ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
Our society faces significant challenges in transitioning to a regenerative system. The Degrowth movement works on developing ideas for how we can live with each other and nature in a way that does not continue the destruction and exploitation but rather regenerate it – together.

The Degrowth Festival will address radical solutions to our radical problems by presenting new ways of thinking about how we organize ourselves and build sprouting communities for transformation. Throughout the weekend, everyone will have the opportunity to engage in conversations on how to solve the challenges we face, be inspired, and find hope in the possibilities of community-driven rethinking.

Degrowth Festival 2024 is about community, solidarity, and sprouting futures. Themes focusing on strategies for hope will be presented through workshops and panels. Presentations and workshops will revolve around solidarity and visionary restructuring, inclusive workshops, communal dining, and sensory artistic expressions that stimulate interconnectedness and challenge our habitual thinking. In addition, there will be an

activist & justice struggles panel on Saturday evening.

PROGRAM SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21

Talks Saturday 10:00-14:00 (in English):
Basic introduction to Degrowth by Human Ecologist Michelle Appelros
Conversation: Degrowth and Beyond: Movement Building, Alliances and Solidarity with researchers and activists Laura Horn (Associate Professor, Department of Social Sciences and Business, RUC) & Vasna Ramasar (Senior Lecturer, Lund University).
Seminar: Climate Justice and System Change: From Resistance to Transformation with Salvatore Paolo De Rosa (activist and researcher in political ecology, University of Copenhagen).

Art performances Saturday:
SHADOW GLEANERS At a restorative space near the harbour an impatient structure is pulled apart. By sensing the
thickness of the ground as well as the ticklish touch of the wind, a gatherers pathway unfolds.
Through body and sound dancer/choreographer Stine Frandsen and musician/composer Felia
Gram-Hanssen explore sensuous and imaginary relations with our everyday surroundings.
YANA – The title YANA is short for "You are not alone", which is what we in the climate movement shout as support when an activist is being arrested. We help each other remember that we are not alone with our feelings and desires for how the future should look – we are many. But what does the future we fight for look like? The environment of YANA is created by tripods. Here, performer and audience meet to imagine how the world, locally and globally, will look in the future. As the performer moves with the environment, she tells her own stories from the future, which develop as she receives new impulses from the audience in the form of sentences, questions, and suggestions. Artistic leder / Performer: Tanya Montan Rydell
Developed in collaboration with: Aleksandra Lewon, Esther Wrobel og Mari Vincentz
Co-produceret by: Nexus Dance og Tårnby Park Studio.
DECOMPOSE
A delegate from the Mushroom Queendom will visit us with an invitation: Let us decompose your human egos. Let us break you down and eat you up. Become mycelium, become mushroom. Become decomposers yourselves. Decompose your systems.
Artist Ida Dalsgaard Nicolaisen will perform as Mushroom Queendom delegate and invite you down into the fungal world through a performative guided meditation.

Workshop program Saturday 14:30-16:45 (in Danish and English):
Material workshops with Mycelium Building Workshop by Hypha Co-La
ZOMBIES - CONNECTING PEOPLE – with the Social Choreography Lab Helsinki.
The welfare state and postgrowth: allies or antinomies ? – with Louison Louison Cahen-Fourot, Associate Professor of Economics, RUC.
Nature poetry, human poetry? Writing workshop with author Ursula Andkjær Olsen.
Deep listening – with Johannes Meusburger from Degrowth CPH.
A Ritual for the Ecological Crisis – with Maya Johansen & Naja Heuch.
A Degrowth vision for Copenhagen 2050 – with Linda Luciani from Degrowth CPH.

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PROGRAM SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22

Talks Sunday from 10:00-13:50 (in English and Danish):
Conversation on Degrowth strategies and activism with researcher Ekatarina Chertkovskaya (Project coordinator, Researcher, Environmental and Energy Systems Studies, Lund University) and Fernando Racimo (Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen; member of Scientist Rebellion and Academics for Palestine).
"What comes after the consumer society?" Presentation and conversation with Jens Friis Lund (Professor in Political Ecology at the University of Copenhagen and co-founder of the Climate and Transition Council).

Art performances Sunday:
In the Shadows of Possibilities – claus haxholm will perform a physical and vocal performance that, through the fringes of our language or surplus word sounds, creates potential spaces where we can collectively experience possibilities for how we talk about the world we wish to move toward.

Workshop program Sunday 14:00-16:00 (in Danish and English):
Nourishment and Enjoyment. Permaculture Workshop – with Artist Karin Lorentzen.
(Re)writing the Future - an Investigation of Speculative Degrowth Realities – With Tone, Esther, Tessira, and Robin from Degrowth CPH.
Discussion Menu for Food Sovereignty – with Forum for Food Sovereignty.
False Solutions to the Climate Crisis, Understanding Carbon Removal – w. Linda Luciani, Degrowth CPH and Jens Friis Lund, professor, UCPH.
Body Mapping Emotions in Degrowth Activism – with Mélanie Baume, Degrowth CPH.
Gode Penge holds a housing auction – with Mathias Kærn Berggreen from Gode Penge.

Installations and artworks:
Presentations of material from Earthweavers, mycelium installations by Hypha Co-La, fabric and latex installations by The Syndicate of Creatures in collaboration with Mélanie Baume.

The festival is initiated by Signe Vad and Michelle Appelros from the Syndicate of Creatures and the Culture House Islands Brygge. The festival has been made possible through collaboration with various organizations and groups such as Global Aktion, Degrowth CPH.
Supported by the Danish Arts Foundation, Amager Vest Lokal Udvalg, Fællespuljen, LB Foreningen, and the International Degrowth Network.