SYMBIOSIS articulates questions and concerns around sustainability, diversity, accessibility, and inclusivity in higher arts institutions and beyond, particularly how ecological and social sustainability cannot be considered separately.
Speculative Writer, Artist, Curator and Pleasure Activist. She is a PhD Candidate, Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck who’s research is focused on “Pleasurable Practices for Climate Colonialism Resistance” (2018-2022). Ama is also the Planetary Fictions Fellow researching Pleasurable Ecologies – Curation as Future Building (2020 – 2022) with Curatorial Frame (Helsinki) & EVA International (Limerick); and the Keith Haring Fellow in Art and Activism (2020-21) with Bard College’s Centre for Curatorial Studies & Human Rights Department.
Insta: @amajosephine
Student-led Klasse Klima, founded at the Berlin University of the Arts in 2009, translates demands for climate justice and degrowth into aesthetic education and practice. Today, Klasse Klima creates physical and virtual seminars and symposia for the collective negotiation of creative knowledge.
Johann Otten (* 1991 in Celle, Germany) works as a dramaturg and journalist and lives in Zürich and Berlin. He is curious about the internet, technology & the future beyond fossils and interested in serial auditive story telling. Part of different collectives and organizations, Johann works with Klasse Klima on questioning the role and responsibility of art institutions in such a post-fussil future.
Lena Schubert is a Berlin-based cultural researcher and journalist. Building on her study of the history of aesthetic, ecological and economic knowledge, she works with the collective Klasse Klima to establish spaces for the unlearning of extractivist epistemologies in the creative fields and beyond. The bottom-up initiative Klasse Klima was founded in 2019 at Berlin’s University of the Arts to translate demands for climate justice and degrowth into aesthetic education and practice. Today, Klasse Klima creates physical and virtual seminars and symposia for the collective negotiation of creative knowledge.
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“In indigenous ways of knowing, other species are recognized not only as persons, but also as teachers who can inspire how we might live. We can learn a new solar economy from plants, medicines from mycelia, and architecture from the ants. By learning from other species, we might even learn humility.”
SYMBIOSIS came together in the 2020s, a time when social and environmental sustainability on Earth was lacking. Embracing the Anthropocene era as an opportunity for positive change, the group strives for holistic sustainability – calling for a shift from human-centred to environmentally-centred approaches, technological advancements, open-source knowledge, and global accountability. They aim to find new ways of communicating with both non-human and human species to address urgent environmental issues and promote social and environmental sustainability. The group sees enormous potential in the arts and arts education to support the shift towards a more sustainable world.
SYMBIOSIS discusses concerns and ideas as the need for radical social revolution, open arts education, diversity, inclusivity, and sustainable practices and explores concepts such as degrowth, resource reuse, critical evaluation of conventions, and the role of financial support in the arts. Raising questions about the relationship between humans and the environment, the impact of art on non-human species, and the need for a paradigm shift in the arts. SYMBIOSIS aleays highlighs the importance of sustainability, communal work, and addressing internal conflicts.
SYMBIOSIS presents a love letter addressed to fellow humans, expressing pride in their acknowledgment of the climate crisis and urging them to take action to save the planet within the next five years (2045-2050).
Do you have more ideas for SYMBIOSIS love letters helping to save the planet earth? Write them in the comment function below!
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