Cuts of pork at the butcher by Hattie Butler

Foraged foods by Hattie Butler

Fisherman landing his catch early in the morning Newlyn by Hattie Butler

Fishermen on a break at Newlyn fish market (taken by Hattie Butler)

Panel listens to an audience member’s point (taken by Orianna Xu).   Pictured from left to right: Professor Paul Young, Dr Virginia Thomas, Joshua Jarvis-Campbell, Dr Ray Chan, and Dr Ina Linge. 



Panel listens to an audience member’s point by Orianna Xu

Telling Stories - Climate Action

Telling Stories - Reduced Inequalities

Cornish flag flown at protest in St Ives by Hattie Butler

Grilling pork belly at a Korean Restaurant by Orianna Xu

Italian catholic church by Hattie Butler

mediterranean views 2 by Hattie butler

Film photo of Hendra beach in Cornwall (taken by Hattie Butler)


Hendra beach hero image by Hattie Butler 

Telling Stories - Biodiversity

mediterranean views by Hattie butler

Washed-up sprats taken by Hattie Butler

Illustration by Laura Miles-Boardman.  Image ©Laura Miles-Boardman

Telling Stories - Life on Land

Lower Manhattan Street near parade film site by Orianna Xu

Bait panel discussion by Orianna Xu

Images: 'Permafrost Research Tunnel', 1919 ©Tara Nicholson, 'Asylum 2', 2020 ©Corinna Wagner

Wicked problems hero image - tara nicholson and corinna wagner

Photo: Panel deep in discussion (taken by Orianna Xu).     

Pictured from left to right: Professor Danielle Hipkins, Dr Kerry Ann Brown, Dr Virginia Thomas,  Dr Ina Linge and Professor Paul Young

Panel dicussion Lazzaro felice - hero image by Hattie Butler

*Lazzaro Felice* opens in the idyllic Inviolata, a fictional village that roughly translates to unharmed, where a group of tobacco farm workers are trapped in a sharecropping agreement with the Marchioness de Luna, the Queen of the Cigarettes. Sharecropping is an arrangement wherein tenant farmers give a share of their crops to landowners in exchange for the right to farm the land. 

Although contracts can theoretically be fair, the power imbalance between landowners and sharecroppers compounded with fluctuating harvests means that in practice, sharecropping can become akin to feudalism. The film accentuates sharecropping’s exploitative tendency by setting the story in the 1990s, decades after sharecropping was banned in Italy. Denied education and mobility, however, the workers remain unaware that sharecropping is illegal, continuing to farm the land in an exploitative cycle of repaying “debt”. 

Photo: *Mediterranean View* by Hattie Butler

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__________________________________________________

## About Hattie Butler (she/her)
In addition to the *Telling Stories* internship, I am in the first year of a part-time MSc in Sustainable Development on the University of Exeter, Penryn Campus. I am also a research assistant for a project with the politics department in Penryn. The ongoing research focuses on the housing crisis in the UK, particularly looking into the growing number of people living in vans in Cornwall and nationwide. My interests are interdisciplinary, currently examining food systems and sustainable agriculture in my masters, as well as climate justice, humanities, and the arts, during my undergraduate studies in Environmental Science and History. Further information can be found on my [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/hattie-butler-8592291b0/) profile. 

## About Orianna Xu (she/her)
I am a student in the MA Cultures and Environments of Health Programme based at the University of Exeter's Streatham Campus. Broadly speaking, I am interested in the medical and environmental humanities and science studies, particularly the intersection of health, the arts and public discourse in driving social change, so being a part of the Telling Stories project has been really exciting for me. My extracurricular activities include searching for campus cat, dancing with Legion Society and writing for Exeposé, the University of Exeter's student-run newspaper. Click [here](https://exepose.com/author/oxu/) to read my Exeposé Online articles. 

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## *Narrating Biodiversity* featured talks by [Professor John Clarke](https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/clarke/) and [Dr Katharine Earnshaw](https://classics.exeter.ac.uk/staff/earnshaw/), with [Professor Tim Lenton](https://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/?web_id=Timothy_Lenton) as respondent.

## Illustration by Laura Miles-Boardman, 2023.

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Della Fontana (2022) argues that environmental humanities must imagine other stories, and Lazzaro Felice certainly rises to the occasion, incorporating documentary, fairy-tale, folk and religious elements. This mixture not only enables the film to depict different kinds of relationships between people and nature but also sets up narrative expectations to subvert them. 

Like Cinderella, Lazzaro worked day in and day out without complaining, harvesting crops and performing chores under orders from the estate manager and his fellow farmhands. In the classic fairytale, Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters are the villains; while the Marchioness de Luna assumes this role in Lazzaro Felice, the prevailing metaphorical villain is exploitation, an enemy that evades defeat by evolving. Elements of magical realism, a style that blurs the boundaries between fantasy and reality without explanation, also come into play. The film first introduces supernatural elements when the workers whistle up a storm to scare the Marchesa’s family, and later on, the wolf feared by the sharecroppers plays a pivotal role. 

Photo: *Italian Catholic church* by Hattie Butler


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An exhibition of photographs by Tara Nicholson and Corinna Wagner, which witnesses the complex obstacles caused by environmental destruction and urges us to recalibrate our activity on this planet.

