WRITINGS ON: Art and Sustainability, the Anthropocene, the Symbiocene, Forests, Ecocide, Hannah Arendt and Ecopornography

Presentations and Writings on the Anthropocene and Symbiocene

As a former scientist I have been aware for some years of the groundbreaking science of symbiosis, particularly through the forest ecology science of Prof Suzanne Simard and her work on how trees in forests signal and relay nutrients with the cooperation of fungal networks since 2013 (see my post here).

According to Simard, ‘forests are super-cooperators’ (see her TED talk, 2018). Her and others’ new science is fundamentally overturning the story of competition – the ‘survival of the fittest’ idea that has promoted an ecocidal western cultural worldview. Setting evolution as competition has erroneously promoted that mankind is somehow independent from and superior in its evolution to the rest of life and that we can somehow disregard other life on the planet. Symbiotic science is beginning to prove that life on earth exists and thrives through interdependence and mutualism – symbiosis… and where thriving biodiversity remains, we find indigenous communities who have long appreciated a symbiotic worldview in which they see all species are kin.

So when I came across the paper of former Prof of Sustainability Glenn Albrecht in 2016 who offered a framework of how we must ‘exit the anthropocene and move toward the symbiocene‘, and  because I already view my work in advocating ecological forestry as fundamentally fostering and restoring symbiotic biodiversity, I immediately sensed that this was an important framework for us all to embrace for the planetary emergency.

In the first presentations after I submitted my PhD in 2016 (left) you can see how I began to apply Glenn Albrecht’s ideas to my work.

I am very humbled that Glenn has taken notice of my stumbling symbiocene efforts in his important new book Earth Emotions: New Words for a New Word (2019). This book sets out a framework for much more than the symbiocene .

I highly recommend it for anyone working for a better, more beautiful and biodiverse Earth.

Below are recent posts on the Symbiocene and earlier thoughts about the Anthropocene

Further reflections: ‘The Right Tree in the Right Place’? — we need conversations about wiser forestry and ‘The Right Forestry Practice in the Right Place’ (4/19/2023)
Irish farmer-forester Noel Kiernan shares how to live well with the wider Earth community (9/3/2021)
Plasticity of the Planet: Environmental Challenge for Art and Its Institutions–for the Symbiocene (6/14/2020)
The Hollywood Forest Story—Eco-Social Art Practice for the Symbiocene: a new article for US Minding Nature journal (11/11/2019)
#FridayArt4Emergency: ‘Solastalgia’ – the film (8/30/2019)
Trees and fungi make forests and show us the relationality of the Symbiocene (7/14/2019)
Symbiocene Art for the Art in the Anthropocene Conference, Trinity College Dublin (6/3/2019)
Cowhouse Studio artists visiting Hollywood Forest 2019 Hollywood Forest School – developing ecoliteracy for creative practices (5/27/2019)
Ar scáth a chéile… Living in harmony (5/23/2019)
Dara and his mother in Hollywood Forest (2016) Photo: Cathy Fitzgerald Good-Bye Anthropocene – Hello Symbiocene! (5/10/2019)
EUGEO 2019 Galway: Good-Bye Anthropocene – Hello Symbiocene: articulating eco-social art practices that promote ecoliteracy and agency to help us move beyond 10,000 years of ecocide (5/8/2019)
Cathy Davey Sings Us A New Forest (8/27/2016)
Mother trees – the Earth’s networks for resilience (3/10/2013)
‘Lets be clear -The Anthropocene is the ‘age of the sociopath’ (3/8/2013)
ecopornography and a review of the ecocinema enquiry over 2012 (1/12/2013)
The Anthropocene Project 2013-14 Berlin (1/8/2013)
ecology without nature and the eco-cosmopolitan (8/17/2012)
Three Gorges Dam, Sandouping, Yiling, Hubei, People's Republic of China. 2010-11 © David Thomas Smith Portraits of the Anthropocene by David Thomas Smith (5/24/2012)
Writing in the Anthropocene and the ecological humanities journal (5/14/2012)
the Great Acceleration in the Age of the Anthropocene The Anthropocene: 10 000 years of ecocide (5/12/2012)

Early writings on ISSUU.com

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