Imagining Futures
PROGRAM
ATTENTION: Same activities may run across different days and times. Different programs may take place in different locations on the same day.
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9:00-16:00 Hand-On Science: Teacher Training Workshop
Graham Walker and Annelize Potgieter.
Baobab Auditorium, Science Education Centre.
OUTSIDE ACTIVITY
MineLives: Tour of mining sites
Fransje Hooimeijer and Hannah Le Roux
Travel to Mapungubwe, Musina, Makhado.
Internal workshops on book and closing report
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UNIVERSITY OF LIMPOPO
9:00-16:00 Hand-On Science: Teacher Training Workshop
Graham Walker and Annelize Potgieter.
Baobab Auditorium, Science Education Centre.
12:00-17:00 Radio Workshop: Podcasting skills
Naomi Grewan and Kabir Jugram.
Tusk Auditorium, Science Education Centre
OUTSIDE ACTIVITY
MineLives: Tour of mining sites
Fransje Hooimeijer and Hannah Le Roux
Travel to Mapungubwe, Musina, Makhado.
Fransje Hooimeijer and Hannah Le Roux
Internal workshops on book and closing report
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UNIVERSITY OF VENDA
Symposium on Water, Energy and Food Impacts of Mining Landscapes
9:00-9:30 Arrival and coffee
9:30 Welcome (James Chakwizira - UniVen) and project overview (Fransje Hooimeijer - TU Delft and Hannah le Roux - Sheffield/Wits)
10:00 Invited lecture: Extractive Industry Indigenisation in Zimbabwe: Neoextractivism, Resource Nationalism and Uneven Development
Kennedy Manduna, Rosa Luxemburg Scholar
10:45 Invited lecture: The Dzomo la Mupo (DLM) vision
Mphatheleni Makaulule, Director of Dzomo la Mupo
11:30 Break
12:00 Panel Discussion 1: Mining impacts on the WEF nexus in the Limpopo basin
Simpiwe Mhlongo (U Venda)
Catherine Dzerefos (TUT)
Marna Van Der Merwe (CSIR)
Ingrid Watson (Wits Mining Institute)
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Invited lecture: Design after mining for the Royal Bafokeng
Prof Michael Solomon (UCT)
15:00 Panel discussion 2: Bio-economies as alternatives to mining
Sarah Venter (Baobab Foundation)
Andani Budeli (U Venda)
Isabel Recubenis Sanchis (TU Delft)
Mukovhe Matshaya (Vhembe Biosphere Reserve tbc)
16:00 Closing remarks
17:00 Guests leave for Polokwane / home
UNIVERSITY OF LIMPOPO
Eco-Imagining Plenary
LOCATION: Block/Earth Sciences Building, University of Limpopo, Large auditorium
12:30-13:30 Registration and lunch
13:30–14:00 Introduction: Annelize Potgieter
Welcome addresses: Vice Chancellor, Dr Mabelebele, Dean of Science: Professor Mampuru; Professor Lenore Manderson and Professor Eileen Moyer.
14:00 Keynote: Hands-on Climate Connections
Chair: Professor Paulus Mafeo, Director, School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences
Dr Graham Walker, Australian National University: Graham Walker founded Science Circus Africa in 2013, and through partnerships with African organisations, he has trained more than 500 staff and reached 73,000 people in 10 African countries. He established Science Circus Pacific in 2020.
15:30-17:00 Roundtable on Science, Art and Societal Challenges in a Warming World
Chair: Professor Hasani Chauke, Director, School of Physical and Mineral Science, University of Limpopo.
Arnold Sebola
Bronwyn Egan
Farina Lindeque
Lenore Manderson
Ola-Kris Akinola
17:00 – 18:30 Opening reception
Launch of the draft: Water, Energy, Food: A Nexus for Life - A Learners’ Guide, Willem van der Merwe, Lenore Manderson and Annelize Potgieter.
Performance: Tiisetso Seemela, Chris Akinola and colleagues
09:00-12:00 Radio Workshop: Podcasting skills
Tusk Auditorium, Science Education Centre
Naomi Grewan and Kabir
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UNIVERSITY OF LIMPOPO
Joint Meeting: Eco-Imagining and MineLives.
