We Weathered Everything

Weathering Everything: A Mini-Symposium was on the 3rd and 4th March in 2020. Weathering is a concept that names the embodied experience of weather over time, and in focusing on duration, accumulation and repetition, weathering links bodies to climate change. Weathering also names bodily difference as we all weather the world differently. The recent events of summer 2019-2020 and the exclamations that 2020 be “cancelled” as a year meant that the non-specific mandate of the weathering collective’s activities came into its own. Which is to say, “we are always weathering”. And we are always weathering everything. That said there are specific ethical orientations to our work we want to take serious.

In 2016 the weathering collective first convened at Ingar Dam in the Blue Mountains. Since then, a series of informal to formal activities have ensued. The primary purpose of the weathering collective has emerged as experiments in activating theory – the concept of weathering – in a range of ways. This particular trip was both the same and different in that it was the first time where we really framed these activities in the form of a symposium. The activities were, ultimately, methods – methods for researching the embodied experience of weathering and methods for disseminating the research.

Dr Astrida Neimanis from the University of Sydney and Tessa Zettel, and independent artist, travelled to Armidale to participate. Below is photographic documentation of the two days we spent together and the variety of activities we engaged in: a hike, a public lecture, a breakfast, a reading group, and a workshop.