SYNOPSIS.

Our second Water Futures event for “Harvesting the Sky” looks at the future of cities and their role in mitigating climate change. With a focus on urban drinking water, Professor Ashley Dawson will cover everything from water contamination as a consequence of fracking to the privatization of infrastructure and ask: how does rapid globalization affect our drinking water, and how can cities adapt and provide a model for doing so?

ABOUT THE SPEAKER.

Ashley Dawson is the Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and the Humanities at the Princeton Environmental Institute, on leave from his permanent position as Professor of English at the Graduate Center/CUNY and the College of Staten Island. He is the author of two recent books on topics relating to the environmental humanities, Extreme Cities: The Peril and Promise of Urban Life in the Age of Climate Change (Verso, 2017), and Extinction: A Radical History (O/R, 2016), as well as six previous books on global social justice movements and anti-imperialism.

ABOUT WATER FUTURES.

The A/D/O Water Futures research program, curated by Jane Withers, addresses and explores the drinking water crisis and asks: how can design help address this in the future?

Responding to the tensions around water in the urban environment and the shift for cities to ban the single-use disposable plastic bottle, Water Futures aims to inspire designers to take action in reimagining our toxic drinking water culture and design alternative realities. 

 
Water Futures recently won The Design Prize in the 'Experimentation' category. Winners were announced in Milan during Salone del Mobile 2018.