Who’s Presenting in 2016? Cristina Eisenberg & Cristina Biaggi

Cristina Eisenberg

“Wilderness is one of our best defenses against climate change.”

Cristina Eisenberg is Chief Scientist for Earthwatch Institute, a Smithsonian Research Associate, and science consultant for many prestigious organizations in the US and Canada. Her research has investigated trophic cascades and the effects of predators on landscape health and biodiversity. She has emerged as a leading voice for wilderness and large predator conservation in North America.

Cristina is the author of The Wolf’s Tooth and The Carnivore Way: Coexisting with and Conserving America’s Predators. Matt Miller, reviewing The Carnivore Way for Cool Green Science, (June 12, 2014) says

“Eisenberg is the perfect scientist to write this book. She lives in a Montana cabin where she encounters the predators of which she writes: wolves, mountain lions, grizzly bears, lynx. . . .Her research and review of the literature leave her convinced that large predators are essential for landscape health, and vital for our own values of wildness and wonder.”

“In order to create change, you have to engage people, and you have to not just engage their minds. You have to engage their hearts, and that means telling our stories. . . . In terms of carnivore conservation, we need to build community. We need to have that solid science, and we need to find a way to share our story.”

Cristina Eisenberg’s special conference presentation is entitled “The Role of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge in an Era of Global Change.”   She will discuss the changes taking place from ecological, ethical, and feminine mythological perspectives, and how the values embodied by Traditional Ecological Knowledge across world cultures contain the elements essential for human survival and for the wellbeing of all life on Earth.

“Traditional Ecological Knowledge that taps into the divine feminine can teach us much in terms of how to live more rightly on this Earth, how to heal the damage we have done, and how to mitigate, adapt to, and slow the processes that threaten every living being today. ” 

Cristina Biaggi

The Great Goddess,  in whatever manifestation she was depicted,  was the supreme deity in the Paleolithic and Neolithic period throughout the world.  She has re-emerged in the 20th and 21st century as an apt symbol of woman’s growing consciousness and importance.  The need to make the Goddess accessible through art as an embodiment of “feminine sensibility” is becoming extremely important in this world of growing militarism.

Cristina Biaggi, artist, activist and scholar, has achieved international recognition as a sculptor of bronze and wood pieces. Using the theme of interconnection, she has also created large outdoor installations, and has explored collage in the two and three dimensional form. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, Europe and Australia. She is a respected authority on the Great Goddess, Neolithic and Paleolithic prehistory, and the origin and impact of patriarchy on contemporary life.

“I create my sculptures inspired by these ideas.  Sculpture in the Western world has lost the mystical magical presence that it had during the Neolithic period when a temple or a sculpture was considered to be the body of the deity.  In creating my sculpture, I wish to bring back some of this magic and mystery.  I want to create a space that inspires mystery; that evokes the dark caves of the Goddess – places of rebirth and revitalized consciousness.”

“Cristina Biaggi’s work –seminal, gorgeous, provocative. No one like her!” Olympia Dukakis, Film and Stage Actor

 Cristina’s presentation “Matriarchy as Inspiration for Art”  is included in the Panel: Matriarchal Studies: Past Debates and Present Practices