Wicked Problems: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda-Setting

When they succeed in throwing the celebration into chaos, control of the corporation passes from Lucy to her twin sister Nancy, who views Okja as nothing more than an opportunity for financial gain. With her sunglasses, cropped hair, and practical outfits, Nancy embodies capitalist production in stark contrast to the naive and infantile Lucy, with her bright pink clothing and mouth full of braces, who represents greenwashing and corporate camouflage; Lucy’s tactics can be seen in action during Mirando’s parade in New York through the parade walkers’ pig costumes, giant super pig balloon, and custom pink hanboks worn by herself and Mija (Gunawan, 2018; Angierski, 2021). 

Ultimately, Mija negotiates with Nancy, trading the gold pig for Okja, an exchange that emphasises Okja’s powerlessness and commodification. As they leave the slaughterhouse, a baby super pig is pushed under the fence by its parents and escapes in Okja’s mouth in a final act of resistance that challenges the perception of farm animals as docile, unintelligent creatures that are oblivious to their fate.

Photo: *Lower Manhattan Street near parade film site* by Orianna Xu

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## Community
Speaking of which, who is part of a community? In Bait, community is seen in who laughs at and with whom and in circuits of exchange; for instance, Martin leaves fish on his neighbours’ door on a daily basis. The film never shows us the origins of this gesture, or any of his relationships for that matter, depicting community as an organic, unremarkable habit. Can newcomers ever become part of the community? What about the tourists that leave seasonally and are not charged with council tax? Freya Cohen recalled that upon moving to Cornwall, she was asked, “are you going to try to change Cornwall, or is Cornwall going to change you?”


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*Cuts of pork at the butcher* by Hattie Butler

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## This little piggy went to market
Cutting deeper into the film, Dr Chan highlighted the views of those that work in animal farming, referencing Alex Blanchette’s Porkopolis, which explores the relationship between animals and workers. Mija’s grandfather, a seasoned farmer, bluntly describes Okja’s fate in cuts of meat, exemplifying a human gaze that visually dissects and judges animals based on the quality of their meat. 

Nancy makes a similar statement later in the film: “Blade shoulder! Loin! Spare rib! Hock! Got it? This is what will happen to her. This is Okja’s fate!” Expressed by two contrasting characters, these lines reflect the widespread argument that we should eat animals that were brought into existence by “fate”, but is an existence for (and cut short by) slaughter worthwhile? 

The way meat is sliced and packaged commodifies animals, while plastering images of farms and animals on these products promotes a false pastoral narrative, simultaneously dissociating the consumer from the animal and depicting animals as happy. Even if animals were happy to be farmed, would it sit right with people? Take Douglas Adams’ crude “cow that wants to be eaten” scene in the book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, for example, which satirically eliminates the intermediary in the meat consumption chain. During the scene, restaurant-goers “meet the meat'' where the talking creature advertises their range of cuts and even potential recipes, later to shockingly assert, “I’ll just nip off and shoot myself”. These discussions critique the meat industry’s dual strategy of emphasising the happiness of animals whilst objectifying them, playing into the argument that perhaps those who wish to consume meat should be willing to kill and prepare the animal themselves. 

In one of the final scenes, the film briefly shows the people killing and preparing animals. Spanish-speaking workers covered in blood allude to the young, male, Hispanic, immigrant majority of the slaughterhouse workforce in the USA (Angierski, 2021). One worker hesitates when Mija presents a childhood photo of her with Okja. Like the worker, filmgoers cannot help but be affected by Mija and Okja’s friendship, perhaps recalling their pets. More broadly, Director Bong’s decision to use a fictional animal allows the inclusion of disturbing lab and slaughterhouse scenes in a film for younger audiences and enables Okja to encapsulate all the ways humans relate to and treat animals. 


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Resembling a giant hippo or manatee, Okja is an entirely computer generated character with extremely emotive eyes and puppy-like mannerisms. But why is Okja a super pig and not a super cow? After all, cows produce more harmful greenhouse gases and could make a more cutting environmental argument for the film. 

In Korea, pigs hold a multitude of meanings, namely wealth, since only the rich could afford to eat them in the past; pigs also symbolise fertility and are a sacred part of rituals (Seung-Hye, 2018). In the film, Mija’s grandfather gives her a gold pig, traditionally gifted to brides, to replace Okja, drawing from these meanings. Similar to Okja’s role on the farm, pigs were once considered helpful companions. Today, pork is one of the most popular meats in Korea, shown in the film through a barbeque restaurant poster in the subway sequence. 

Okja, a gentle giant, is shy around strangers but affectionate towards Mija, who whispers secrets in Okja’s ear that even film viewers are not privy to.
Intelligent, altruistic, and selflessly loyal, Okja heroically saves Mija from a near-fatal fall, winning over the audience within minutes, whether they eat meat or not. But to Lucy Mirando, Okja is the prize winner of her super pig competition and Mija, her token mascot, in a public relations move intended to improve Mirando’s corporate image and cover up the true genetically modified origins of the super pigs. The Animal Liberation Front (ALF) also plans to use Okja to alter Mirando’s image, but in the opposite direction. By attaching a hidden camera to Okja’s surveillance technology, ALF members hope to expose Mirando’s unethical animal experimentation at the competition’s closing ceremony and turn public opinion against the corporation, whilst using Mija as a mole. 

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## About Hattie Butler (she/her)
In addition to the *Telling Stories* internship, I am in the first year of a part-time MSc in Sustainable Development on the University of Exeter, Penryn Campus. I am also a research assistant for a project with the politics department in Penryn. The ongoing research focuses on the housing crisis in the UK, particularly looking into the growing number of people living in vans in Cornwall and nationwide. My interests are interdisciplinary, currently examining food systems and sustainable agriculture in my masters, as well as climate justice, humanities, and the arts, during my undergraduate studies in Environmental Science and History. Further information can be found on my [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/hattie-butler-8592291b0/) profile. 