LOCATION: Science Education Centre, Baobab Auditorium
9:00-9:30 Coffee and welcome: Fransje Hooimeijer
9:30-11:00 Using transdisciplinary and transhistorical perspectives
Keynote Address.
Chair: Professor Martin Potgieter
Dr Lebs Mphahlele: ‘Humaneising’ the WEF Nexus: Learnings from Limpopo
11:00-11:30 Morning tea/coffee
11:30-12:30 Panel: Youth Resilience and Future‑Making in South Africa, Part I
Chair: Mr. Marius Marais, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Limpopo.
Ms. Dineo Mtetwa, University of Witwatersrand & University of Amsterdam: Workshops as Engagement: Mobilising Youth and Community Knowledge Around Electricity Infrastructure
Dr. Blessings Kaunda-Khangamwa, University of the Witwatersrand & Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (Malawi), CARTA Postdoctoral Research Fellow
contributors: Andries Bezuiedenhout, Andisiwe Maxela, Akanya Ntame, Mandla Khumsha, Vijay Makanjee, Lenore Manderson): Agency, resilience, and material insecurities among youths in rural and peri-urban, Eastern Cape, South Africa.
Dr. Nirvana Pillay, Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow, Southern Centre for Inequality Studies and the School of Public Health, University of the Witwatersrand: “You have to make it alone”: Wellbeing, hope and aspiration of young people in Johannesburg
12:30-13:30 Lunch and Posters Viewing
13:30-14:30 Panel: Youth Resilience and Future‑Making in South Africa, Part II
Chair: Professor Coleen Vogel, Global Change Institute, University of the Witwatersrand
Ms. Isabel Recubenis Sanchis and Ms.Serah Calitz, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology: ‘Follow the slimes’: markers and makers of WEF relations in mining landscapes
Dr. Memory Reid, Global Change Institute, University of the Witwatersrand: Youth Agency and Energy Justice in South Africa's Energy Transition
Mrs. Annelize Potgeiter, Science Education Centre, University of Limpopo & Ghent University, Belgium: Designing for Epistemic Plurality: How Science Centres Imagine the Future
14:30-15.30 Book Launches: Preview of project books in process
Chair: Hannah Le Roux
Engaging Research: Methods for Eco-Imagining (Lenore Manderson and Eileen Moyer)
Engaging Communities: The Workbook for Mine Impacted Places (Ingrid Watson / Sabina Favaro - online)
15:45-16:30 Tour of the Botanic Gardens – Bronwyn Egan OR MineLives Workbook trial
16:30 Transport to Polokwane
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UNIVERSITY OF LIMPOPO
Joint Meeting: Eco-Imagining and MineLives.
LOCATION: Science Education Centre, Baobab Auditorium
9:00- 9:30 Coffee and Welcome from NWO – Matthijs Kallenberg
9:30-10:45 Roundtable: Land, Law and the WEF Nexus
Land tenure and ownership remain central to understanding the Water–Energy–Food (WEF) Nexus in South Africa. Historical legacies of dispossession and diverse forms of landholding—from communal tenure to private ownership—shape access to resources and the possibilities for resilience. This roundtable brings together scholars and activists working in the Eastern Cape, Limpopo, and the Northern Cape to examine how law, governance, and community agency intersect in contexts of precarity. Case studies include youth and community struggles over basic needs, local authority responses, and the ongoing land claim in Namaland, where state and mining companies play decisive roles. By foregrounding regional differences and lived experiences, the discussion highlights how land and law mediate WEF relations and future-making.
Chair: Dr. Arda Spijker, Centre for Law and Society, University of Limpopo
Participants
Ms. Sandra Zaroufis – PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam; Eco‑Imagining project researcher with fieldwork in Limpopo
Mr. Marius Marais – Lecturer and Researcher, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Limpopo
Ms. Trishé Farmer – Nama youth activist, Port Nolloth, Northern Cape; affiliated with youth NGO working on promoting indigenous rights and culture.
