Sunday March 28 through Tuesday March 1, the School of Arts and Communication at University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, is hosting its third annual Creative Imperatives festival, a 3-day-long slate of presentations, performances, lectures, workshops and activities. This year’s theme is Curiosity and Wonder: The Intersection of Art and Science.
On Monday February 29 @ 7:30pm, IFF Director Margret Wertheim will give a public lecture for the festival reflecting on 10 years of the Crochet Coral Reef project and its unique nexus of art, science, handicraft, mathematics, environmentalism and feminism.
UWI-La Crosse, Creative Imperatives
Lecture title: Crochet Coral Reef: A Yarn About Art, Science and Climate Change
Place: Annett Recital Hall, Center for the Arts, Univrsity of Wisconsin La Crosse
Time: 7:30-9pm
In this presentation, Reef co-creator Margaret Wertheim will discuss the Crochet Coral Reef”s roots in mathematics, art and craft, and the project’s ever-more relevant message about climate change. In early 2016, living reefs around the world are experiencing one of the most massive bleaching events on record, due to the extreme El Nino conditions occurring now in the Pacific Ocean. Questions are being raised by scientists as to whether coral reefs will survive past the 21st century. The Crochet Reef project calls attention to this ecological crisis through a worldwide collaborative process of active, ongoing, community-centered making. Wertheim’s talk will draw forth the positive potential of such collective action, and discuss how the Crochet Coral Reef can serve as a metaphor for hope as we continue to confront an increasingly challenging eco-future.
Wertheim’s talk also coincides with the launch of the University of WI La Crosse School Reef, the latest addition to the IFF’s ever-evolving archipelago of Crochet Coral Reefs worldwide.