The third event in the 2024 cycle of Earth Emergency – promoted by the Department of environment constructions and design SUPSI in partnership with Bobbium – is divided into two parts.

The conference

Paola Imperatore carries out research at the Department of Political Science, University of Pisa. As part of the 2024 cycle of Earth Emergency, she proposes a conference entitled Giustizia climatica: una prospettiva per intrecciare riscaldamento globale, conflitti politici e giustizia sociale (Climate justice: a perspective on interweaving global warming, political conflict and social justice) to explore climate justice not only in its theoretical dimension, but also in its practical application, focusing on specific examples.

Global warming has long been narrated as the challenge that sees humanity all in the same boat. The climate movements that emerged at the turn of 2018 and 2019 have, however, turned the spotlight on the responsibilities and social effects of climate change, showing the asymmetries of power that also exist in this area. Not only are responsibilities differentiated, which is why the geologically correct concept of the Anthropocene has been questioned in its socio-political implications, but also the idea that global warming entails a ‘democratisation of risk’ has been contradicted by the facts. In fact, the way we are exposed to the consequences of climate change is linked to pre-existing discriminations related to socio-economic status, gender and ‘race’, which multiply climate risk for some individuals.

Starting from these premises, the climate justice paradigm proposes a perspective capable of pursuing the dual objective of reducing climate-changing emissions and social injustices stratified over time.

In addition to her research activity at the University of Pisa, Paola Imperatore co-directs, together with Ilenia Iengo, the Italian political ecologies column for the blog Undisciplined Environment. In 2023 she published Territori in lotta. Capitalismo globale e giustizia ambientale nell’era della crisi climatica (Meltemi) and, together with Emanuele Leonardi, L’era della giustizia climatica. Prospettive politiche per una transizione ecologica dal basso (Orthotes Editrice).

The exibition

At 20:00 there will follow the opening of the exhibition A Theory of Waves: Case Study #3 by Marco Poloni, a visual artist, filmmaker and photographer who has lived and worked in New York, Rome, Chicago, Paris and Geneva and who presently lives in Locarno, where he directs CISA, the International Academy of Audiovisual Sciences since 2022. Poloni’s work spans the still and moving image, text and installation. Poloni is particularly interested in the Mediterranean area and in the emergence of subjects invisible to apparatuses of social control.

The set of photographs titled A Theory of Waves: Case Study #3 is part of an ongoing study about the sea and its uncertain future. The set intersperses reproductions of Japanese prints, mathematical equations, photographs of waves, nuclear reactors, marine architectural objects and surfers.

The exhibition, curated by Michele Amadò, professor of Visual Communication at the Department of environment constructions and design SUPSI, is open until Wednesday 4 December 2024 and is supported by Canton Ticino.

During the exhibition period, a public event in the form of a discussion entitled Dialogue between science, culture and the environment with Marco Poloni, Cristian Scapozza (SUPSI professor in applied geomorphology) and Lucio Calcagno (SUPSI lecturer in mathematics), moderated by Raffaella Castagnola Rossini (director of the Canton Ticino’s Divisione della cultura e degli studi universitari) will be held on Wednesday 4 December 2024 from 5 to 6.30 p.m. In this way, SUPSI’s Department of environment constructions and design emphasises the link between its scientific institutes and culture, and continues to characterise the Campus as a model of an open museum. The meeting will be held in lecture room A2.11 at the SUPSI Campus in Mendrisio (2nd floor).

Marco Poloni has received the Swiss Art Award three times, in 1997, 2000 and 2001, has had personal exhibitions at Kunsthalle Bern and at the Centre culturel Suisse in Paris and was one of the artists representing Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 2005. Poloni has had personal and group exhibitions in Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, United States, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Turkey, Argentina and South Korea.

When and where

The conference
The event, free of charge, takes place on Wednesday 13 November 2024 at 6.30 p.m. in the Sala polivalente (ground floor) of the SUPSI Campus in Mendrisio (via Flora Ruchat-Roncati 15).
Registration is required for organisational reasons

The exhibition
The opening is scheduled at 8 p.m. Refreshments will follow.
The exhibition, with free admission, can be visited (without reservation) until Wednesday 4 December 2024 on the ground floor of the SUPSI Campus in Mendrisio (Monday–Friday 9 a.m. – 7 p.m.).