Prof. Andries Bezuidenhout, Development Studies, University of Fort Hare
Mr. Vijay Makanjee, Director, Ruliv (Rural and Urban Livelihoods), Eastern Cape; practitioner in community development and resource governance
Ms. Andisiwe Maxela – Master’s student, University of Fort Hare, Eastern Cape; researcher collaborating with Bezuidenhout and Makanjee on youth and resilience
10:45 - 11:15 Morning tea/coffee
Performing Arts, University of Limpopo - Spoken Word
11:15 – 11:30 Closing remarks
Dr. Nokuthula Mchunu, National Research Foundation
11:30-13:00 NRF/NWO meeting with research teams
13:30 Lunch
14:30 Visit to Ratanang Vegetable Gardens Co-op (Registration required for transport).
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UNIVERSITY OF LIMPOPO
Youth Engagement Day
LOCATION: Science Education Centre, University of Limpopo.
9:00-10:00 Breakfast and Welcome, Annelize Potgieter
10:00-10:30 Performing Arts
Programme, University of Limpopo, with school children
10:30-12:00 PLAYSTATION Activities
Learners move in their group to different playstations every 25 minutes
Station 1: Land Games
Sandra Zaroufis, Marius Marais and Vijay Makanjee, facilitators
Station 2: Murals and Making Films
Mook Lion, Trishé Farmer, Dineo Mtetwa and Arnold Sebola, facilitators
Station 3: What Streams Can Tell Us
Farina Lindeque and Modjadji Lebepe, facilitators
12:00 Science Circus in Action
Annelize Potgieter
12:30 Lunch
Imagining Futures
Merian-South Africa Research on the Water, Energy and Food Nexus
Imagining Futures: Art/Science Perspectives on Water, Energy and Food brings together two research projects on the WEF Nexus, both funded in 2022 by the South African National Research Foundation (NRF) and Dutch Research Council (NWO) through the South Africa Merian Fund. The projects, Eco-Imagining and MineLives have both taken innovative and creative approaches to studying the social dimensions of water, energy and food. This conference, the workshops, and the associated exhibition, organised by Marius Marais, Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Limpopo, and Annelieze Potgieter, UL Science Education Centre, with colleagues, highlight this work.
Eco-Imagining is led by Lenore Manderson (University of the Witwatersrand) and Eileen Moyer (University of Amsterdam), with academic colleagues Andries Bezuidenhout, Department of Development Studies, University of Fort Hare, Marius Marais, Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Limpopo, and Coleen Vogel, the Global Change Institute (GCI), University of the Witwatersrand, with NGOs Ruliv, Gender CC, The People’s Pantry and Makers Valley. The project included research and art activities in urban and peri-urban settings in three provinces in South Africa – Eastern Cape, Limpopo, and Gauteng.
MineLives is a collaboration between the School of Architecture and Planning of University of the Witwatersrand, led by Hannah le Roux, with GCRO, Wits Mining Institute, University of Venda and Iyer urban design in South Africa; and the TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, led by Fransje Hooimeijer,with research groups Delta Urbanism and History of Architecture and Urban Planning, TU Delft Faculty of civil engineering and geosciences, research group Applied Geology, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Studio Hartzema and UrbaniaHoeve.
Agitation: The WEF Nexus and Climate Change in South Africa
The conversations we are shaping include how we might best address water, energy and food insecurity; systematic injustices and the uneven distribution of resources; and impacts of climate change on the availability of and access to sufficient, reliable and safe water, energy and food. The artwork on display – videos, sculptures, photography and drawing - will include contributions from community artists and other artists in Makhanda and Johannesburg; we will also include performances at the opening reception. The exhibition will also feature archaeological and ethnographic material from the Origins Centre collection.
Prior to the conference, artists will be working on a mural outside the Centre, and the opening session and reception will celebrate their work. While details will follow, the programme at this stage is as follows:
Click on date to expand
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First Floor Gallery
14:00: Opening session
Welcome address: Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand
15:00: Keynote Lecture: Professor Eileen Moyer, University of Amsterdam
- Ecologies of Imagination: Water, Energy, and Food in South Africa’s Transforming Landscapes
This keynote explores how social science can contribute to reimagining ecological futures in contexts marked by inequality, environmental degradation, and infrastructural neglect. In examining three case studies – a plastics-for-food initiative in Johannesburg’s inner city, emerging green hydrogen corridors inthe Northern Cape, and multispecies wine ecologies in the Western Cape – I show how ecological transition is not only a technical challenge but a deeply social and moral one, shaped by histories of extraction, racialized dispossession, and uneven development.
