What does it mean to sa y that everything is relational and everything is connected? What pos sibilities and perils emerge when we understand entanglement to be a fundamental condition of life?
Contemporary thought, aesthetic practice, and cultural production have been conceiving of the world and life within it in terms of processes, relations, and modes of bec oming, rather than as fixed objects and immutable essences. This pron ounced relational turn responds to a current historical moment in whi ch long-upheld boundaries between human and non-human, nature and cul ture, and biology and technology, have become untenable. Moreover, we are becoming increasingly conscious of the complex web of interdepen dencies that connects all earthly life forms, and of how fraught the relations that sustain them can be. However, despite a general agreem ent that more just and equitable modes of being-in-relation are absol utely necessary for human, non-human, and planetary survival, (multis pecies) entanglement can also produce forms of exposure and proximity that may be difficult to navigate. In other words, relationality is as desirable as it can be dangerous or troublesome.
By br inging together perspectives from gender studies, multispecies design , contemporary art history, media studies, philosophy, and artistic r esearch, this one-day symposium explores both the pleasures and the p erils of thinking through and practicing (multispecies) relationality . The day is dedicated to critical reflection and discussion about so me pressing questions raised by the relational turn within academic d iscourse and cultural production: If everything is entangled with eve rything else, in what terms can we begin to understand modes of being in relation? What happens if we take relation(ality) as our starting point, both theoretically and materially? And how might we cope with living with that which constantly feels too close for comfort?
This event is organised in partnership with the Environmen tal Humanities Center at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and with financ ial support from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Dutch Research Council (grant VI.Veni.221C.026 as part of the research project CINEA GRI — Global Elements of Cinema).
Please reg ister via link below.
About the org anisers
Manuela Zammit is a lecturer on the Bachelor� �s Media, Art, Design and Architecture (MKDA) and a PhD candidate in art history within the department of Art & Culture at Vrije Unive rsiteit Amsterdam. She is also an independent writer and editor in th e fields of contemporary art and culture. Her (academic) research fre quently addresses the aesthetics and politics of relationality, criti cal thresholds, zones of convergence, and contemporary diasporic subj ectivity.
Medha Guru holds an RMA in Environmental Humani ties and is currently pursuing a PhD within the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her resear ch focuses on understanding Dutch urban gardens as relational multisp ecies entanglements and engages ethnography, biography, and more-than -human life writing to tell stories of radical hope and resistance.&n bsp;
DESCRIPTION: Contemporary thought, aesthetic practice, and cultural pr oduction have been conceiving of the world and life within it in term s of processes, relations, and modes of becoming, rather than as fixe d objects and immutable essences. This pronounced relational turn res ponds to a current historical moment in which long-upheld boundaries between human and non-human, nature and culture, and biology and tech nology, have become untenable. Moreover, we are becoming increasingly conscious of the complex web of interdependencies that connects all earthly life forms, and of how fraught the relations that sustain the m can be. However, despite a general agreement that more just and equ itable modes of being-in-relation are absolutely necessary for human, non-human, and planetary survival, (multispecies) entanglement can a lso produce forms of exposure and proximity that may be difficult to navigate. In other words, relationality is as desirable as it can be dangerous or troublesome. By bringing together perspectives fro m gender studies, multispecies design, contemporary art history, medi a studies, philosophy, and artistic research, this one-day symposium explores both the pleasures and the perils of thinking through and pr acticing (multispecies) relationality. The day is dedicated to critic al reflection and discussion about some pressing questions raised by the relational turn within academic discourse and cultural production : If everything is entangled with everything else, in what terms can we begin to understand modes of being in relation? What happens if we take relation(ality) as our starting point, both theoretically and m aterially? And how might we cope with living with that which constant ly feels too close for comfort? This event is organised in partnership with the Environmental Humanities Center at Vrije Univers iteit Amsterdam and with financial support from Vrije Universiteit Am sterdam and the Dutch Research Council (grant VI.Veni.221C.026 as par t of the research project CINEAGRI — Global Elements of Cinema). Please register via link below.