Author: EPA

A Solid Artistic Argument That We Should Replace EPA Leaders With Actual Weeds

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Thanks to the Washington City Paper for featuring the EPA’s latest project The Department of Weedy Affairs.

“Of course, the point is to say that ours is the timeline that’s gone crazy, where elected officials have deleted all reference of climate change from official government platforms and rolled back dozens of common-sense standards for safeguarding our water and air. A good protest show might have made the point through biting satire. But Department of Weedy Affairs is rather joyful—or rather, it feels normal. The project imagines a nation that values and protects marginal ecosystems, which is to say, one that prioritizes environmental justice. A country in which this work is not just performed, but one in which it is boring—another given, like death and taxes.”

To read the full article visit:
At Transformer, a Solid Artistic Argument That We Should Replace EPA Leaders With Actual Weeds, by Kriston Capps. Washington City Paper (May 24, 2018).

Crack the Patriarchy in DC

EPA

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EPA Agents Catherine Grau and andrea haenggi were in Washington DC this past weekend, working with members of the Department of Weedy Affairs staff on a workshop called Crack the Patriarchy. Together with the weeds, workshop participants explored the question: How can we articulate, ally with, and reclaim the more-than-binary ways of being that are cracking the patriarchy?

Open Engagement: Plant Talk, Human Talk

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This weekend, EPA presented at Open Engagement at the Queens Museum and Hall of Science in New York. We led an interactive workshop called Plant Talk Human Talk exploring the lawn outside the Hall of Science in Corona-Flushing Meadows Park. Plant Talk Human Talk explores the biocultural possibility of spontaneous urban plants (aka weeds) as collaborators and guides in imagining new urban systems/ecologies. The Queens Museum’s surrounding landscape serves as a site for applied fieldwork where participants will engage in EPA’s embodied scientist training for cultivating plant-human relations and interspecies alliances. Tactics include wild plant unmapping, radical care sitting, and creating embodied scores for a world beyond human.

EPA Recieves UPenn Environmental Humanities Fellowship

EPA
Cecily Anderson, Tidal Schuylkill Visitors Map, Ecotopian Toolkit (2017)

The Environmental Performance Agency is excited to work with The Penn Program in Environmental Humanities (PPEH) on their Ecotopian Toolkit initiative to explore the complexity of urban waters and “what it might mean to face contemporary ecological challenges with critically attuned and creatively oriented tools.” As 2018 fellows, EPA will be developing a project called, Embodied Scientist Parkour: A series of site-specific scores for practicing multi-species research and being in a world beyond human. Stay tuned for more details and updates on upcoming workshops and events in Philadelphia!

EPA Meets EPA: Department of Weedy Affairs

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Crack the Patriarchy Workshop Image
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Weedy Resistance Workshop Image

This spring the EPA goes to Washington DC where we’ll be partnering with Transformer to launch a new artwork — The Department of Weedy Affairs, a speculative proposition which imagines a governmental agency that is beyond human. This new EPA office opens May 5, offering visitors an opportunity to engage and learn from spontaneous urban plants (aka weeds) through a toolkit of radical care practices and embodied science. Throughout the duration of the exhibition, we invite the public to submit a comment to the US Environmental Protection Agency using a web platform, OnBehalfOf.life. At the end of the show, the EPA collective will lead a public march to deliver the collection of comments, desires and demands on behalf of the weeds to the US EPA on the National Mall. The EPA meets the EPA.

WORKSHOPS + PERFORMANCES:
MAY 5, 2018 | 3 – 8pm
Department of Weedy Affairs: Opening Reception
Transformer, 1404 P Street, NW Washington, DC
Featuring a live performance by andrea haenggi, Teaching a Human the Urban Weeds Alphabet (created with 26 urban weeds). Live engagements at 3pm, 5pm and 7pm

MAY 20, 2018 | 2 – 5pm
Crack The Patriarchy: Moving, thinking and feeling with plants that break through cracks in asphalt
Led by EPA artists Catherine Grau and Andrea Haenggi
Meeting Point: Transformer, 1404 P Street, NW Washington, DC

JUNE 9, 2018 | 2 – 4:30pm
Weedy Resistance: A Weedy Walking Tour on the National Mall
Led by EPA Agents Ellie Irons and Christopher Kennedy
Meeting Point: Constitution Avenue NW and 12th Street NW, Washington DC

JUNE 15, 2018 | 2pm
EPA Meets EPA: A public walk to the US EPA Headquarters
Meeting Point: Transformer, 1404 P Street, NW Washington, DC