The session, organized as part of Common Ground: Feminist and Decolonial Ecologies research programme and curated by Nkule Mabaso, is grounded in the awareness that today’s environmental challenges are deeply connected to histories of colonialism, land dispossession, and struggles for Indigenous rights. It explores how contemporary artists engage with climate narratives through a critical lens. Recognizing that the climate crisis is inseparable from broader social and political histories, the artists featured in this session examine the relationships between land, resources, and climate change across diverse geographies.

Their works employ speculative and poetic vocabularies—mobilizing metaphors and analogies often absent from mainstream climate communication—to imagine new ways of understanding and responding to environmental and historical entanglements. Through film and conversation, Climate Fictions reflects on the strategies artists use to address a world shaped by settler colonialism and by the intersections of Indigeneity, ecological transformation, and the financialization of the natural world.

The session will begin with an introduction by curator Nkule Mabaso and Common Ground coordinator Anaïs Roesch, followed by a conversation with artists Eline Benjaminsen, Ola Hassanain, and Buhlebezwe Siwani, as well as community leader and land rights advocate Elias Kimaiyo and sociologist and historian Brice Molo, who will provide contextual insights connecting the ideas and frameworks that inform this shared moment of reflection and inquiry.

Films screening:
Buhlebezwe Siwani, AmaHubo, 2018 – 14’31’’
Eline Benjaminsen et Elias Kimaiyo, Footprints in the Valley, 2024 – 09’05’’
Ola Hassanain, The Watcher, 2024 – 19’19’’

Practical information

Friday, December 12, 2025 from 6:00 to 9:00 pm

Free entry with registration here

The event will be held in English and in French