UVM EcoCulture Lab

04/08/2026

Today's webinar on "Finding Psyche in a Feverish World"... https://youtu.be/9010Je5wagg?si=m3iHzi3c4I_2sKS-

Are we anxious enough yet? In the firehose of current crises and challenges—from Trump and the Epstein Files to Iran, Venezuela, Gaza, and Ukraine, to climate change, conspiracy cults, the weirdness of AI, and all the rest—is there any place where we might find ourselves, or the agency to resist, or something solid and comforting behind or beneath the onslaught? Or is there too much of ourselves already, and not enough opening to the otherness that we fear or resist? Where in the maelstrom is ‘nature,’ or God, or our common humanity?

Speakers include ecopsychologist Andy Fisher, author of Radical Ecopsychology: Psychology in the Service of Life (2013); Lacanian psychoanalyst Hilda Fernandez-Alvarez, co-founder of the Lacan Salon and president of Corpo Freudiano Vancouver; and psychological anthropologist Josh Brahinsky, author of Tongues of Fire: How Charismatic Prayer Changes Evangelical Brains and Inspires Spirit-Filled Activism (2026). They are joined in conversation with poet and cultural theorist Clint Burnham and host and moderator Adrian Ivakhiv.

0’35” Introduction
2’50” Andy Fisher
18’40” Hilda Fernandez-Alvarez
37’00” Josh Brahinsky
50’00” Clint Burnham
56’00” Open Discussion & Q&A

Are we anxious enough yet? In the firehose of current crises and challenges—from Trump and the Epstein Files to Iran, Venezuela, Gaza, and Ukraine, to climat...

05/22/2025

Emergent Universe Oratorio, by Sam Guarnaccia
Set Design: Cameron Davis with Animator William Tipper
performed by Albany ProMusic, Conductor Jose Daniel Flores-Caraballo
JULY 18, 2025 7:30 pm, Zankel Hall, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY
TICKETS: https://www.tix.com/ticket-sales/zankel/7074/event/1427447
LIVESTREAM: July 18th 7:30pm direct streaming link for the EUO concert.
https://vimeo.com/event/5205235

TICKETS ARE LIVE!
Albany ProMusica presents the Emergent Universe Oratorio, Composer Sam Guarnaccia / Set Design: Cameron Davis with animator William Tipper
Librettists: Sam & Paula Guarnaccia, Cameron Davis, John Cimino
Zankel Hall, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA
Tickets https://www.tix.com/ticket-sales/zankel/7074/event/1427447
Livestream: July 18th 7:30pm https://www.skidmore.edu/zankel/
The Emergent Universe Oratorio (EUO) inaugurates the Albany Pro Musica ‘25-’26 season The Climate Crisis, inviting audiences to embrace our shared belonging and inter-responsibility in creating a flourishing future for all within the Web of Life.

The Oratorio seeks to provide a context for understanding the issue of climate as entangled within the wider story of our present ecological and civilizational crisis. Through choral, orchestral, dramatic narrative performance and visual set design, the EUO seeks to bring the integrative and transformative power of the story of the Universe’s origin, evolution and the emergence of life to our present predicatments. https://camerondavisstudio.com/ #/emergent-universe-oratorio-set/

05/22/2025

TICKETS ARE LIVE!
Albany ProMusica presents the Emergent Universe Oratorio, Composer Sam Guarnaccia / Set Design: Cameron Davis with animator William Tipper
Librettists: Sam & Paula Guarnaccia, Cameron Davis, John Cimino
Zankel Hall, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, USA
Tickets https://www.tix.com/ticket-sales/zankel/7074/event/1427447
Livestream: July 18th 7:30pm https://www.skidmore.edu/zankel/
The Emergent Universe Oratorio (EUO) inaugurates the Albany Pro Musica ‘25-’26 season The Climate Crisis, inviting audiences to embrace our shared belonging and inter-responsibility in creating a flourishing future for all within the Web of Life.

The Oratorio seeks to provide a context for understanding the issue of climate as entangled within the wider story of our present ecological and civilizational crisis. Through choral, orchestral, dramatic narrative performance and visual set design, the EUO seeks to bring the integrative and transformative power of the story of the Universe’s origin, evolution and the emergence of life to our present predicatments. https://camerondavisstudio.com/ #/emergent-universe-oratorio-set/

10/23/2024

Myths As Map: An Online Workshop
Originally, our mythic systems were created as vessels for our most precious environmental knowledge. If we look back far enough, sky gods transform into storm gods and then, finally, become storms. Mother goddesses very quickly melt back into their original essence—matter itself. Very often, heroes and heroines represent anthropomorphized plants and animals, their romantic entanglements representative of real-world relationships between symbiotic species. In myth, elementals are personified. Harvesting schedules are embedded in episodic family dramas. A myth is a patch of soil where we can plant the best practices of a community: how to relate to each other and to our shared ecosystem. - Sophie Strand
Join me in an exploration of ecology, interspecies storytelling, and myth in my upcoming November workshop Myths As Maps.
For more information and to sign up visit:

Register Now For most of human history, myth was a durable mode of knowledge transmission, kept alive and resilient by communal storytelling. Practical information about survival and sustenance was nested within compelling narratives that prized the epic stories of multi-species communities over the...

10/17/2024

https://www.madrivervalleyarts.org/elemental
So looking forward to this next exhibition; "ELEMENTAL" I am exhibiting work previously shown at Burlington City Arts, but in a different conversation with other artists in this group show looking at the metaphoric and material consideration of water quality. Series title Paintings : Airs, Waters, Soils (Places) and Jars: Apothecary
Opening Nov. 7th - Dec. 19th; Reception Nov. 19th 5-7:30pm Artist remarks at 5:30pm. Hope to see you there!

10/17/2024

https://www.madrivervalleyarts.org/elemental
So looking forward to this next exhibition; "ELEMENTAL" I am exhibiting work previously shown at Burlington City Arts, but in a different conversation with other artists in this group show looking at the metaphoric and material consideration of water quality. Opening Nov. 7th - Dec. 19th; Reception Nov. 19th 5-7:30pm artist remarks at 5:30pm. Hope to see you there!

10/16/2024

Thank you Jan van Boeckel.
Ecological Entanglements across Collections – Plant Lives and Beyond
Via Monica Gagliano
The interdisciplinary 4A Lab Academy, "Ecological Entanglements across Collections – Plant Lives and Beyond," takes place from 4–8 November 2024, in collaboration with the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SPK). The Academy builds on the ecocritical turn in the humanities and explores the role of plant life in artistic and aesthetic practices, human knowledge production, and theoretical critical thinking across histories, communities, and geographies. Through a series of panels, lectures, workshops, collection visits, and performances, the Academy invites participants to collectively (re)think human entanglements with vegetal and non-human life, in dialogue with the collections of the SPK.
Online – All Academy lectures and panels will be accessible online – excluding onsite visits and tours. Please join us via Zoom and get access through the following link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89187055775?pwd=Snn72dJgqSf3GLbodtSB6GbMCSSGmN.1
Meeting-ID 891 8705 5775
Password: 4A_LAB
https://www.khi.fi.it/.../ecological-entanglements-across...

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