Imagining earth—art and life in a time of crisis

Professor Susan Ballard, from the School of English, Film, Theatre, Media and Communication, and Art History, presents her inaugural lecture.

How we imagine our future has consequences for how we respond to the challenges of today's environmental crisis. There is a politics to imagination.

In this inaugural lecture, Professor Ballard reflects on the way that contemporary artists from Aotearoa and Australia tell stories of local contexts at planetary scales. She describes how spending time with art informs the politics of life on an increasingly industrialised and colonised earth. In a time of climate crisis, these artists create works that jolt us into unexpected ways of seeing and new ways of being. They remind us of the need for mutual relationships of care and concern that open conversations with our future selves.

This is Professor Ballard’s inaugural lecture as Professor of Art History and Environmental Humanities at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington.

Three people dressed in academic robes, including Vice-Chancellor Nic Smith — Inaugural lecture: Vice-Chancellor, Professor Nic Smith, Professor Susan Ballard, and Professor Averil Coxhead.

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