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I also meant to acknowledge that this term, 'ruderal witchcraft' is wholly
Oliver's. Thank you for such a generative term Oliver!
M
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beforebefore.net
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On Mon, Nov 4, 2019 at 11:48 AM margaretha haughwout <
margaretha.anne.haughw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear empyreans,
>
> For this first week of November’s Magick and Technology conversation, we
> will begin with the topic of Ruderal Witchcraft. We begin with place and
> plants. With territory, territorialization/deterritorialization,
> occupation.
>
> Drawing from Sylvia Federici’s work on the persecution of witches in the
> early Modern period, we think about how the work of commoning, of
> multispecies cultivation, and anti-capitalist resistance have been
> intertwined. We address how the ruderal is an increasingly global condition
> in the Anthropocene, and is simultaneously an archive of ruin and a space
> of possibility, of healing, commoning -- all spaces of witchery.
>
> Arguably, the end of Feudalism was brought about by the climate event of
> the Little Ice Age, the Black Death, and by persistent peasant organizing
> in commoning environments across Europe. Women, in particular, older women
> were often central to this organizing. They were skilled in the use of
> plants and worked with natural cycles that shaped celebrations, harvests,
> and divination processes. They often held the memory of negotiations around
> land and resource use. If patriarchal capitalism was to take hold, they
> needed to be removed. Federici tracks how the demonization and
> extermination of witches in Europe not only produces the docile white woman
> but also becomes the template for the demonization, oppression, and
> extermination of colonized subjects across the European colonies.
>
> In this new climate event that is best articulated as the Capitalocene or
> the Plantationocene, how can ruderal, ‘ruined’ landscapes invite us to
> renegotiate power relationships, invite gestures of rebellion, of
> recuperation? How can they be incantatory spaces, magical spaces,
> transformative, and invite deepened entanglements, deepened
> responsibilities/abilities-to-respond, in essence: revivified commons?
>
> I am so honored to be joined by Oliver Kellhammer and Marisa Prefer this
> month, and we welcome discussants from other weeks, and the larger -empyre-
> community to join us in conversation.
>
> …
>
> Oliver Kellhammer (US/Canada) he/him/his
> Oliver Kellhammer is an artist, writer, and researcher, who seeks, through
> his botanical interventions and social art practice, to demonstrate
> nature’s surprising ability to recover from damage. Recent work has focused
> on the psychosocial effects of climate change, decontaminating polluted
> soil, reintroducing prehistoric trees to landscapes impacted by industrial
> logging, and cataloging the biodiversity of brownfields. He is currently a
> lecturer in sustainable systems at Parsons in NYC.
>
> He is based in New York's Alphabet City and rural British Columbia.
>
> Marisa Prefer (US) they/them/theirs
> Marisa Prefer is an educator, artist, and herbalist who works to translate
> knowledge between plants and human communities. Marisa facilitates
> trans-disciplinary projects rooted in queer and marginal ecologies,
> de-centering human, colonizer and patriarchal perspectives in favor of
> calling in the invisible labors of microbes, mycelium, mosses and mice to
> help reimagine relations to land, ownership and food.
>
> Marisa is a Horticulturalist-in-Residence at Pioneer Works in Red Hook,
> Brooklyn; helps to manage Soil Start Farm at Earth Matter on Governors
> Island, has studied with Rosemary Gladstar at Sage Mountain Botanical
> Sanctuary and recently contributed to projects Carbon Sponge with Brooke
> Singer, Swale with Mary Mattingly, and Seeds of Change with Maria Thereza
> Alves.
>
> Margaretha Haughwout (US) she/her/hers, or they/their/theirs
>
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> beforebefore.net
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>
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