‘Changing seasonality’: a symposium rethinking what seasons mean in changeable times
This public symposium looked at how cultural frameworks of seasons are undergoing dramatic changes and explores creative ways of rethinking what seasons mean for us.
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In changeable times, the seasons can feel like stable and lasting landmarks to orient ourselves over the year. Seasons act as societies’ cultural building blocks; they set a rhythm to our lives often without us consciously thinking about it.
But the meanings of seasons too change over time. Today, communities worldwide are witnessing rapid disruption to seasonal rhythms – from climatic and other changes - and questioning whether their cultural frameworks still hold. Some see this as a loss of humanity’s cultural heritage and urge us to ‘save the seasons’.
However, societies are always transforming their cultural frames of seasons, and today we see further efforts to predict and control seasons; through seasonal forecasts, or climate-controlled environments for example.
The CALENDARS project is uncovering how seasonal calendars organise diverse activities around Bergen, and in global case studies. Researchers work with diverse groups – from artists to beekeepers, climate scientists to teachers – to study seasonal cultures and transform them to fast-changing conditions and expectations.
This symposium took place at the old Christinegaard house on 5 May, 2022.
It began with sets of plenary talks (from 09.00–14.00) organized by three themes:
Seasons and time
Barbara Adam - "A poetic theory of seasons"
Michelle Bastian - "Seasonal thinking within phenology"
Gordon Walker - "Energy-rhythms and seasonal cultures: from curtains to control rooms"
Seasons and culture
David Macauley - "Second Nature: The Seasons, Beauty, and Cultural Imagination"
Sarah Strauss - "Time is Out of Joint: Culture, Seasonality, and Shifting Transitions"
Rosario Carmona - "Chasing the seasons. Pehuenche experiences of rapid ecological change in the Southern Andes"
Changing seasonality
Stefan Sobolowski - "What’s in a name: reflections on seasons and seasonality from a physical science perspective"
Miriam Jensen - "Disruptive Situated Seasons: The Effort to Control and Maintain Stable Seasons within an Unsettled River Landscape"
Simon Meisch - "Changing climate, changing beekeeping"
Seasons and art
After the talks, participant were able to explore artworks created by artists, film-makers and writers in collaboration with the CALENDARS project and triggering reflection on what seasons mean to us, spread over different rooms of the house. This included a documentary film from New Zealand film-maker James Muir, a virtual reality simulation of Bergen for playing with time by Magnhild Øen Nordahl and Cameron MacLeod from Aldea, poetry by Barbara Adam, and exercises for making contemporary primstav calendars.
Attendance was free and includes lunch and refreshments.
