Fortunes of the Forest: Divination, Dance, and Story is a livestreamed, participatory performance that incorporates ritual, plant knowledge, movement, listening, and response-ability. This program will take place on August 18 at 8PM, and is part of the digital residency “Ensayos: Passages.” Australian Ensayos collaborators Dr. C.F. Black, Amaara Raheem, and Caitlin Franzmann each bring unique interpretations to divination cards, which they will pull in response to concerns and questions gathered collectively from participants.
Caitlin Franzmann created the divination deck with collaborator Man Cheung’s botanical photographs of plants, rocks, and insects, all of which are found in Karawatha, an urban forest in Australia. One of a number of decks and guidebooks Franzmann has created, “Fortunes of the Forest” prompts associations with living entities, with whom humans share primeval genes, and considers how their ways of being on the planet can guide us. Indigenous legal scholar C.F. Black, PhD, will call the audience to contemplate deeper meaning from the cards based on her understanding of plant consciousness and story. In an ongoing collaboration with Franzmann, dancer Amaara Raheem creates movement scores responding to the cards; for this program, Raheem will invite online participants to join guided movements prompted by the reading.
Fortunes of the Forest: Divination, Dance, and Story, celebrates the launch of artists in residence Ensayos’ online periodical Más allá del fin / Beyond the End, issue #3.5, bilingual essays edited by Carla Macchiavello and Camila Marambio, with guest editor Helen Hughes. Franzmann and Dr. Black’s shared card readings are published in this issue.
This program is free and registration is required. Those who register by August 11, 2020, 5 PM EDT, are also invited to contribute a question to the collective reading. Register here.
Dr. C.F. Black (Gold Coast, Australia) is an intellectual explorer and a writer. Her intellectual training includes a PhD in Law, Griffith University, her Australia, Australian Aboriginal ancestry, and travels throughout Native America and other Indigenous worlds. Her academic writing includes A Mosaic of Indigenous Legal Thought: Legendary Tales and Other Writings (Routledge, 2017). Research and travel have shaped her understanding of how to interact with plant beings and other beings on the Earth in a lawful manner. Currently, Black is developing online courses to share this knowledge with the general public. She is also an artist and short story author and is currently developing her first play: “The Assassination of the Soul of a Nation.”
Caitlin Franzmann (Brisbane, Australia) is an artist who creates installations, performances, and social practice works that focus on place-based knowledge and clairsentience. Her work has been featured in exhibitions globally, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Naarm/Melbourne; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; and Kyoto Art Centre, among others. Originally trained as an urban planner, she completed her Bachelor of Fine Art at Queensland College of Art in 2012.
Amaara Raheem (Black Range, Australia) is a Sri Lankan-born, Australian-grown dance artist who lived in London for fifteen years. She is now based in both Naarm/Melbourne and regional Victoria (Black Range) and is co-making a residential hub for reparative and speculative practices that investigate the blur between life, art, and climate. Currently completing a practice-led PhD at School of Architecture and Urban Design, RMIT University, Amaara’s practice intentionally crosses cultural, spatial, disciplinary, geographic, linguistic, and cosmic borders.
Accessibility Information:
This event will be live captioned.