Drift

Session co-presented with Lucy Sabin in the Geographies of Hope interdisciplinary, cross-institutional conference at UCL Department of Geography in 2023. The session included a collaborative performance-lecture "Drift," and individual presentations "Data Drift: Tracing Social Flows through the Sewer" by Sabrina Chou and "Drifting with (Saharan) Dust" by Lucy Sabin.

Drift is a suspension of expectations, an opening of possibilities, a porosity of bodies, an ontological ambiguity of perpetual flow. The two artists, with their mirrored foci on submergence (sewers and data cables) and transcendence (atmospherics and air pollution), present a multimedia session with performative and immersive elements. Through a practice-infused approach, they consider drift as material potential, affective condition, and provisional position. Drift is an imperative to shift circumstances. Drift we must.