Hostile Environments is an evening of performance, poetry and debate. The event explores the structural conditions of climate colonialism as they affect indigenous and diasporic communities. This assembly is a chance to imagine what a more equitable, accountable and reparative vision of environmental justice might be. Hostile Environments is organised in response to Gathering Ground.
The Programme features performances and poetry by Khalid Abdalla and Sunnah Khan. Imani Jacqueline Brown, Radha D’Souza, Nadine El-Enany will speak on their activist and research practices. A discussion will follow, chaired by David Birkin and Max Houghton, co-founders of University of the Arts London research hub Visible Justice.
This event is organised in partnership with UAL: London College of Communication.
Khalid Abdalla
Khalid Abdalla is an actor, writer and filmmaker. His credits include the Oscar-nominated documentary The Square about the 2011 Egyptian revolution, In the Last Days of the City, Mnemonic at the National Theatre, and his debut play as a writer, Nowhere. Khalid is a founding member of Cairo-based cultural initiatives Cimatheque, Zero Production, and Mosireen. He is an Honorary Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge.
Imani Jacqueline Brown
Imani Jacqueline Brown is an artist, activist and architectural researcher from New Orleans. Her work investigates the ‘continuum of extractivism’ which spans from colonial genocide and slavery to fossil fuel production and climate change. She is currently pursuing a PhD at Queen Mary, University of London, and is a Research Fellow with Forensic Architecture.
Radha D’Souza
Radha D’Souza is Professor of International Law, Development and Conflict Studies at the University of Westminster and a social justice activist, barrister and writer from India. Her book What's Wrong with Rights? (2018) repoliticises the mainstream neoliberal discourse on human rights. Among her numerous collaborative projects is the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes.
Nadine El-Enany
Nadine El-Enany is a poet and Professor of Law at the University of Kent. Her research focuses on race, grief and justice in custodial death cases, and health inequalities arising from environmental harm. Her book (B)ordering Britain was published in 2020. Nadine is the winner of the 2024 James Berry Poetry Prize. She recently co-edited After Grenfell: Violence, Resistance and Response.
Sunnah Khan
Sunnah Khan is a Scottish Pakistani poet and filmmaker. Her debut pamphlet I Don't Know How to Forgive You When You Make No Apology For This Haunting was published by Roughtrade Books. She is part of the poetry collective 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE and has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, Tate Britain, the British Library, and London Literary Festival.
David Birkin
David Birkin is an artist, writer and Senior Lecturer in Photography at University of the Arts London, where he co-founded Visible Justice. His doctoral research in the Department of Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths traces histories of aerial violence and acts of resistance. He studied at Oxford University, the Slade School of Fine Art, and was a fellow of the Whitney Museum ISP in New York.
Max Houghton
Max Houghton is a writer and curator working with the photographic image as it intersects with law and politics. She runs the MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at London College of Communication (UAL) where she co-founded Visible Justice. Her latest monograph essay is on Mary Ellen Mark’s Ward 81. She is completing doctoral research on the image in international criminal law at UCL.
Visible Justice
Visible Justice is a transdisciplinary research hub based at University of the Arts London. Focusing on the intersection of visual culture and social justice, it aims to foster creative collaborations and to deepen the discourse around questions of visuality, efficacy and political voice.
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