## About Orianna Xu (she/her)
I am a student in the MA Cultures and Environments of Health Programme based at the University of Exeter's Streatham Campus. Broadly speaking, I am interested in the medical and environmental humanities and science studies, particularly the intersection of health, the arts and public discourse in driving social change, so being a part of the Telling Stories project has been really exciting for me. My extracurricular activities include searching for campus cat, dancing with Legion Society and writing for Exeposé, the University of Exeter's student-run newspaper. Click [here](https://exepose.com/author/oxu/) to read my Exeposé Online articles. 

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Commonly found in fables and folklore, wolves can hold many meanings, from the tricky predator in Little Red Riding Hood to the nurturing she-wolf in the myth of Remus and Romulus. Due to their perceived threat, wolves have historically been hunted to extinction in many countries. Likewise, the sharecroppers are constantly on their guard against the wolf, which, as an audience member observed, distracts them from the Marchioness’s lies. Later, the wolf forms a mysterious bond with Lazzaro; in the first act, Lazzaro partially embodies the wolf when he shelters in a cave and howls with Tancredi, and after a feverish Lazzaro takes a fatal fall, the wolf resurrects him for being a good man. But is Lazzaro a good man or a stupid one? Or are the two one and the same? 

Angeli (2020) equates Lazzaro with the ‘holy fool’, a simple, child-like figure that fails to adhere to social expectations and conventional behaviour. Lazzaro’s resurrection and journey back to his adoptive family can be seen as a saint-like effort to save them from modern society. Indeed, the film suggests that religion does not reside within modern institutions when nuns expel the former sharecroppers from a church and the organ music leaves with them. We perpetually pity Lazzaro, as his child-like qualities meet the harsh realities of life. In the end, he does not die a martyr but over a misunderstanding; when Lazzaro goes to the bank to convince them to return Tancredi’s money, the slingshot gifted to him by Tancredi gets mistaken for a gun, leading the bank’s customers to beat him to death. Another instance of mistaken enemies, the working class individuals fight amongst one another instead of addressing the larger system of exploitation and injustice, capitalism. 

There is no happily ever after or second coming, and in the film’s final shots, the wolf runs through the city’s streets. Is the wolf a spirit returning to Inviolata or a physical animal in danger? Just as we can never truly know and understand nature, we cannot fully grasp the wolf’s meaning in the film. As expressed by Dr Thomas, we worry for the wolf, whose habitat has been encroached upon, and Professor Hipkins’s note about the recent campaign to reintroduce wolves in Italy adds another layer of meaning. As evident in the panel discussion, the film evoked an emotional response from the audience, demonstrating ecocinema’s potential to inspire environmental activism through creative storytelling. 

The second Sustainability on Screen event diversified our discussions and conceptions of sustainability. What started off as a seemingly straightforward historical fiction film unfurled into a complex critique of modernisation, urbanisation, capitalism, and the exploitative forces these phenomena foster at the ultimate expense of the working class. Through innovative storytelling, Lazzaro Felice led us through issues of social, economic, and environmental inequality.  Specifically, the kaleidoscopic lens of ecocinema borrows from various storytelling traditions to blur the boundary between human and non-human, eliciting emotive responses to inspire change and challenge contemporary problems.

Click [here](https://www.artsandcultureexeter.co.uk/news/bait) if you missed our last post on Bait (2019) and [here](https://www.artsandcultureexeter.co.uk/news/okja) to read about our last screening of Okja (2017). 

__*Hattie Butler and Orianna Xu*__

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On the 1st of December 2023, the *Sustainability on Screen* film series at Exeter Phoenix kicked off with a screening of [Bait (2019)](https://www.the-bigger-picture.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/BAIT-Marketing-Pack-2.pdf), a BAFTA-winning British drama film, followed by a moderated panel discussion. Bait follows the turbulent interactions between locals and tourists in a rural Cornish fishing village, interactions that are shaped and coloured by wicked problems. 

A wicked problem, originally defined by design theorist Horst Rittel, is one that evades definition (Rittel, 1973). Unlike a maths equation, many social policy problems do not have an obvious solution or sign that the issue has been solved. In Bait, threats to the fishing industry and housing crises are knots that characters must navigate, coupled with interlinking sustainability issues in a vast net of wicked problems. Starting at the end, Bait baits viewers, luring them into its world with “after” shots of a three-person crew on board a small boat. After what? Is this a happy ending? As the film reverts to the “before”, we begin piecing together the clues, entangled in its net of relationships before we know it. 


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## The Emmets 
What would sustainability look like in fishing communities? A return to a reliance on fishing or further dependence on tourism? With declining fish stocks and warming seas, the latter is no longer possible. Tourism supports communities in different ways, providing new jobs and sources of income, albeit in ways that do not necessarily “trickle down” to local, poorer sections of society. 

In a charged scene, Sandra, the matron of the Leigh family, argues that Martin “didn’t have to sell us this house”, to which Martin tersely replies, “Didn’t we?”. Sandra clearly does not understand the economic hardships of working within the declining small-scale fishing industry. Just as the Leighs assume that Martin had economic choice in selling his home, Martin assumes the same of his brother Steven’s choice to repurpose a fishing boat as a party boat for tourists.       