16:00: Roundtable: Art as intervention
Moderator: Dr Carine Zaayman, Research Centre for Material Culture, Wereldmuseum, Netherlands .
With Hannelie Warrington-Coetzee, Christine Dixie, Mook Lion, Vuyo Mayalo, Phila Phaliso, and the mural artists Edumisa Nangu, Arnold Sebola, and Kgothatso Takalo.
The Tapestry Room
17:00-18.30: Reception and Performance
MC: Cinga Dyala: artist, performer and author
Participants: Cinga Dyala, Mdantsane Community Arts Centre; Hector Dibakaone, Makers Valley; spoken word performances –readings from The Poetics of the Abyssal Zone.
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First Floor Gallery
8:00-11:00: Patchworking WEF Policy Futures: A Breakfast Workshop for Creative Exchange
`Facilitators: Eileen Moyer and Emily Ragus
Policy makers will join WEF researchers for a morning of reflection, creativity, and conversation as we bring together voices from South Africa’s water, energy, and food sectors to think creatively and collaboratively about the WEF challenges we encounter in our work and lives. This is not a typical policy meeting; it is a breakfast workshop where participants will stitch together insights and experiences into a Challenges Quilt.
Alexandra
09.30-12:30: The Litter Trap Walking Tour
The litter trap program along the Jukskei River in Alexandra. This includes a bus trip to Alexandra, and a guided 90 minute walk
12:00-13:30: Lunch
13:30-16:30: Research on community impacts of climate change, governance, and water, energy and food precarity
Chairs: Memory Reid and Blessings Kaunda-Khangamwa
13:30 – 13:40: Welcome & Framing
Theme introduction: “Learning from Small Interventions” highlights how small, community-based actions reveal lessons for tackling water, food, energy, poverty, and inequality.
Delivery: PowerPoint presentations, 5/7 mins each on individual studies, Q&A and breakout discussions.
13.40 – 14.30: Cluster 1: Urban Inequalities, Youth and Livelihoods
What do grassroots strategies teach us about building resilient, equitable urban food systems and youth livelihoods? We explore how youth, women, and communities tackle food insecurity and livelihood precarity in urban contexts, Emphasises growth, agency, and resilience in food gardens, youth livelihoods, and gendered responses to inequality.
o Lucy Khofi – Gender and food insecurity
o Zanele Nodongwe – Women-led urban food gardening
o Memory Reid – Circular food initiatives and care networks
o Blessings Kaunda-Khangamwa – Youth livelihoods, health & resilience
o Andisiwe Maxela– Food gardens & community-driven development
14:30 – 14.45: Q & A
14:45 – 14:55: Body Break
14.55 -15:25: Cluster 2: Resource Governance and Art Interventions
How can art, governance innovation, and community action strengthen resilience and reshape WEF governance? The session investigates how creative interventions and alternative governance approaches address WEF challenges and resilience. We highlight how artistic expression and governance innovation flow together to address water, energy, and disaster vulnerabilities.
o Emily Ragus – Floods disaster response & arts-based communication
o Amanda Mokoena – Water access & informal governance
o Arnold Relebogile Sebola – Mural Art as a tool for sustainability education
o Dineo Mtetwa – Coping with electricity inequalities
15:25-15:35: Q & A
15:35-16:05: Panel Discussion/Breakout Discussion
Breakout Discussion based on the two thematic clusters.
16.05-16:15: Feedback from discussions
16:15-16:30: Synthesis and Closing
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First Floor Gallery
8:30-10.30: From Knowledge to Action and Justice: What are we doing?
Chair: Nithaya Chetty
Panelists: Vishwas Satgar, University of the Witwatersrand; Alexander Kagaha, Makerere University; Jonathan West, Section 27; Mafoko Phomane, groundwork; Coleen Vogel, Global Change Institute, University of the Witwatersrand.
10:30-11:00: Coffee and tea
11:00 -13:00: Climate change, resources and responses: How does the WEF Nexus help us think?
