As a continuation of syllabi created during the 2014 and 2019 editions of the Biennial, the festival syllabus situates the commissions and programming of the Biennial within larger political, geographical, and ecological contexts. This year, the syllabus aims to be a fertile ground for rigorous and diverse interdisciplinary discussions surrounding food and land politics, which transcend typical academic disciplines and provide layered entry points of colonization, Indigeneity, incarceration, Blackness, disability, and traditional knowledge ways, to start.
While the festival remains geographically international, with homage to the historically agricultural Hudson River Valley, the syllabus continues themes brought forth within the last edition of the biennial, the 2019 Live Arts Bard (LAB) Where No Wall Remains Festival. We situate ourselves on the banks of the Mahicantuck to continue to think about and around border politics, migration, and movement, and the many ways we relate to land.
Our hope is that this syllabus finds homes along rivers in Annandale and abroad, serving the Bard undergraduate and graduate communities, and to expand upon increasing interest of students and faculty “thinking with” place, soil, and our dinner plates.
~~ Melina Roise