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*Sustainability on Screen* is a film series based at Exeter Phoenix. It is part of the project *Telling Stories: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda-Setting*, which explores how humanities research can engage with the opportunities and challenges posed by planetary agendas. We are particularly interested in investigating the significance of story-telling to agenda-setting, both because stories serve to naturalise certain ways of thinking about and acting in the world, and because they can invite and inspire meaningful social and cultural engagement and action.

The film series is organised by [Dr Ina Linge](https://modernlanguages.exeter.ac.uk/staff/klinge/), [Dr Virginia Thomas](https://sociology.exeter.ac.uk/staff/thomasv/) and [Professor Paul Young](https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/young) and is part of a collaborative project between the University of Exeter and the University of British Columbia supported by a UBC Okanagan-Exeter Excellence Catalyst Grant and the [Exeter Animal Studies Reading Group](https://exeteranimalstudiesreadinggroup.wordpress.com/). 

__Orianna Xu and Hattie Butler were drawn to this project due to their interests in environmental humanities and interdisciplinary discourses. They have created three blog posts to illustrate the vast potential for storytelling to communicate planetary agendas.__

__In this blog, Hattie Butler and Orianna Xu review the second screening in the *sustainability on Screen* series; the film *Lazzaro Felice*__.
______________________________________


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As explained by Dr Chaigneau, Bait also portrays poverty traps, a very real issue in Cornish fishing communities, in which declining income reduces investment in fishing infrastructure. Of course, neglected infrastructure loops back to income in a vicious cycle, threatening the future of not only the industry but also the livelihoods and wellbeing of these communities. 

How do we break these destructive cycles? Wicked problems have “no definitive formulation” (Rittel, 1973) and can be symptoms of other problems, resulting in a host of explanations and proposed solutions. 

In this case, low fishing yield can be linked to high-level issues like climate change and industrialised fishing in addition to mid-level and individual factors, not to mention the can of worms that is the housing crisis. Since “the process of formulating the problem and of conceiving a solution…are identical” (ibid), another way of pinning down the problem is looking at how we discuss solutions, which often focus on sustainability. 

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_________________________________________________________________

## Citations:
Angeli, S., 2020. From the margins: Alice Rohrwacher’s liminal adolescents. Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies, 8(3), pp.339-356.

Della Fontana, L., 2022. Analogue Film, Ghostly Ontologies and Fairy-tale in Bella e perduta and Lazzaro felice. Between, 12 (24), pp. 203-223.

Di Bianco, L., 2020. Ecocinema Ars et Praxis: Alice Rohrwacher's Lazzaro Felice. The Italianist, 40 (2), pp.151-164.


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## Of meat and men…and women
Notably, Okja is the first film in the Sustainability on Screen series with a female protagonist. While Mija’s grandfather wishes to see her married to a respectable husband, her rebellious behaviour symbolises the non-traditional roles of contemporary women, according to Uzuner (2017). In the metro scene, Mija’s red tracksuit stands out in a sea of dark clothing, especially when she quite literally refuses to go with the flow of the crowd and turns in the opposite direction to find Okja. Similarly, the only female member of the ALF, appropriately named Red, has the most visceral reaction to the footage of Okja’s rape scene, digging her nails into her hand and drawing blood. Angierski (2021) draws a connection between sexual violence against farmed animals and sexual violence against human women, with both objectifying and reducing body parts for consumption. During the horrific mating scene, Dr Wilcox, the ostentatious has-been celebrity scientist, admits that his motivation for mistreating Okja was Lucy insulting him, asserting that “when a woman humiliates a man in front of his own colleagues, a man is inclined to make his own decisions!” His statement and subsequent actions exemplify the interconnectedness of oppression across species and highlight the patriarchal connotations of human-animal relations, which aligns with feminist-vegan studies. 

Despite parallels between the treatment of women and animals, humans still rank higher. During the climatic parade scene, Okja reunites with Mija, but in her drugged state, Okja tries to attack her best friend. Jay, the leader of the ALF, intervenes, nearly striking Okja before Mija stops him, demonstrating that even after dedicating his whole life to protecting animals, humans prevail as the most important species. Here, we see Okja transition from beloved companion to object of violence. Yet, not all animals are equal, and the film questions how humans distinguish between animals that can be eaten and those that are either too beloved or too disgusting for consumption. Within a Western hierarchy of human anthropocentrism, animals that express a supposedly higher propensity for human emotions, such as dogs, cannot be eaten. Meanwhile, pigs and chickens are considered unintelligent, but not as off-putting as insects, and therefore palatable. These categories are reinforced by language. Whilst extracting meat samples from Okja, Dr Wilcox fumbles, saying, “[this device is] used on beef. I mean, live cows.” Employing particular words, meat instead of flesh, veal rather than baby cow, and pork not pig, erects mental barriers, making animals easier for people to stomach.


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Grilling pork belly at a Korean Restaurant by Orianna Xu 

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___________________________________________________

## Citations:
Bait (2023) IMDb. IMDb.com. Available at: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9652782/?ref_=tt_mv_close](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9652782/?ref_=tt_mv_close) (Accessed: April 27, 2023). 

Pick, A., 2018. Vegan Cinema. Thinking Veganism in Literature and Culture: Towards a Vegan Theory, pp.125-146.

Rittel, H.W. and Webber, M.M., 1973. Dilemmas in a general theory of planning. Policy sciences, 4(2), pp.155-169.


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Image above: Panel deep in discussion (taken by Orianna Xu).     

