Conference: Rethinking Cultures of Environmentalism in Eastern and Northern Europe

A new wave of scholarly writing on the histories of environmentalism has significantly broadened our understanding of the ways of being environmentally aware, demonstrating the wide dissemination of diverse environmental practices and ideas across different societies and regimes, ideologies and belief systems, practices, discourses and genres.

This conference asks how recent scholarly discussions and creative practices have changed the perspective on intersections of culture and environmentalism in Eastern and Northern Europe. What does the new research on these regions have to add to the broader discussions? We are aiming at creating occasions for transnational and transdisciplinary comparisons that will create connections between different cultures and genres (visual, literary etc.), and extend beyond methodological nationalism. How did knowledge and practices transfer between regions and across socio-political regimes? In the face of the current wave of decolonisation, how do we conceptualise the relationships between the East and the West, as well as Nordic and Eastern European relations to indigenous peoples?

The two-day conference is divided into eight panels in which scholars and art practitioners from different fields examine such topics as global histories, environmentalism and activism, indigeneity, slow technologies, gender, and the role of artistic, literary and cultural practices in these areas.

Organisers: Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn University (research project Estonian Environmentalism in the Long Twentieth Century) and Estonian Academy of Arts Institute of Art History and Visual Culture

Organising committee: Maria Arusoo, Linda Kaljundi, Ulrike Plath, Elle-Mari Talivee, Eda Tuulberg and Kadri Tüür

Coordinators: Magdaleena Maasik and Annika Toots

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The conference will take place in the Kumu Art Museum auditorium on 14 September and at Tallinn University on 15 September.