The Coastal Futures Festival is an environmental arts festival created by UVA’s Coastal Futures Conservatory (http://www.coastalconservatory.org), a collaboration between artists, humanities scholars, and scientists with the Virginia Coastal Reserve, a long-term ecological research site supported by the National Science Foundation. Through various forms of listening, the Conservatory integrates arts and humanities into the scientific investigation of coastal change in order to deepen understanding and stimulate imaginations. The Coastal Futures Festival is presented in collaboration with UVA’s Resilience Institute, the Virginia Coast Reserve long-term ecological research station, the Department of Music, and the Institute for the Humanities and Global Cultures. The Festival opens on September 19th with an arts exhibit that responds to Caribbean coasts in crisis. On September 21, it moves to the Eastern Shore for the opening of a sound art exhibition at the Barrier Islands Center in Machipongo, VA. The Festival returns to UVA for talks and performances on Monday, September 23, culminating in a concert featuring Grammy and MacArthur Award-winning ensemble Eighth Blackbird, and a keynote address by ecoacoustic sound artist Leah Barclay on September 25th. Featured residents include environmental philosopher Michael Nelson, Leah Barclay, UVA alumnus and composer Erik DeLuca, Arctic scientist Christina Bonsell, and Eighth Blackbird. In addition to bringing these distinguished guests to UVA, the festival showcases work by UVA faculty, students and alumni whose interdisciplinary research focuses on sound and coastal environments. Through a series of performances, talks, installations, and collaborative work sessions, the Coastal Futures Festival brings together art, film, and multimedia music that represents global issues such as coastal erosion, sea level rise, and melting ice along with the attendant impacts on human and non-human habitats.
Thursday, September 19th
Coasts in Crisis: Art and Conversation After Recent Hurricanes
Hurricane María and the Puerto Rican Art Museum
12:00-1:30 Hotel A, Global Grounds
Sandra Cintrón, Chief Registrar and Collections Manager of the Fralin Museum will speak about her experience during Hurricane Maria as a staff member at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico. This event is free and open to all, but RSVP is required.
4:00 pm Brooks Hall Commons
Why do the arts matter after a hurricane? In a time of rising sea levels and global climate change, the answer to this question has never been more important. This kick-off event of the Coastal Futures Fall Festival will offer creative ways of addressing environmental disaster by bringing together live music, poetry, photography, painting, and installation art about recent hurricanes from the U.S. South and the Caribbean. The participating artists will perform, display and discuss their work forged out of the experiences common to climate refugees and hurricane survivors: homelessness, forced migration, family separation, food insecurity, and living without electricity or running water. Works by artists from the U.S. South and Greater Caribbean including David Berg (St. Croix, Virgin Islands), Sally Binard (Florida/ Haiti), Jo Cosme (Puerto Rico/ Seattle), Nicole Delgado (Puerto Rico), Alfonso Fuentes (Puerto Rico), and Sarabel Santos Negrón (Puerto Rico).
Friday, September 20th
“ShoreLine” Interactive Documentary Opening, with filmmaker Liz Miller
9:30 am Clark Hall Mural Room
The Shore Line, a collaborative interactive documentary project, is a collection of dynamic maps, visualizations, soundscape and over 40 videos featuring individuals who are confronting the threats of unsustainable development and extreme weather with persistence and ingenuity. Described as “a storybook for the future,” The Shore Line conveys ways that 43 people, living in the urban cities and remote islands of nine countries, have confronted the climate impacts of rising seas and violent storms. By navigating films, interactive maps, databases, and chapters, The Shore Line users learn about the innovative ways that people have managed the effects of climate change. They can navigate by tags, including strategy toolkits, country, threat, and language. Users can also navigate by occupation — activist, architect, artist, biologist, communication, and so forth — this feature allows The Shore Line to locate ways that they might contribute to their own communities based on their own particular skills and talents.
