Breathing Aesthetics : with Dr. Jean-Thomas Tremblay and Dr. Alice Jarry

Join us for the first installment in a series of talks planned collaboratively by CARG, CRIE, and SPAM: Critical Anthropocene Speakers Series, featuring a talk with Dr. Jean-Thomas Tremblay (York) and Dr. Alice Jarry (Concordia).

Dr. Tremblay’s talk previews the monograph Breathing Aesthetics, in which they argue that difficult breathing indexes the uneven distribution of risk in a contemporary era marked by the increasing contamination, weaponization, and monetization of air. Tremblay shows how biopolitical and necropolitical forces tied to the continuation of extractive capitalism, imperialism, and structural racism are embodied and experienced through respiration.

Dr. Jarry’s presentation will address the material and conceptual aspects of the collaborative research-creation project [re]capture*. Exploring how ‘membranes’ can act as porous interfaces that enable exchanges across systems and transform what is filtered in the process, [re]capture aims at materializing the microscopic invisibility of air pollution and the macroscopic dimension of its socio-environmental issues.