Artist and author Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing documented how we’ve fallen into a harmful relationship with time: our lives are ruled by an “attention economy” in a world where everything is for sale. She urged us to disconnect. But it turned out so many of us didn’t have time to do so.
So now Odell has dug into the history and politicization of time itself. What she found was a clock created to serve profit, not people; a clock that perpetuates injustice, inequality, and harm to the Earth.
As planet-bound animals, we live inside shortening and lengthening days alongside gardens growing, birds migrating, and cliffs eroding; the stretchy quality of waiting and desire; the way the present may suddenly feel marbled with childhood memory; the slow but sure procession of a pregnancy; the time it takes to heal from injuries. What if we became stewards of these different rhythms of life in which time is not reducible to standardized units, and instead forms the very medium of possibility?
In her new book, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, Odell tugs at the seams of reality as we know it—the way we experience time—and rearranges it, imagining a world where our time bolsters a more humane life. Join us for a deep and inspiring conversation between Jenny Odell and Kepler’s host Angie Coiro.
Masks are required for everyone over the age of 2 years old and must be worn at all times in the venue, and throughout the duration of the event.