Hospicing Modernity: A Reading Group
Schedule
Thu Nov 21 2024 at 07:30 pm to 09:30 pm
Location
Χίου 27, 104 38 Αθήνα, Ελλάδα | Athens, AT
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In these times of anthropogenic metacrisis, the way that we try to solve the problems we face, are often part of the problems. And we are somehow called to reimagine a different way of being, doing and belonging that diverges from both mastery and self-righteousness as well as despair and collapse, personally, politically, collectively, spiritually. Join us in a reading group, as we wonder around the topics of the book “Hospicing Modernity – Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activisim” by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira (Information below)Moderated by Alexis Ioannou and Eliana Otta
We will meet once a month for the next 6 months to discuss the book, explore the themes through experiential exercises and discussion. Open to artists, therapists, activists, educators, thinkers, dreamers, cooks, gardeners and anyone really curious to wonder around how to face our reality with humility and accountability.
Thursday 21/11 at 7:30 pm in Fydani: Chiou 27 Athens
The text and main language of the group will be English. Registration required in order for us to send you a digital copy of the book. Please fill in this form: https://forms.gle/tmEpkS4ogbASQv3s6
Admission free, donations welcome.
FROM THE BACK SIDE OF THE BOOK:
Hospicing Modernity
Facing Humanity's Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism
A thought-provoking guide to facing global pandemics, climate change, and other modern crises with maturity, humility, and integrity
This book is not easy: it contains no quick-fix plan for a better, brighter tomorrow, and gives no ready-made answers. Instead, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira presents us with a challenge: to grow up, step up, and show up for ourselves, our communities, and the living Earth, and to interrupt the modern behavior patterns that are killing the planet we’re part of.
Driven by expansion, colonialism, and resource extraction and propelled by neoliberalism and rabid consumption, our world is profoundly out of balance. We take more than we give; we inoculate ourselves in positive self-regard while continuing to make harmful choices; we wreak irreparable havoc on the ecosystems, habitats, and beings with whom we share our planet. But instead of drowning in hopelessness or rage, how can we learn to face our reality with humility and accountability?
Machado de Oliveira breaks down archetypes of cognitive dissonance—the do-gooder who does “good enough,” then retreats to business as usual; the incognito capitalist who, at first glance, may seem like a radical change-maker—and asks us to dig deeper and exist differently. She explains how our habits, behaviors, and belief systems hold us back and why it’s time now to gradually disinvest. She offers us thought experiments that ask us to:
• Reimagine how we learn, unlearn, and respond to crisis
• Better assess our surroundings and interact with difference, uncertainty, complexity, and failure
• Expand our capacity to hold personal and collective space for difficult and painful things
• Understand the “5 modern-colonial e’s”: Entitlements, Exceptionalism, Exaltation, Emancipation, and Enmeshment in low-intensity struggle activism
• Interrupt our satisfaction with modern-colonial desires that cause harm
• Create space for change driven neither by desperate hope nor a fear of desolate hopelessness
BIOS:
Alexis Ioannou is an unlearning psychotherapist in a pathway of divesting from dominant culture ideas around healing. His practice with people focuses on encouraging conversations between body awareness and imaginative/intuitive sensing and sits at the crossroads of somatic trauma therapy, creative – expressive therapy, animist/relational practice and contemplative practice.
Eliana Otta is a Peruvian artist, researcher, member of the collectives Mouries (Athens) and Bisagra (Lima), yoga practitioner and teacher. She creates participatory projects that welcome intimacy, vulnerability and curiosity, and has been recently focused on developing what she calls “fertilizing mourning”.
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Where is it happening?
Χίου 27, 104 38 Αθήνα, Ελλάδα, Χίου 27, 104 38 Αθήνα, Ελλάδα,Athens, GreeceEvent Location & Nearby Stays: