In her early research stages for the play Een Groter Verhaal, Romana Vrede asked me if I knew Malcom Ferdinand’s book ‘Decolonial Ecology – Thinking from the Caribbean World’. I did. And, her question made me realize it had been a moment since I spent some quality time with Ferdinand’s thoughts. Reading “… but all’s not lost, gentlemen. We just have to try to get to the eye of the storm.” reminded me of these delicious moments of feeling at home in a work. The books’ prologue opens with this quote from Aimé Césaire’s ‘A Tempest’, a work that helped shape my early understandings of theatre. Soft as I am, I was immediately in. The work lived up to it, tho’! ‘Decolonial Ecology…’ offers a fresh mix of research, prose, poetry, science, philosophy, reimagination and relearnings. Needless to say it’ll be my honour and pleasure to interview Malcom Ferdinand about his work, inspiration and writing process on Wednesday November 11, from 20.45h-21.45h (Amsterdam/Paris time). Our conversation is part of Bureau Vergezicht’s “Een Groter Gesprek (A Bigger Conversation)” program.

The program will take place online, via ZOOM, and it’s free to join. To join, please sign up here so I can send you the English version of the confirmation e-mail. This will include the ZOOM info and the program schedule. For our conversation it’s absolutely not necessary to have read Ferdinand’s book or to have seen Een Groter Verhaal beforehand. Below, you’ll find Bureau Vergezicht’s original flyer.

Malcom Ferdinand
Hailing from Martinique, Ferdinand is a Paris based researcher, environmental engineer and doctor in political philosophy. His work focuses on ecology from a decolonial, Caribbean perspective.

About “Een Groter Gesprek”
For their “Een Groter Gesprek” series Bureau Vergezicht highlights the works that influenced Romana Vrede, Anouk Nuyens and Rebekka de Wit as they wrote the script for the play “Een Groter Verhaal (A Bigger Story). This solo performance by Romana Vrede is co-produced by Bureau Vergezicht and Theater Rotterdam. Een Groter Verhaal will be on tour throughout the Netherlands until December 16.