About this Event
June 2: Ecology & Image: Tracing Chemical & Colonial Histories
5-7pm
Speakers: Edd Carr & Hannah Fletcher
Discussant & Moderator: Dr Alice Cazenave
Location: Professor Stuart Hall Building |Shireen Abu Akleh Lecture Theatre | Room LG01
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This summer, the Centre for Visual Anthropology (CVA) at Goldsmiths presents Volatile Worlds: Image, Ecology, Extraction a public programme bringing together artists, researchers, and practitioners working across film, photography, and experimental media.
Join us for this inaugural seminar with Hannah Fletcher and Edd Carr whose research and practice attend to the substances and ecologies that make images possible, tracing how they register and reproduce forms of ecological and colonial violence.
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Captain James Cook was a British Royal Navy officer from North Yorkshire, with voyages stretching across New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii, and more. Following his death at the hands of Indigenous Hawaiian peoples, his colonial legacy lives on in the exploitative and violent structures of today’s Pacific societies.
But this structure of land seizure did not arise from thin air: it was first developed with the legal and rhetorical framework of seizing common lands in England through the Enclosure Acts, including Captain Cook’s home of North Yorkshire - a privatisation which still lingers today.
As an artist from the same village where Cook worked, Edd Carr will discuss the development of a new moving image work on this subject. Through a practice of animating with oak materials foraged where Cook once lived, Edd will discuss how his work attempts to connect this legacy to the living landscape. The evening includes a screening of Edd Carr's new film, Captain Cook Is Dead.
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Hannah Fletcher will discuss her current research and work, Photo.Petro.Chemical.Capital, a project looking into the links between photography, the petroleum industry and capitalism.
The chemicals relied upon for both colour and black and white analogue photographs’ production and development are derived from fossil fuels - tracing these chemistries back always leads to petrochemical industry. For decades, we have known that these chemistries are toxic to life as carcinogens and through noxious fumes dispersal, causing ecosystem detriment. We continue to see their effects today.
Through this talk, Hannah considers how in the early 20th century, capitalism drove photography toward the use of petroleum-based chemicals. Following this, photography was intrinsic to capitalism’s global expansion as a world system - across marketing, media, and warfare.
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CVA is a research and teaching platform dedicated to advancing innovation in visual and multimodal anthropology, supporting a network of practitioners whose work expands ethnographic theory and form beyond text. The programme is co-sponsored by the Centre for Philosophy and Critical Theory at Goldsmiths and KONTEKST Collective, whose 2026 Film Festival Entanglements shares related concerns.
The programme is convened by Dr Alice Cazenave and Dr Lee Douglas.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Goldsmiths, University of London, 8 Lewisham Way, London, United Kingdom
GBP 0.00
