The Sick Garden with Toni Kritzer

An afternoon to feel into narratives of disability and illness in ecosystems, to practice (ecological) care in (more-than-)human community, to slow down to the pace of the slugs.

Be welcome for a performance, and an accompanying workshop in The Glazen Huis and the Garden for Genomic Gastronomy in the Amstelpark.

THE SICK GARDEN entangles Toni’s personal story of illness with the life of an abandoned garden. This is a story of slugs and viruses, of contamination, compost and the complexities of care. Following the sticky slime trails of chronic illness, we encounter disabled ecologies and inter*species webs of support. Whispering from below the leaf litter, the kingdom of the unwell, the underlands, The Sick Garden calls us to rest our tired, aching bodies, and to resist capitalist-eugenicist ideas of productivity and purity. Questioning narratives of disability and sickness in ecosystems and in ourselves, we wonder how healing, both in the human and more-than-human, might be possible beyond restoration. As the climate collapses, ancestral knowledge of seasons and sowing times, of planting and harvesting becomes unstable. We will deal with sick ecosystems all the time: and it might not be possible – even with the most sustainable approach – to prevent disease outbreaks, damage by extreme weather, or other forms of unraveling ecological webs. We will need to build gardens, and futures, where illness and disability have a place. If we cannot return to a romanticized condition of “health” and “functionality”, which forms of care and tending-to can we find in the open wounds, the injuries, the impairment? How do we encounter our sick gardens?

Toni will share their performance THE SICK GARDEN at the Glazen Huis, ending with a collective dream journey into the crip future. After the performance, you are warmly invited into a soft workshop, following the slug trails into the Garden of Genomic Gastronomy, where we will tend to signs of illness in the garden through somatic exercises, storytelling and the sensorial. The workshop will be a collective act of spellcasting for disabled ecosystems: may we encounter each other with care.

Please note that the spots for the workshop are limited! We ask you to sign up by sending us a brief e-mail.

Detailed programme:

14:30 walk-in.
15:00 THE SICK GARDEN performance
15:45 collective dream journey/end of performance
16:00-16:30 break and snack for the workshop participants
16:30 journeying to the genomic gastronomy garden for the workshop
18:00 Collective spellcasting and end of the workshop

Accessibility:
All locations are wheelchair accessible with a small ramp in front of the Glazen Huis. There is a disabled toilet available about 50 to 150 meters from the Garden and the Glazen Huis. There is a small toilet available in the Glazen Huis. In the garden, there is no path with asphalt, but grassy ground. Seating is provided at both locations, and pillows are available. Both the performance and the workshop do not include heavier physical activity; nap breaks are encouraged and facilitated.
Unfortunately, we are not providing sign language translation for this event.
If you have questions about accessibility, please be welcome to reach out and we will do our best to accommodate your presence and needs!

Register here!