Chair: Tracy-Lynn Field, University of the Witwatersrand
Panelists: Bertha Chiroro, Gender CC: Steve Collins, SADCTFCA Network Coordinator; Hector Dibakaone, Makers Valley; Thato Gaffane, SECTION27; Samkelisiwe Khanyile; Gauteng City-Region Observatory; Walter Musakwa, University of Johannesburg
13:00 -15:00 Lunch and closing session
Chair: Lenore Manderson
Presentation: Emily Ragus and Eileen Moyer: Work so far on the The Challenges Quilt
Closing remarks
Bertho Bosscha, Education & Science Council, Embassy of the Netherlands to South Africa; Nokuthula Mchunu, Research and Innovation Support and Advancement (RISA), National Research Foundation.
Venue Info
Origins Centre, University of Witwatersrand
Coming by car:
You will need to get through Wits security, please bring ID and let them know you are coming to Origins Centre. The closest entrance to us is on Yale Rd, cnr Enoch Sontonga, but you can also enter on Yale Rd off Empire Rd. There is a parking lot in front of Origins Centre for visitors to park. Contact us for more information on parking.
Coming by Uber
Please bring your ID. The best entrance to come through is Sutton Close (opposite Eendraght Str) on Jorissen Rd, about 100 m down from Origins Centre. Uber address: Jorissen St & Eendracht Str.
Agitation
is a conference and exhibition, convened and curated by members of Eco-Imagining, a collaborative research project, and the Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand.
Agitation as a conference opens at 14:00 on Wednesday 1 October and closes with lunch on Friday 3 October. Over these days, we will consider food, water and energy insecurities, NGO interventions and their successes, limits and challenges, rights to food, water and energy, and ways to address difficulties in realising these rights.
Climate change is a major systems-level agitation, disrupting everyday life at multiple levels. The conference title Agitation was selected to highlight dramatic environmental changes which we are experiencing, and their impact on the availability of and access to key resources, particularly of water, energy, and food. At the same time, Agitation is a call for responsive and responsible action. The uncertainty of climate, basic services and resources, lives and livelihoods all ask us to take seriously our moral responsibility to the planet and each other. The ways in which unpredictability impacts unevenly, widening inequality, places an even heavier obligation on scientists and civil actors alike.
The conference is paired with an exhibition, also Agitation, on full display until 10 October. A mural guides participants to the exhibition and conference venue. Within the Origins Centre, we include drawings, prints, sculptures, videos, banners, and posters developed by researchers, community artists and others in Durban, Mdantsane (Eastern Cape), Mankweng (Limpopo) and Johannesburg. These works are displayed along with artworks from Hannelie Warrington-Coetzee and Christine Dixie, both of whom have collaborated with the researchers. All these works converse with and sometimes contradict archaeological, material culture and ethnographic objects. These objects enhance our engagement with questions of resource scarcity, complexity, deep history, and loss.
Eco-Imagining, formally entitled Ecological Community Engagements: Imagining Sustainability and the Water-Energy-Food Nexus in Urban South African Environments, is led by Lenore Manderson at University of the Witwatersrand and Eileen Moyer at University of Amsterdam, was funded by the NRF and the Dutch Research Foundation (NWO) as part of a special initiative on the Water-Energy-Food Nexus. The project also includes colleagues from the University of Fort Hare, University of Limpopo, and Rhodes University, together with non-government organisations RULIV, Gender CC, The People’s Pantry, and Maker’s Valley, and for Agitation, with the Origins Centre. Participants include stakeholders from various government departments and specific entities, from non-profit organisations, and other civil society actors, whose policies and program interests extend across the fields of interest of water, energy and food, and around poverty, its alleviation, inequality, and resistance.
We look forward to your participation!
