CICC School
8th-24th April 2025, Ambika P3, London
Part of Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes: The British East India Company on Trial, a project by Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal, commissioned by Serpentine Ecologies.
The CICC School programme is a series of talks, workshops, assemblies, screenings, guided walks, and performances designed to activate the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes: The British East India Company installation at Ambika P3 and across London and provide additional context for and examining the threads of research that connect intergenerational climate crimes to our present.
The CICC School deepens and expands knowledge of the intergenerational and colonial impacts of climate crimes perpetrated by corporations and states acting in concert since the era of the East India Company. Bringing together critical scholars, public intellectuals, activists, campaign groups, community organisations, students, artists, and others, the CICC School hosts a series of talks, workshops, screenings, performances and guided walks that activate the installation in Ambika P3 and shine light on the intergenerational and colonial nature of crimes against ecologies and communities, natures and cultures.
Schedule
All events are free and take place at Ambika P3 unless otherwise noted below.
Talk: Muzan Alneel, The war in Sudan, a people-centred perspective
Tuesday 8 April, 6-8pm
A talk by Muzan Alneel, a Sudanese writer and industrial policy researcher and CICC judge. This talk will explore the ongoing war in Sudan centering impacted civilians including a review of civilian survival and resistance actions. Book here
Study Group: On Planetary Health and Justice
Wednesday 9 April, 2-5pm
The Planetary Healing Reading Group presents a Study Day to assemble a performative glossary for planetary healing. In recent months, the Planetary Healing Reading Group have gathered texts to deepen their understanding of how planetary health relates to questions of justice. Through readings, objects, somatic exercises and other offerings, the Study Day will convene discussion of key terms relevant to practices of and possibilities for planetary healing, attending to the different ‘ecologies of knowledge’ and relations of power that impact health and environmental justice, with particular focus on inter-scalar and intersectional perspectives, and how the microbiome is a site of struggle for planetary health inextricably linked to social justice. Alongside key terms such as planetary health, microbiome, dysboisis, inflammation, metabolic rift, environmental racism, extractivism, slow violence, deep medicine, healing, ceremony and repair, we anticipate that other terms will emerge through the collective work. Book here
Talk: Ramón Vera Herrera, Territory as a place of encounter and meaning (the collective weaving of stories to recover ourselves as a common)
Wednesday 9 April, 6-8pm
Ramón Vera Herrera will speak about the movements of indigenous peoples in Mexico called “Movements in Defence of Territories”. The movements are ongoing struggles of alliances of different indigenous territories in Mexico. At a time when the word territory has become many things to many people, Ramón will argue that it is necessary to understand all the threads of historical relations that weave the meaning of the place where we live with our kin and our community. He will speak about the struggles of indigenous peoples to reclaim their own visions (based on tradition, history and contemporary practices), to reconstitute what dignifies them and vindicates their trail as peoples who have been disabled, who have been torn apart from their land-territory (life). Indigenous peoples have been disabled by forbidding strategies for subsistence. They have been robbed of their wisdom to solve, by their own means, what is most urgent and important to them. Indigenous peoples then resist by ceasing to judge themselves by the criteria, norms, standards and laws of those who oppress them. In such a context, narrative practices are our most significant tools to weave meaning, and encounters, together. Book here
Serpentine Cinema: The World’s Womb
Thursday 10 April, 7pm
This series of moving image works explore Caribbean ecologies, intricately linking decolonial and environmental discourses to underscore their inherent connections. Influenced by Malcolm Ferdinand’s Decolonial Ecology, which challenges the double fracture of modernity that separates environmental and colonial histories, these works illuminate the myriad complexities of the Plantationocene. The artists featured in this programme, Minia Biabiany, Ayeesha Hameed, Sofía Galliza Muriente, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, and Hope Strickland, engage with this double fracture, unravelling the fragmented, yet intimately intertwined, histories of the Caribbean and wider Atlantic. Book here
East India Company Walking Tour: St Paul’s Cathedral
Friday 11 April, 10:30am (meet at 10:20am for a prompt start)
Meeting point: St Paul’s Churchyard, EC4M 8AD
Recently, St Paul’s Cathedral delivered a community project in partnership with Stepney Community, where they engaged about a dozen diverse members of London’s diverse South Asian community to help reinterpret their East India Company monument. The tour will take participants to look at the monuments, tell the history of St Pauls and how the monuments were established there, and the achievements of the community project in telling an alternate story. Book here
Screening: Legend of the Loom, with Q&A with Saiful Islam
Friday 11 April, 6-8pm
Legend of the Loom is an insightful and educational documentary film about the cotton fabric muslin and its 2000 year history. In a complex and wide ranging study, the film recounts the production of the transparent and light cotton fabric which was woven from a unique plant, the Gossypium Arboreum Var.Neglecta, which grew only along the rivers of Bengal. The film goes on to discuss its wide ranging history with different experts and educates on how colonialism impacted the craft and had a part in its demise. Followed by a Q&A with writer and researcher Saiful Islam. Book here
Screening: Bengal Shadows, with Q&A with Joy Banerjee
Saturday 12 April, 6-8pm
This hard-hitting documentary brings to light a lesser-known episode of the Second World War – the 1943 famine, during which time several million people starved to death in Bengal. Today, numerous historians, researchers and writers, from both India and Britain, blame the British Empire for the famine that occurred whilst the subcontinent was under its rule. Some historians allege that Winston Churchill was accountable for the famine and even refer to it as a crime against humanity. The film gives a voice to historians, researchers and survivors, who were witness to these tragic events. Followed by a Q&A with Joy Banerjee. Book here
East India Company Dock Walking Tour by Dr Georgie Weymiss
Sunday 13 April, 11am – 1pm (meet at 10:50am for a prompt start)
Meeting point: East India DLR, Blackwall Way, E14 9QN
This fascinating walk will tell the story of the East India Company in the East India Dock area – the company’s imports and exports, lascar seamen, racism and invisibility of the Empire. Book here
An afternoon with Framer Framed
Sunday 13 April. Details and booking forthcoming
Long-term CICC partners Framer Framed present an afternoon of reflection and updates on the research from the original Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes, held in Amsterdam, which prosecuted the Dutch State, alongside corporate actors including ING and Unilever.
