Is sustainable progress imaginable in the 21st century?

The research group of Santa Monica Art Center (composed by Isabel Valverde, Peter Wagner and Santiago Zabala) -working on the meaning of progress and utopia- are pleased to dialogue with theorist Adrian Parr. Her work as an environmental advocate, political and cultural thinker is meant to question how to overcome ecological and economic scarcity in an age where progress seems to have no limits. She asserts that environmental devastation and climate change are crimes against humanity. Against this crime, she affirms, one must advocate for social models premised upon open-minded, ecologically conscious, non-violent, and participatory ways of living. This is why in her latest book -Earthlings. Imaginative Encounters with the Natural World- she recalls what unites all form of life: our earth. In this condition progress and utopia should be thought through and for our earth.

Valverde, Wagner, and Zabala will discuss with Parr whether we can still imagine sustainable progress in the 21st Century.

By the  Research Group of Santa Mònica, with Adrian Parr as guest.

Adrian Parr is the dean of the College of Design at the University of Oregon and a senior fellow of the Design Futures Council. She has served for nearly a decade as a UNESCO water chair. She is the author of The Wrath of Capital: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics (2012), Birth of a New Earth: The Radical Politics of Environmentalism (2017), Conversations on Violence: An Anthology (with Brad Evans, 2021), and most recently Earthlings. Imaginative Encounters with the Natural World (2022).