(Built) environments, activism, and writing the non-human

10 October, 19.00-20.00

Art about humans and climate change has proliferated in the last decade, but what about the perspective of the non-human—not only plants or animals, but even rocks, ice, seas, or mud?

In Shane Tivenan’s debut anthology To Avenge a Dead Glacier, the title refers to a memorial for a glacier that has disappeared in Iceland. In Catriona Shine’s debut from 2024, Habitat, a building narrates some events of the story like an omnipresent, unknowable Greek chorus of materials. In conversation with David Toms, whose memoir Pacemaker reflects partly on the connection between human and planet through walking, they will discuss how writing about our built environments and non-human entities can illuminate new perspectives—and even be a form of activism.

Books by all the authors and panelists will be for sale throughout the festival.

Shane Tivenan grew up close to Athlone Town, County Roscommon. He studied Cultural Anthropology at Maynooth University. His fiction has appeared in The Stinging Fly, The London Magazine, Prototype, and has been broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1. He was awarded the 2020 RTÉ Francis MacManus Prize and the 2024 John McGahern Award. His collection of short stories – To Avenge a Dead Glacier – has been described by the Irish Times as a ‘vital and visionary debut’.

Catriona Shine grew up in Ireland and now works as an architect in Oslo. She is a recipient of an Arts Council Literature Bursary Award 2023 and her writing has appeared in The Dublin Review, Channel, Southword and elsewhere. Her debut novel "Habitat" was positively reviewed in the Irish Independent, and Catriona Shine was listed as "one to watch" for 2024 by the Irish Times.

David Toms is an Irish writer living in Norway. He is the author of among others, Soma | Sema (2011), dikt / actions osl / ondon with Maren Nygård (2017), Northly (2019) and Pacemaker (2022). Awarded Arts Council of Ireland Literature Bursary Awards in 2021 and 2023, he was a Maddock Fellow at Marsh's Library, Dublin in 2024. He is a member of Den norske Forfatterforening. His most recent writing has appeared in Winter Papers, Enclave Review, aswirl, Banshee and Magma Poetry.

This event was made possible through the generous support of Culture Ireland and the Embassy Of Ireland in Oslo.