I first heard about Siobhan Angus through a Carleton University Climate Commons Noon for Now event on January 18, 2024 called Shifting Perceptions: Arts-based Approaches to Climate Justice, that I was unfortunately not able to attend.
I was intrigued by the questions that this session was exploring, including ‘how do the arts contribute to climate justice’ and ‘how can art and artists reshape our perception of the world, helping us to collectively undertake the necessary actions to create a world worth living in?’
Ah… A world worth living in seems like a reasonable goal, doesn’t it. How can something as ephemeral as art help with that?
So… I contacted Siobhan and she kindly agreed to speak with me about her work and some of the issues raised at this session.
Dr. Angus lives here in the unceded territory of the Anishinaabe and Algonquin nations, also known as Ottawa, and is an assistant professor of Media Studies at Carleton University, where she teaches courses in visual culture studies and the environmental humanities, with a focus on collections-based research and experiential learning.
Siobhan comes from a family of social activists and specializes in the history of photography and the environmental humanities. Her current research explores the visual culture of resource extraction with a focus on materiality, labor, and environmental justice. Her new book, Camera Geologica: An Elemental History of Photography, published by Duke University Press, will be available during the spring of 2024.
Here is my conversation with Siobhan, starting with her background and ending with a book recommendation : Max Liboiron’s Pollution Is Colonialism.
excerpt
I think that's what the arts contribute to these discussions. There's that possibility of that kind of emotional or embodied connection to things that, as I think these questions of climate and environment, come closer and closer to people's lives, right? We can think of the wildfire smoke here last summer, people experiencing flooding, hurricanes, wildfires, drought in real time. Through storytelling or sound or visual media, we can really feel that on an embodied level and that is a really powerful starting point.