Juxtaposition and Value: Critical Approaches to the Water-Energy-Food Nexus
Click on date to expand
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14:00-16:00 Opening Session
Introductory remarks: Professor Lenore Manderson (Wits) and Professor Eileen Moyer (Amsterdam)
Opening remarks and introduction of Vice-Chancellor: Professor Niel Roos, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences & Humanities, U Fort Hare
Welcome: Professor Sakhela Buhlungu, Vice-Chancellor
Keynote: Dr Thozama April-Maduma: “Decolonizing the archive”
Walkabout of the collection: Thozama April-Maduma and Lenore Manderson
Walkabout of The Abyssal Zone: Christine Dixie
16:00-17:00 Reception -
9:30 – 10:30 Intersections and the WEF Nexus
Chair: Professor Coleen Vogel
Panelists: Andries Bezuidenhout, Lenore Manderson, Eileen Moyer
10:30 Morning coffee/tea
11:00-12:30 Food and the WEF Nexus: Production, retail and access
Chair: Professor Lenore Manderson
Dr Luvuyo Wotshela (land ownership)
Professor Michael Aliber (agriculture and land)
Vijay Makanjee (land and food production)
Professor Muna Simatele (food and pricing)
12.30-13:30 Lunch
13:30-15:00 Insights from the field: Ignite format -- 20 visual slides, 15 sec. each
Chair: Professor Andries Bezuidenhout
Panelists: Dr. Nirvana Pillay, Dr. Blessings Kaunda, Andisiwe Maxela, Lucy Khofi, Amanda Mokoena, Emily Ragus, and Sibonile Maphosa
15:30-15:30 Afternoon coffee/tea
15:30-17:00 Energy, Water and Just Transitions: Transdisciplinary Approaches on Climate Change
Chair: Eileen Moyer
Professor Coleen Vogel – Just Transitions
Memory Reid & Linda Musariri – Energy Transitions
Associate Professor Priscilla Monyai, Communities, innovative water management, and governance – Free State and Eastern Cape
Professor Oghenekaro Nelson Odume, Director, Institute for Water Research, Rhodes
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09:30- 15:00
Chair: Marius Marais
Professor Sylvester Mpandile: Publishing for WEF Nexus Impact
Professor Lenore Manderson: Publishing Strategies for Early Career Social Scientists
Confirm attendance by filling in the form
about the colloquium and exhibition
The WEF Nexus – interconnections between water, energy and food – has largely been the subject of research attention in relation to policy, governance and intersectoral engagement. In South Africa, and globally, researchers have concentrated on technical and technocratic questions, emphasising the quantification of resources. Communities, livelihoods and local environments have rarely figured in this work, whether due to perceived irrelevance, lack of interest, or by being ignored. The WEF Nexus approach makes certain assumptions about the nature of the state – it is seen as an instrument of delivery, and delivery failures are seen as lapses of coordination and communication, rather than as outcomes of struggles over power and resources. WEF Nexus also often fails to account for, let alone foreground, questions of the environment and land, including struggles of control over and access to land as central to WEF resource security. Hence the need to understand WEF outcomes as part of a broader political economy. Eco-Imagining engages with this technocratic literature from the point of view of people’s lived reality, to challenge and enrich existing frameworks. Using a transdisciplinary approach, and inclusive and community-based approaches, we examine issues around water, energy and food security, and changes in these domains that people experience in the context of social, economic, environmental and climate change. Juxtaposition and Value brings together environmental and biological scientists, humanities scholars and the creative arts.
The exhibition and colloquium reflects our concern with inequality and insecurity, now and historically, as these affect access to water, food, energy, and other resources such as land. In the exhibition of our own work, and the photographs, prints and other art work, and the ethnographic items we have selected, we juxtapose images, compare and contrast; through this approach, we draw attention to the differences in values between communities and the state. The methods we have used in the projects highlight our approach to knowledge production, raising questions too in terms of how values determine the direction of policies and programmes related to basic resources. The exhibited material includes expressive and representational media by professional and community artists and by people in their everyday lives – painting, printing, drawing, photography, video, sound, and domestic objects. We include posters of two doctoral research projects which provide examples of juxtaposition, and the lack of value given to equity when people lack resources. We include also community artwork from another doctoral projects.
Exploring the Water-Energy-Food Nexus and Climate Change through a Case Study of Energy Insecurity in the Urban Context
Exploring the Water-Energy-Food Nexus and Climate Change through a Case Study of Energy Insecurity in the Urban Context
Eco-Imagining Occasional Seminars
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