Heeding the Messenger: Songbirds and the Scale of Climate Change
When and Where
Speakers
Description
The Jackman Humanities Institute Program for the Arts is pleased to present Heeding the Messenger: Songbirds and the Scale of Climate Change in cooperation with the IHPST, Victoria College, and Cinema Studies Institute.
Heeding the Messenger is a one-day interdisciplinary event inspired by, and culminating in, a screening and round table discussion of Toronto filmmaker Su Rynard's 2015 documentary film The Messenger. Echoing the mythical role of birds as divine messengers, the film sets out to discover what we should learn from the recent and rapid decline of migrating songbirds around the globe. In concert with scientists, naturalists, activists, museum curators and concerned citizens, Rynard follows the migration routes of songbirds to critical points of observation--from downtown Toronto to deforested Costa Rica, drought-ridden Turkey, and Manhattan's 9/11 memorial--seeking insight into the ecological and environmental causes and consequences of songbirds' decline.
Heeding the Messenger brings together STS and sound studies scholars, participants in Rynard's film, and the director herself to explore the themes and issues raised in the film and by the plight of songbirds in general. Engaging local and global perspectives, speakers and participants will speak to multiple aspects of contemporary climate change, offering a multivocal and multifaceted account of affective and ecological dimensions of the Anthropocene.