Climate Crisis & Contemporary Culture Kick-Off

Alliance Française and Goethe-Zentrum Atlanta invite you to the Climate Crisis & Contemporary Culture Kick-Off on June 17th at 12 pm.

About this event

How do words affect our planet? Where do science, the arts, and social sciences converge, diverge, and respond to one another, supplement or disagree, when it comes to communicating on our world’s most imposing problem? How do we explain the unthinkable? And where do the limits of research and divulgation meet the beginnings of speculative thought and the representative arts?

The 2021 joint cultural programming series “Climate Crisis & Contemporary Culture” by the Alliance Française and Goethe-Zentrum Atlanta seeks to explore the diverse means by which we communicate on our current climate crisis.

The Climate Crisis & Contemporary Culture panel discussion kick-off event will bring different voices to a common table, inviting researchers, experts, artists, and performers from internationally renowned universities, industries, and cultural organizations to discuss, debate, and explore the communicative challenges relating to our planet’s climate challenges.

Panelists:

Emmanuel Tibloux, director of the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (National Academy of the Decorative Arts) in Paris

Emmanuel Tibloux has been head of EnsAD since July 2018 which is a widely recognized international artistic, cultural, and economic school. Emmanuel plans to deploy an ambitious strategy in the areas of school education, international policy, and research development. He pays particular attention to issues of equality and diversity and continues the important work undertaken by his predecessor in the area of governance of the establishment and development of staff statutes.

Frédérique Aït-Touati, historian of literature and modern science, a seventeenth-century specialist, and a theatre director.

Frédérique Aït-Touati is a historian of literature and modern science, a seventeenth-century specialist, and a theatre director. She is currently a research fellow at CNRS and a member of the Centre de Recherches sur les Arts et le Langage at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. She works on the uses of fiction and narrative in astronomy in the seventeenth century, as well as the history of images and scientific instruments.

Paige Swift, Director of Nature Now Film Festival

Paige Swift wears all the hats for Nature Now, a small but nimble environmental nonprofit, freshly minted in early 2021, to inspire appreciation and understanding of our environment. She arranges a multi-day festival that primarily focuses on environmental documentaries & films, but includes strong visual arts & live music components as well. The films that Paige curates, and the filmmakers & other guests she invites, for the festival address important environmental issues that our communities face today, from a local to a global level.

Max Gruenig, climate and energy economist, President of Ecologic Institute US from 2015 until 2020, co-founder pocacito

Max Gruenig is a climate and energy economist with expertise and experience in the US and Europe. Max has conducted research on European and US energy and climate policy, the economics of emissions trading, urban sustainability, transport economics, and Arctic sustainability. He is a founding member of the European Institute for Sustainable Transport (EURIST) and co-founder and principal of Post-Carbon Cities of Tomorrow, POCACITO.

Barbara Dombrowski, photographer, and artist, Tropic Ice, Pastorale, Climate Victims in Five Continents

Barbara Dombrowski is a photographer and artist. She studied visual communications at the University of Applied Science in Dortmund and has been working as a photographer since 1992 focusing mainly on socially and globally relevant topics. Her worldwide photo-art project “Tropic Ice” gives climate change a face. She has visited people on five continents at climate-relevant places and portrayed them and the landscapes surrounding them, making them ambassadors of their continents and climate zones.

Moderated by:

Rickey Bevington

Rickey Bevington has hosted live audience fireside chats with figures including former US President Jimmy Carter, and former Canadian Prime Minister Joe Clark. She regularly moderates live, televised candidate debates for Congressional, Legislative and Mayoral elections.
Bevington’s journalism has garnered honors including the Edward R. Murrow Awards, the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Southeast (EMMYS), the Society of Professional Journalists and Public Radio News Directors, Inc. Her 2017 TEDx talk is “The Future Of News Is In Our Hands.” In 2020, she was selected as one of 21 prestigious Young Leaders of the French-American Foundation.

This is the kickoff of the Climate Crisis & Contemporary Culture event series with more events to come in the fall of 2021.

The event is free to attend, but registration is required in advance to receive the Zoom ID & password. Donations are also accepted and greatly appreciated. Both the Alliance Française and Goethe-Zentrum Atlanta are 501c3 nonprofits and your support allows us to continue offering premiere French and German language courses and cultural experiences.

Register today and don’t miss out on this exciting conversation on climate crisis communications!

Funded by the Franco-German Cultural Fund, a grant administered by the German Foreign Affairs Ministry and the Institut Français in consultation with the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and the Goethe-Institut, and produced in collaboration with the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French and German Consulates in Atlanta.