Pictured from left to right: [Professor Paul Young](https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/young/), [Dr Tomas Chaigneau](https://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Tomas_Chaigneau),[ Dr Benedict Morrison](https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/bmorrison/research/), Freya Cohen from the[ Cornwall Rural Community Charity](https://cornwallrcc.org.uk/), [Dr Ina Linge](https://modernlanguages.exeter.ac.uk/staff/klinge/), and [Dr Matt Fortnam](https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/esi/people/profile/index.php?web_id=matt_fortnam) .

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## Fish are Friends and Food?
What is sustainability? What exactly are we sustaining and on whose terms?   Some argue that if everyone fished in small batches like Martin, the industry would be sustainable. Others condemn any and all exploitation of fish. Like other wicked problems, “there are no true or false answers” to vegan abolitionism and sustainable fishing (Rittel, 1973), but despite their differences, the panel did take an anti-industrialised fishing stance. For its part, the film ends with the beginning of a fishing voyage, and the audience is left to imagine Martin’s fishing career flourishing or floundering


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Diving deeper into the film’s untold stories, Bait is a primarily anthropocentric, “fishy film”. Dr Morrison argued that the dying fish functioned as a metaphor for a dying industry, referencing Anat Pick’s concept of vegan cinema. Not necessarily about veganism in films or arguments around veganism, vegan cinema “[acknowledges] the reality and parity of beings and things, beyond the voracious observer’s devouring gaze” (Pick, 2018), the antithesis of anthropocentrism. In contrast, an audience member shared that they felt the pain of the dying fish, perceiving these creatures not just as props but as characters. 

As a species that is not cute or cuddly, we often neglect the suffering of fish, as seen in the photo of washed-up sprats. While the panel agreed that the film respected fish by leaving violence beyond the frame, there was disagreement on whether Bait envisioned a more-than-human world. Just as there is no correct answer to a wicked problem, there is no correct interpretation of art. By directing our gaze and eliciting emotional responses, however, Bait can illuminate, challenge, and expand our solutions to wicked problems, and in discussing them, we can rethink and at least partially reconcile them. 

*Photo: Washed-up sprats (taken by Hattie Butler)*


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Climate and Environment

*Sustainability on Screen* is a film series based at Exeter Phoenix. It is part of the project *Telling Stories: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda-Setting*, which explores how humanities research can engage with the opportunities and challenges posed by planetary agendas. We are particularly interested in investigating the significance of story-telling to agenda-setting, both because stories serve to naturalise certain ways of thinking about and acting in the world, and because they can invite and inspire meaningful social and cultural engagement and action.

The film series is organised by [Dr Ina Linge](https://modernlanguages.exeter.ac.uk/staff/klinge/), [Dr Virginia Thomas](https://sociology.exeter.ac.uk/staff/thomasv/) and [Professor Paul Young](https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/young) and is part of a collaborative project between the University of Exeter and the University of British Columbia supported by a UBC Okanagan-Exeter Excellence Catalyst Grant and the [Exeter Animal Studies Reading Group](https://exeteranimalstudiesreadinggroup.wordpress.com/). 

__Orianna Xu and Hattie Butler were drawn to this project due to their interests in environmental humanities and interdisciplinary discourses. They have created three blog posts to illustrate the vast potential for storytelling to communicate planetary agendas.__

__In this blog, Hattie Butler and Orianna Xu review the final screening in the *sustainability on Screen* series; the film *Okja*__.
______________________________________


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## *Narrating Reduced Inequalities* featured talks by [Professor Stacey Hynd](https://history.exeter.ac.uk/staff/hynd/) and Dr[ Katie Natanel](https://arabislamicstudies.exeter.ac.uk/staff/natanel/), with [Professor William Gallois](https://arabislamicstudies.exeter.ac.uk/staff/gallois/) as respondent

## Illustration by Laura Miles-Boardman, 2023.

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____________________________________________________________________

## Citations

Angierski, K., 2021. Agribusiness Ecohorror in Bong Joon-ho’s Okja. Fear and Nature: Ecohorror Studies in the Anthropocene, 8, p.217.

Gunawan, M., 2018. Navigating human and non-human animal relations: Okja, Foucault and animal welfare laws. Alternative Law Journal, 43(4), pp.263-268.

Uzuner, N., 2021. Bong Joon Ho, Okja (2017): Wounding the Feelings. Markets, Globalization & Development Review, 5(2).

Seung-Hye, Yim (2018) A history of pigs that's bigger than pork: Korea's porcine friends have long represented fortune and prosperity, Korea joongAng Daily. Available at: [https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2018/12/26/koreanHeritage/A-history-of-pigs-thats-bigger-than-pork-Koreas-porcine-friends-have-long-represented-fortune-and-prosperity/3057381.html](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2018/12/26/koreanHeritage/A-history-of-pigs-thats-bigger-than-pork-Koreas-porcine-friends-have-long-represented-fortune-and-prosperity/3057381.html) (Accessed: April 21, 2023).


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The first event in the Sustainability on Screen series rightly unsettled the idea of sustainability. While everyone saw a turn away from industrialised fishing as a step towards sustainability, some approved of Martin’s small-scale fishing, and others denounced fishing in the name of ethical consumption. Bait also challenges us to consider sustainable communities and relationships, reminding audiences that downstream from policies are real people with inherited beliefs and traditions, dealing with difficult decisions in ever-shifting land and seascapes. The film, coupled with the panel discussion, fleshed out issues of sustainability in a rural social context, whilst tendering possible solutions to these vastly wicked problems.

