Word-Making Salon with the Bureau of Linguistical Reality
Friday November 8th
Doors & drinks 6.30pm; Salon starts 7pm
The rapidly unfolding polycrisis has outpaced our ability to describe it. There are no words to communicate so many of the emotions, ideas and situations we're now grappling with. How can we make the major cultural shifts required without the language with which to share our experiences, formulate new ideas and shape the collective imagination?
The Bureau of Linguistical Reality is a public participatory artwork by artists Alicia Escott and Heidi Quante. Since 2014, it has been collaborating with people around the world to create a global lexicon that can help us better understand our rapidly changing world.
In this Kairos one-off, cross-continental, word-making salon, Alicia and Heidi will describe the development of the Bureau and share some of the words already in the lexicon (eg psychic corpus dissonance, NonnaPaura, Ennuipocalypse, tralfamidorification) before working with us to create more of the new words we need.
The evening will include a break for a one-pot vegan supper.
More About The Bureau of Linguistical Reality
Established in 2014, The Bureau of Linguistical Reality, is a public participatory artwork by Artists Alicia Escott and Heidi Quante.
The Bureau collaborates with people globally to identify un-named feelings and experiences people are having as our climate rapidly changes. Recognising the power of words, it then works with participants to create new words to name these phenomena, thereby creating a global lexicon as an innovative way to better understand our rapidly changing world due to climate change and other Anthropogenic events. It then uses these new words to facilitate conversations about the greater experiences these words are seeking to express with the view to facilitate a greater cultural shift around the climate crisis
This project was inspired by moments that both Heidi and Alicia had when they literally were at a loss for words to describe emotions, ideas or situations they found themselves experiencing due to the climate crisis. Heidi and Alicia discovered they were not alone – friends, colleagues and people in their respective professions were also experiencing this loss for words.
The Artists consciously chose the form of a Bureau to creatively ask: “Who has the agency to define peoples’ climate crisis experiences?” Via facilitated word-making salons and thoughtful interactions in diverse public spaces, The Bureau symbolically awards official “agency” to participants as culture-shapers, acknowledging the intrinsic power everyone has to contribute to culture(s).
Since its creation in 2014, The Bureau has brought its Mobile Field Study Office to the 21st U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015; to Rockaways, New York to collaborate with Hurricane Sandy survivors; to Los Angeles residents living on the frontlines of climate change-fueled fires; and to farmers facing drought and more.
Read about the Bureau at BBC online.
Kairos, 84 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4TG
Doors open at 6.30pm for drinks. Event starts at 7pm.
£8 Kairos Club Member, £15 Non-member, £10 Struggling financially, £20 Supporter. Food complimentary.
Before requesting a discounted ticket, please consider sincerely: Are you struggling to meet your basic needs? Would you have to make a genuine sacrifice to buy a full priced ticket? Do you have reduced earnings through a lifestyle choice or because you’re dedicating your time to unpaid work relating to the climate and nature crises?