Braiding Infrastructures for Each Other: The Art of Symbiosis
Date: 28 November 2024, Thursday, at 18:00 CET.
Lecturer: Saša Spačal, Slovenia
After the success of our two pilot episodes, the Green Academy is back for a full season 2024–25, with a focus on soil.
In the opening seminar, postmedia artist Saša Spačal invites us into the depths of the moist, fertile ground, where her artistic endeavours take root and evolve. Guided by deep listening and passionate knowledge mining, she will help us imagine symbiosis as a spectrum of reciprocal connections. We will explore how care can be translated into sound and how intricate relationships between species and environments emerge.
Saša’s artworks bear witness to rituals of mind travel, embodied research, and artistic practice, acting as bridges between different forms of life and matter. Using the imagination, we will follow her into symbiotic connections that transcend species boundaries – from bacteria and fungi to crickets – and arrive at a place where all that remains is to braid infrastructures for each other. Then we’ll re-emerge, take a step back, and discuss how Saša develops her artworks and how she creates a role for herself in the symbiosis of art and science.
Saša Spačal is a Slovenian postmedia artist who merges scientific research on living systems with contemporary art, emphasizing the interconnectedness of the environmental-cultural continuum and planetary metabolisms. Her artistic practice involves developing caring and nurturing biotechnological methodologies and interfaces that engage with both the organic and mineral components of soil. Concurrently, she investigates the fragility of posthumanist scenarios, weaving together mechanical, digital, and organic logics within the context of contemporary biopolitics and necropolitics. Saša has held residencies at scientific institutions including the Toby Kiers Lab at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Rillig Lab at Freie Universität Berlin. Her works have been showcased at venues such as ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany, Ars Electronica, Austria, Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), Spain, the New Tretyakov Gallery, Russia, and the National Art Museum of China. Her awards and nominations include the Ars Electronica Starts Prize (2021), Japan Media Art Award (2020), New Technological Art Award (2019), New Aesthetica Prize (2020), Prix Cube (2015), and Prix Ars Electronica (2015).
The episodes of the Green Academy are hosted by ecologist, philosopher, and writer Philipp P. Thapa.
Organised in collaboration with the Sustainable Europe Research Institute Germany (SERI.de).
>>Upcoming Green Academy date:
23 January 2025, 18:00 CET – Details coming soon!
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About Green Academy
Pro Progressione’s Green Pillar emphasizes the integration of artistic practices with the more-than-human environment. We lead and collaborate on various projects, focusing on sustainability and connecting artists with critical environmental issues.
Although these events are directly linked to projects such as The Big Green, we aim to provide an open platform for the cultural and creative sectors, inviting our partners to join the Academy. Following our 2024 pilot phase, we plan to organize five more lectures next year. These events are open to registered participants and offer not only learning experiences but also the opportunity to form a community of professionals dedicated to environmentally conscious art.
If you would like to attend, you can register here: https://forms.gle/jM9ftom3t1oamE4W9
(After registration, we’ll send you the Zoom link some days before the event)
You can read more about the Green Academy here: www.proprogressione.com/en/projects/green-academy
The Big Green project behind Green Academy is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.