__*Hattie Butler and Orianna Xu*__
____________________________________________________________


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But none of the tourists in Bait successfully become community members, and the two groups are almost always at odds. Granted, Sandra Leigh defends the fishermen from an early morning noise complaint made by her B&B customers and puts money in Martin’s boat fund unbeknownst to him when he is out. Whilst these actions may be reconciliatory in her eyes, the negatives of her family’s presence outweigh the positives, and her latter action can be seen as a one-off, offensive act of charity and invasion meant to alleviate her own guilt.

In an increasingly globalised world with high levels of mobility, the global community is brought to question in the debate of who belongs and how to belong. 

*Photo: Cornish flag flown at a community protest in St Ives (taken by Hattie Butler)*


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# Telling Stories: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda Setting
What is the role of storytelling in planetary agenda setting? In May 2023, [Dr Ina Linge](https://modernlanguages.exeter.ac.uk/staff/klinge/) and [Professor Paul Young](https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/young/) organised a symposium to bring together academics from across the University of Exeter to address the importance of humanities research in addressing problems of a global scale. 

They commissioned illustrator and visual communicator [Laura Miles-Boardman](https://www.thecreativebloc.co.uk/) to create an illustrated summary of each panel discussion. You can find them below – we hope you enjoy them.

The event in Exeter was followed by a symposium and workshop organised by project partner [Professor Jodey Castricano](https://fccs.ok.ubc.ca/about/contact/jodey-castricano/) (University of British Columbia), which took place in July 2023 in Kelowna, British Columbia, on the Unceded Territory of the Syilx People of the Okanagan Nation. 

Both events were part of a larger public-facing collaborative initiative between the University of British Columbia (Okanagan campus, Canada) and the University of Exeter, which aims to include Arts/Humanities in local and planetary agenda setting with respect to ongoing climate crises, rather than situating them as contextual “add-ons” to the concerns of the scientific community.
# Find out more about the project
Do you want to find out more about the project and its activities? You can find our online exhibition [Wicked Problems](https://www.artsandcultureexeter.co.uk/online-exhibitions/wicked-problems-the-humanities-in-an-age-of-planetary-agenda-setting) here. Project interns Hattie Butler and Orianna Xu documented our film series Sustainability on Screen, which took place at Exeter Phoenix in 2022, in three blog posts, which you can find [here](https://www.artsandcultureexeter.co.uk/news/bait), [here](https://www.artsandcultureexeter.co.uk/news/lazzaro-felice) and [here](https://www.artsandcultureexeter.co.uk/news/okja). 
# Want to get involved?
Join our [animal studies reading group](https://exeteranimalstudiesreadinggroup.wordpress.com/) at Exeter and check out our partners at UBCO and their [Post-Anthropocentrism and Critical Animal Studies Research Group](https://blogs.ubc.ca/criticalanimalstudies/).


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## “you can’t eat beauty”
Sharing her research on food systems in India, Dr Brown recalled complimenting a view, to which a woman indifferently replied, “you can’t eat beauty”, resonating with the previous Sustainability on Screen film Bait’s slogan, “the view may be beautiful, but you can’t eat it”. Across locations and circumstances, beautiful landscapes, admired and romanticised by visitors, belie the daily struggles experienced by residents. While Italy is often perceived as a land overflowing with olive oil, a scene in the second act shatters this bucolic vision; one of the former sharecroppers asks for a drop of plastic bottled oil to season his meal, reflecting capitalism’s commodification of basic food stuff. 

The squatters also eat packaged crisps arranged on paper plates, which exemplifies capitalism’s normalisation of waste and throw-away society. As Professor Hipkins and Dr Brown discussed, the contrast between the crisps and home-grown potatoes in the film demonstrates ultra-processed food replacing fresh produce in modern diets. Although Lazzaro teaches the people how to forage around the encampment, restoring their connection with the land, the older members refuse to pick produce in order to distance themselves from their sharecropping past. Standing before a plastic olive tree rather than amidst the olive trees of Inviolata, Lazzaro’s final scene is striking; despite the injustices the people experienced at Inviolata, modern urbanisation brings a different set of hardships, with only a poor imitation of the natural landscape they once called home.


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The film draws an overt parallel between sharecropper and migrant labour when Lazzaro comes across Nicola, the Marchesa’s former overseer, auctioning off labour-intensive jobs to migrants at lower and lower wages. Meanwhile, the former sharecroppers are squatting near busy railways and selling the Marchesa’s stolen valuables for money. 

During the panel discussion, Dr Brown spoke of the family’s migration from the rural to urban area as commentary on the contemporary pressures to modernise and urbanise. Released from sharecropping slavery, the supposedly free farm workers endure a plethora of new hardships in a capitalist city with so little hope of resolution that they dream of returning to Inviolata. 

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## *Narrating Life on Land* featured talks by [Ada Cheong](https://eprofile.exeter.ac.uk/adacheong/?section=2) and [Professor Paul Young](https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/young/), with [Professor Jo Bowtell](https://sshs.exeter.ac.uk/staff/profile/index.php?web_id=Joanna_Bowtell) as respondent.   

## Illustration by Laura Miles-Boardman, 2023.


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While the film is firmly opposed to the globalised meat industry, it also pokes fun at the ALF’s extremity. ALF member Silver is always on the verge of passing out, refusing to consume unethically produced foods, and member K purposely mistranslates Mija’s wish to return Okja to the mountains for the sake of ALF’s mission. Villainising intensive animal farming but mocking the overly ideological, the film does not provide a definitive answer or consider modifying diet to reduce meat consumption. As an audience member pointed out, the public’s eating habits are only briefly touched upon in the film; the taste testers and celebration-goers applaud the super pigs, and Nancy claims that people will buy the meat if it is cheap, dismissing the PR debacle. 

