Join us for the second gathering of our public series of the School for Multispecies Knowledges. Through participatory, embodied, sensorial activities in the park we will challenge the possibility of tuning into its multispecies communities. Together with artists Victoria McKenzie and Neal White we will explore artistic and activist tactics to relate to the more than human life in the park as co-authors of change and ‘new’ forms of knowing and being-with.
The public series invites everyone interested to join experimentations of the program and conversations with its cohort of the School’s participants. The program takes place in the Orangerie in the Amstelpark which is used by Zone2Source as an open Park Studio and now the headquarters of the School, but will be focused on outdoor explorations. Tickets for full day participation including lunch is €15. Register before May 28 on Eventbrite.
11.00-11.15 Welcome
11.15-13.00 Neal White: The Eco-Artist/Activist Cookbook, Recipes from the Multispecies School
Neal White is an artist and a Professor of Art/Science at CREAM – recently acknowledged as the leading arts research centre in the UK. He is the current artist in residence at Zone2Source and co-curated the exhibition Perfect Nature and has led many research projects, collaborations and exhibited work Internationally.
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-16.30 Victoria McKenzie: Multispecies Choreographies
Victoria McKenzie is an Eco-warrior, academic-activist, dancer, researcher and writer. She currently teaches a course at the Sandberg Instituut entitled ‘The Ecological Self’ which looks at the intersections between soil ecologies, ecofeminism, and post-colonial thought. In 2019 she travelled to the Ecuadorian Amazon, utilising her background in permaculture and mycology to remediate toxic soils on indigenous lands. Victoria’s ultimate aim is to demonstrate the entangled life of climate whilst developing new methods for living together on this Earth.
16.30-17.00 Closure and drinks
Drawing on the Anarchist Cookbook (now illegal to possess in many countries), and inverting its logic, this event addresses corporate anarchism, eco-fascism and the slow grind of climate change politics in which our environmental future is being shaped by malign forces. In this session, artist Neal White will outline his own key concerns, and situate artistic research methods in order to explore coevolutionary knowledge tactics. Together the aim is to explore through activity in the park and local habitats, how members of the School could contribute to a future publication with ‘recipes’ for action, as tactical approaches in which other species can become co-authors of change. The challenge is multi-sensory, it is not about theory, or even politics, but about placing ourselves out of the studio and into the field as a site for the construction of shared knowledge.
‘Multispecies Choreographies’ takes us on a journey of attunement. Through 3 scores of dance, choreography and walking, we navigate the world of fungi, cattle and microbes—allowing us to learn from the extended communities of the landscape. We are asked to engage with our more-than-human counterparts; radically observe; listen while doing and allow our bodies to enter the system of deep relationships we call ecology. The practice asks us who are the ‘beings’ in ‘multi-species being’, and what do they have to teach us about connection, relationality, political action and communication.
