of our hunger for fuel? The greed for turning Earth’s resources into something to warm us, to comfort us, and to satisfy our many desires.
After that first flame, the conversation turned increasingly one-sided and, more often than not, abusive.
We were trying to survive, to multiply, to minimize risk. We started to leave our poles in the ground, go deeper into one place. Our tracks turned into wounds. In our relentless endeavor to support people, our controlling and destructive animals, we took possession of Earth, tipping the scale forever. Deforestation, soil degradation, pollution, climate change.
The scale of agriculture, the aggregation of wealth, did not just change our relationship with Earth, but also changed the relationships between humans. By storing crops and selling them, by claiming territory, we ended up with cities and civilization, but also with inequality and wars.
How does Earth respond to our increasing violence? Earth has continued to give, but it has not suffered in silence. Earth is neither good nor bad. Just like us, it is trying to survive. A chameleon by nature, still it has struggled to adapt to the scale of our exploitation. It has responded with natural disaster, with climate change. The tantrums of an abused child, more unpredictable each time. Its soils and the water resources are depleted, no longer able to give.
There is no opting out of this relationship. There is no divorce. We are hopelessly bound to each other as long as humans are still here. We have altered the Earth too much to simply let go.
Can we give the Earth a voice, a language that humanity will understand?
We welcome you to join the conversation. To express and process what has already happened, but also to steer the conversation in a new direction from here on. To shift the power balance, maybe to reach an equal relationship without violence and destruction. We are creating the conversation as a record, as a plan, as ritual. As a way of investigating, grieving, hoping, talking.
A Conversation was a workshop created and carried out by Sara Falkstad and Julie Shipp at Kolonin in Arvika (Sweden) (http://koloninarvika.se/) in February 2019 as part of an Anthropocene/art project. The workshop invited visitors to chronicle or add to the conversation between Earth and Humanity, using words, images, dirt, rocks, and found objects.