Mija and her grandfather present a middle ground. Although they consume the chickens that roam free on their land and fish from the nearby river, Mija releases surplus fish back into the water, and the animals are not abused or even farmed. Significantly, Mija’s grandfather asserts his successful technique for growing Okja was to simply “let her run around” (Angierski, 2021). In these ways, Okja portrays sustainability as consuming locally, responsibly, and ethically. But can we feed the world’s growing population with happy farms and foraged foods? Drawing from his PhD research, Josh Jarvis-Campbell discussed two paths where consuming meat might be ethically permissible: if the animals have good lives or if humans need to consume meat. These two paths appear in the film through Okja’s life in the mountains and the context of global hunger in Lucy’s speech respectively.  


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Continuing with the *Sustainability on Screen* film series, *Lazzaro Felice*(2018), or *Happy as Lazzaro*, was screened on the 8th of December 2023 at Exeter Phoenix followed by a short panel discussion. The Italian film follows Lazzaro, a quiet, happy-go-lucky boy, in a tale with twists and turns that won director Alice Rohrwacher Best Screenplay at the world-renowned Cannes Film Festival.  In the first act, Lazzaro works without complaint amongst his family of sharecroppers, and after a mystical interlude, the second act resurrects Lazzaro years later, where he navigates city life in a fish-out-of-water story. Woven throughout the film are themes of exploitation, food poverty, and religion, utilising the genre of magic realism and the lens of ecocinema to cleverly and compellingly depict social justice issues.	

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## Ecocinema and Magic Realism 
So how does *Lazzaro Felice* promote sustainability in its storytelling? Di Bianco (2020) positions the film within the genre of ecocinema, a form used by a growing number of Italian filmmakers that focuses on the relationship between humans, non-humans, and the environment. The film further aligns with Italian neorealism, a cinematic movement that emerged in 1945 to depict more realistic human and social conditions. 

Italian studies Professor Hipkins contextualised the film with the flight from the countryside in the 1950’s and 1960’s that drastically decreased the number of agricultural workers. Rather than admitting her need for labour, the Marchesa rationalises the deception to her son Tancredi by claiming that “Human beings are like animals…Set them free and they realise they are slaves locked in their own misery. Right now, they suffer, but they don’t know. I exploit them, they exploit that poor man [Lazzaro]. It’s a chain reaction. It can’t be stopped”. 

In response, Tancredi asserts that Lazzaro breaks this chain, as Lazzaro happily carries out the least desirable tasks. After the police discover Inviolata and put an end to the operation, we might expect the chain to be broken, but the shackles of exploitation persist throughout the second act. 

Photo: *Mediterranean View (2)* by Hattie Butler

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## “The view may be beautiful, but you can’t eat it”
Every morning, protagonist Martin Ward carefully casts his fishing nets by hand, saving up money to buy a fishing boat. Freya Cohen, a panellist with close connections to fishing communities, affirmed the centrality of this concern; increased regulation of the fishing industry ushers in improvement and licensing costs. Compounded by the cost-of-living and housing crises, more and more are forced to decommission their boats, or even transition into touring boats for visitors, like Martin’s brother Steven. Whilst fishing, Martin routinely clashes with the Leigh family over beachfront parking. Tension underlies these tiffs, in part because the Leighs purchased Martin’s family home and converted it into a kitschy Bed and Breakfast, exemplifying the trend of second homeowners and Airbnbers forcing locals inland. In contrast with Cornwall’s exquisite beauty, as seen in the beach photograph, socio-economic and interpersonal hardships abound, thus the film’s tagline, “the view may be beautiful, but you can’t eat it”.  

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*Sustainability on Screen* is a film series based at Exeter Phoenix. It is part of the project *Telling Stories: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda-Setting*, which explores how humanities research can engage with the opportunities and challenges posed by planetary agendas. We are particularly interested in investigating the significance of story-telling to agenda-setting, both because stories serve to naturalise certain ways of thinking about and acting in the world, and because they can invite and inspire meaningful social and cultural engagement and action.

The film series is organised by [Dr Ina Linge](https://modernlanguages.exeter.ac.uk/staff/klinge/), [Dr Virginia Thomas](https://sociology.exeter.ac.uk/staff/thomasv/) and [Professor Paul Young](https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/young) and is part of a collaborative project between the University of Exeter and the University of British Columbia supported by a UBC Okanagan-Exeter Excellence Catalyst Grant and the [Exeter Animal Studies Reading Group](https://exeteranimalstudiesreadinggroup.wordpress.com/).

__Orianna Xu and Hattie Butler were drawn to this project due to their interests in environmental humanities and interdisciplinary discourses. They have created three blog posts to illustrate the vast potential for storytelling to communicate planetary agendas.__

__In this blog, Hattie Butler and Orianna Xu review the first screening in the *sustainability on Screen* series; the film *Bait*__.

______________________________________


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The *Sustainability on Screen* series concluded with a screening of *Okja*(2017) at Exeter Phoenix on the 23rd of March 2023, accompanied by a panel discussion and, for the first time, a food exchange! From garden-grown herbs to home-baked banana bread, the exchange encouraged more local, less wasteful practices in alignment with the film series, specifically the circuits of exchange in *Bait* (2019), foraging in *Lazzaro Felice* (2018), and the vision of everyday sustainability in *Okja* (2017).  

