Institute of Contemporary Art Miami ICA Miami

“Underlying” began as an Art + Research Center seminar by artist and activist Rozalinda Borcila in July 2018. Join us for a new session that continues this experiment—a discussion on how sea level rise and climate change are being reconfigured as investible opportunities for financial capital.

From Borcila: “What does the capitalization of climate change in Miami look like?  Who will be made to pay for the future destruction being unleashed to leverage capital in the name of deferring the future destruction? How can we resist the financial logic and governance of ‘climate resiliency’—as  an analytic, discourse and mode of feeling that saturates daily life and reconfigures the possibilities for future action?

“We will start with a summary of our previous sessions, in which we defined capitalization from the perspective of the underlying bodies from which profit is extracted: radicalized life, the biosphere and indigenous sovereignties. In this session we will review the colonizing politics of ecosystems services and the capitalization of the biosphere (carbon trading and climate futures). Using that framework we will turn our attention to the 100 Resilient Cities project and the ways resiliency governance is being organized in Miami, as well as what kinds of sea level rise derivatives and Social Impact Bonds are being proposed — with a special focus on the capitalization of flooding. Who will pay for sea level rise default swaps and flooding futures? An afternoon excursion will open up embodied and relational modes of exploration.”

Please see here for a video and essay that explores the analytic developed in the  first part of this project and anticipates the next session.

The previous day, Saturday November 3 at 3pm, we will share the development of the project as part of the Creative Time Summit and invite attendees to participate in the field trip. Please see the Creative Time Miami 2018 summit program for more details.