On Time and Water - How to Talk When Language Collapses - An Evening with Andri Snaer Magnason

Join internationally recognized storyteller and poet, Andri Snaer Magnason for an exploration of language and communication in this age of Climate Change.
Climate change is a challenge that is larger than language. We are faced with an imbalance or realignment of all elements of water on our planet. The glaciers, the sea level, the seasons, the permafrost, the pH of the world oceans, the currents, the rain and snow, the absence of water in droughts. We are in a global paradigm shift, a collapse of language, where events are on a scale that can only be compared to mythological metaphors.

Magnason will explore what it means to be a writer seeking to express the true scale and scope of Climate Change. He will weave a story through family stories, myth and science to navigate and understand the scale of our shared global challenge.

Andri Snær Magnason is an Icelandic writer and documentary film maker born in Reykjavík in 1973. His work ranges from poetry to non-fiction, children's literature, science fiction, theater and documentary film. He has won the Icelandic literary Award in all categories. His work is published and performed in more than 40 languages and his one man show in the City Theater in Iceland had dozens of sold out performances.
Andri hit the world news in 2019 when he wrote the text for Ok glacier, the first glacier Iceland lost to climate change. In his book "On Time and Water", he searches for a language to explain the climate crisis, through science, family stories and mythology. The book is being made into a documentary film for Nat Geo, by Oscar nominated Sara Dosa (Fire of Love) and Oscar winner Shane Boris (Navalny). His own Documentary film Dreamland premiered at IDFA 2009 and The Hero's Journey to the Third Pole premiered at COP:DOX in 2021. Andri has won international literary awards like the Tiziano Terzani Award in Italy, the Philip K. Dick honorary mention in USA for LoveStar and the Grand Prix l'Imaginaire in France from best foreign Sci-fi. Andri ran for president of Iceland in 2016 and came third.

Andri has collaborated with artists like Yo Yo Ma and Ryuichi Sakamoto, with Bjarke Ingels and BIG group in Architecture and with Arnhildur Pálmadóttir for the Lavaforming project in the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2025. He is once again collaborating with Yo Yo Ma and others on "We are Water: a Northeast Celebration" which is being presented at the Merrill Auditorium in Portland on October 20, 2025. This special event, rooted in wisdom and inspired by a dream for the future, invites us to come together as a community and find hope for a changing planet.

File Attachments: Andri_Bio

Schiller Coastal Studies Center | Website | View More Events
Co-hosted with: Environmental Studies, Earth & Oceanographic Science

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