*Okja* centres on the bond between Mija, a young girl living in the mountains of South Korea with her grandfather, and the titular Okja, a genetically modified “super pig”. Bred by the fictional Mirando Corporation (whose name sounds a whole lot like American corporation Monsanto), the super pigs are presented by eccentric CEO Lucy Mirando as a solution to feeding a growing population that minimises environmental disruption. Hidden from the public eye, however, this meat production enterprise is not what it seems. Cutting from comedy and satire to more harrowing scenes, this ecohorror film explores the very real issues of unethical consumption, exploitation, and animal cruelty, using grassroots rebellion to mount a challenge against contemporary industrialised meat production. 


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Viewing his brother as a sell-out and traitor, Martin makes it clear to Steven that their deceased father, who appears eerily throughout the film as a watchful ghost of the past, would disapprove. Steven eventually reverts the boat back to its original purpose, and at the beginning/end, they ride off into the sunrise to fish. 

But is this romantic return to the past bait for an outmoded, unsustainable way of life? Ultimately, the film is a tale of trade-offs, where people’s priorities, values and resilience influence whether they choose to leave the fishing industry. If some see tourism as the singular answer to the wicked problems faced by fishing communities, Bait illustrates some of its unpredictable “waves of consequences” (Ritter, 1973), namely conflict between and within communities and widening wealth and power inequalities.

*Photo: Fisherman landing his catch early in the morning at Newlyn fish market docks (taken by Hattie Butler)*

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## *Narrating Climate Action* featured talks by [Dr Ina Linge](https://modernlanguages.exeter.ac.uk/staff/klinge/) with [Professor Jana Funke](https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/funke), as well as [Professor Hugh Roberts](https://modernlanguages.exeter.ac.uk/staff/roberts/) with [Dr Sally Flint](https://english.exeter.ac.uk/staff/flint/) and [Dr Eliana Maestri](https://modernlanguages.exeter.ac.uk/staff/maestri/), with [Associate Professor Angela Cassidy](https://sociology.exeter.ac.uk/staff/cassidy/) as respondent.   

## Illustration by Laura Miles-Boardman, 2023.

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## *Sustainability on Screen*
Like the last *Sustainability on Screen* film, *[Lazzaro Felice](https://www.artsandcultureexeter.co.uk/news/lazzaro-felice)*, *Okja* plays with genre. Angierski (2021) positions *Okja* within the genre of Ecohorror, dubbing it an anti-corporate animal-rights children’s horror comedy that criticises factory farming, GMOs, neoliberalism, corporate greed, and the sociopathic personalities within capitalist institutions. Gunawan (2018) argues that in provocatively demonstrating how the meat industry serves capitalistic aims and nourishes consumer culture, the film encourages the audience to consider power imbalances, ethics, and morals. On the other hand, Bait, the first film screened in the series, utilises dated techniques like black-and-white film to gesture towards the universality of its themes. 

Both *Lazarro* and *Okja* also contrast rural and city life and coincidentally use a fake tree, a plastic olive tree in front of the bank in Lazzaro and an electric tree in the Mirando Corporation’s reception. Sturdy, but sad imitations, the fake trees speak to humanity’s longing for their living counterparts in urban spaces. Furthermore, the former sharecroppers in *Lazzaro* were forced to farm tobacco for the Queen of Cigarettes, while *Okja* similarly demonises cigarettes when Nancy meaningfully offers Lucy a cigarette after her defeat and when the ALF leader crushes a cigarette offered to him by a member. Furthermore, both films touch on immigrant labour in a globalised economy, although Okja more explicitly discusses communication through a key plot point revolving around a mistranslation and a few language barrier jokes. Significantly, Mija is advised to learn English by the ALF translator, as it “opens new doors”, conveying the increasingly globalised world we live in. Rather than going from rural to urban, Bait hones in on one Cornish fishing community, but similar to Okja’s depiction of foraging as a sustainable practice, Martin provides fish for his neighbours through small-batch fishing; likewise, Lazzaro teaches the squatters by the train tracks how to forage. 

The *Sustainability on Screen* series has explored the impact of storytelling to communicate planetary agendas. Audiences have engaged in broad intersectional issues across the globe, from social inequalities and sustainability questions in Bait, to exploitation and food poverty in *Lazzaro Felice*, and ethical consumption and animal cruelty in *Okja*. Using fiction to communicate facts more expansively, storytelling elevates voices that go unheard, evoking an emotional response that not only raises awareness but also has the power to enact change in creative and novel ways that confront injustices and challenge the status-quo.

__*Hattie Butler and Orianna Xu*__


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Illustrations were made possible through the LCVS Strategic Budget Fund. 

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A new set of illustrations has been commissioned to complement a collaborative symposium about the positioning of Arts and Humanities in local and planetary agenda setting with respect to ongoing climate crises. See the illustrations here.

Telling Stories: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda Setting

In this blog Hattie Butler and Orianna Xu review the film 'Bait' which was screened as part of the project “Telling Stories: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda-Setting”, which explores how humanities research can engage with the opportunities and challenges posed by planetary agendas.

Bait

In this blog Hattie Butler and Orianna Xu review the film 'Lazzaro Felice' which was screened as part of the project “Telling Stories: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda-Setting”, which explores how humanities research can engage with the opportunities and challenges posed by planetary agendas.

Lazzaro Felice 

In this blog Hattie Butler and Orianna Xu review the film 'Okja' which was screened as part of the project “Telling Stories: The Humanities in an Age of Planetary Agenda-Setting”, which explores how humanities research can engage with the opportunities and challenges posed by planetary agendas.