Talk: System of Systems talk with Nadine El-Enany
Tuesday 15 April, 6-8pm
System of Systems presents a talk focusing on the UK’s Rwanda Refugee Resettlement scheme. System of Systems is a multidisciplinary research project that analyses the bureaucratic, spatial and technological conditions that shape Europe’s migration landscape. Book here
Talk: Ingrid Pollard and Corinne Fowler, Colonial countryside: Empire, Country Houses and Landscape
Wednesday 16 April, 6-8pm
A discussion with Ingrid Pollard, artist, and Prof. Corinne Fowler, professor of Colonialism and Heritage at the University of Leicester. Book here
Workshop: CREAM Ecological Futurisms / Future Everything: Unsensed Rights of Nature
Thursday 17 April, 2-5pm
A day of talks, performances, screenings and workshops organized by CREAM’s Ecological Futurisms centre and Future Everything, focused on the rights of nature. Book here
Panel: Diamond Ashiagbor, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and Gitanjali Pyndiah, Indian Indenture: Histories, Continuities
Thursday 17 April, 6-8pm
How did the system of Indian indenture operate in the British Empire and what are its legacies today? Book here
Imagining Otherwise: Decolonial Study Group, with Christina Peake, Hope Strickland, Nadia Yahlom and Roshini Kempadoo
Tuesday 22 April, 6-8pm
The study group will develop ways to explore decolonial knowledge about climate activism aimed at encouraging researchers, artists and other communities to learn from each other as a collaborative exchange. The session aims to develop ways of sharing international geopolitical knowledge about the effects of climate crimes, through reading, writing, performing and discussing a range of experimental texts and audiovisual material. Book here
Workshop: How Did We Get Here? Zine Making with Incidental Unit
Wednesday 23 April, 2-5pm
Join us for a zine-making workshop. We will visualise the intended and incidental impact of developments in the liberal legal system, and how these have resulted in intergenerational injustice against natures and people around the world. Using collage we’ll create imaginative juxtapositions to reveal complexities and contradictions that are often difficult to grasp. Participants will research, reflect, make, discuss and share. Tea and cake will be served. No prior experience with zine making is required to participate! Book here
Book Launch: Decolonizing Knowledge
Thursday 24 April, 6-8pm
The launch of the upcoming anthology, edited by Radha D’Souza and Sunera Thobani, in which interdisciplinary scholars rethink strategies for moving contemporary decolonization politics forward by revisiting the writings of the mid-20th century anti-colonial movements’ leading intellectuals. More info here. Speakers: Andrew Higginbottom (Emeritus, Kingston University), Amanda Latimer (Kingston University), Tanroop Sandhu (Queen Mary). Editor: Radha D’Souza (Westminster University). Discussant: Roshini Kempadoo (Westminster University). Hosted by Law, Development and Conflict Research Group and CREAM, University of Westminster. Book here
Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC): The British East India Company on Trial
A project by Radha D’Souza and Jonas Staal
Commissioned and produced by Serpentine Ecologies
In partnership with Framer Framed, Amsterdam (long term partner), Law Development & Conflict Research Group, CREAM, Ambika P3, University of Westminster, Creative Scotland, Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and Create Ireland.
With special thanks to Mondriaan Fund and Jessica Sweidan
Curated and Produced by: Lucia Pietroiusti, Daisy Gould, Isobel Peyton-Jones, Serpentine, with Eva Speight
Research Assistants: Daniel Voskoboynik and Muhammed Ahmedullah
Coordinator and Producer, Studio Jonas Staal: Nadine Gouders
Architect: Paul Kuipers
Graphic design: Remco van Bladel
Photo and video documentation: Ruben Hamelink
Construction, Studio KunstWerk: Michael Klinkenberg and Niklas van Woerden
An Ecological Futurisms initiative at CREAM, Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, University of Westminster. Led by Neal White, Matthias Kispert, Roshini Kempadoo
Venue managers, Ambika P3: Niall Carter and Eleftherios Dimoulias
The inaugural edition of CICC (Amsterdam, 2021) was commissioned by Framer Framed, Amsterdam. The CICC – The Law on Trial (Seoul, 2022) was produced by Drifting Curriculum and Arts Council Korea (ARKO) and co-produced by Framer Framed, Amsterdam. The CICC – Extinction Wars (Gwangju, 2023) was co-commissioned by the Gwangju Biennale Pavilion Project and Framer Framed, Amsterdam, hosted by Gwangju Museum of Art in partnership with Arts Council Korea (ARKO), the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (Netherlands), Amsterdam Fund for the Arts (AfK), the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Korea, and the Mondriaan Fund.