10 am 
Visit and introduction to the exhibition Parliament of Plants II with Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Linda Schädler, and Yvonne Volkart, Curator and Co-curators of the exhibition 
 
Noon Lunch 
 
1.30 pm   
Welcome by the organisers Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Linda Schädler, and Yvonne Volkart  
 
1.45 pm 
Plants in the Indigenous Amazon and the Language of Environmental Rights 
Lecture by Patrícia Vieira. Research Professor, Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra 
  
“In my talk, I will discuss the understanding of plants in Amazonian Indigenous communities, as teachers and guides that allow humans better to perceive their connection to the multiple entities that inhabit the rainforest. In many Indigenous traditions, plants engage in social relations and are closely connected to humans, some are even considered our ancestors. I then link this view of plants to the emergence of the ‘rights of nature’ in Amazonian countries, including Ecuador, Bolivia and Colombia, and examine the ties between Indigenous knowledge and the legal framework of environmental rights.” 
 
2.15 pm Q & A  
 
2.30 pm  
From Forest Law to Forest Mind 
Artist’s lecture by Ursula Biemann  
 
Forest Law and Forest Mind are two distinct video works, ten years apart, that speak about the cultural dimensions of the forest. Located in Amazonia, the forest is considered not as a purely biological entity but an active biosemiotics assemblage. While Forest Law explores the juridical and forensic dimension of the forest in defense of indigenous territories in Ecuador, Forest Mind enters the deeper layers of plant-human interaction. The Amazonian forest, with its intelligent master plants, has formed the indigenous communities in distinct ways of relating to the natural world. My talk sheds light on scientific and a shamanic perspectives on how the energetic part of plants interact with the human mind co-creating a biocultural dialogue. 
 
3 pm Q & A  
 
3.15 pm Short break 
 
3.30 pm  
Insert by the students of the Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW 
 
3.45 pm  
Towards Understanding Plant Reactions: Responses and Interactions 
Lecture by Roosa Laitinen, Associate Professor in Genomics-based Plant Science, Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Research Program, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki 
 
Plants, unlike animals, cannot move away from unwelcoming environments. Thus it is especially important for them to mitigate the negative effects of environmental changes quickly. In my talk, I will give an overview of the different ways plants react to their environments, respond to changes and interact with their surroundings. In concluding, I will give examples of my own research in investigating the potential for variability in plants’ adaptability.  
 
4.15 pm Q & A  
 
4.30 p.m.  
Sensing a Damaged Forest 
Presentation by Yvonne Volkart of her publication Technologies of Care. From Sensing Technologies to an Aesthetics of Attention 
 
4.45 pm Coffee break 
 
5.15 pm  
Malezas | Weeds | Unkräuter. Amaranth as political agent in colonized America 
Lecture performance by Julia Mensch 
 
In the frame of the implementation of transgenic agriculture in Argentina since 1996, amaranth was the first wild plant to develop resistance to agrochemicals, growing in GM fields. Named kiwicha, yuyo colorado or amaranth, it is a plant native to the Americas: its seeds were preserved by indigenous peoples, despite the Spanish colonizers’ prohibition, and today it is the most wide-spread glyphosate-resistant weed. Currently, it covers over 25 million hectares. Perhaps it is, as the scientist and environmental activist Andrés Carrasco called it, America’s revenge. 
 
5.45 pm Q & A  
 
6 pm  
Insert by the students of the Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design Basel FHNW 
 
6.15 pm  
Concepts of Nature and Ethics  
Lecture by Nadia Mazouz, Professor of Practical Philosophy at the ETH 
 
The ethics of nature more generally as well as of non-human animals and of plants depends on how they are conceptualized. It also depends on the chosen ethical approach. Especially the different versions of anthropocentric, biocentric or holistic perspectives on nature and non-human living-beings lead to very different evaluations and recommendations. This presentation will provide a systematic overview of ethical approaches depending on such a conceptualization. 
 
6.45 pm Q & A  
 
7 pm  
Plant Witnessing and Listening to Plant Echoes 
Artist’s lecture by Uriel Orlow  
 
Plants do not simply form an inert, passive backdrop against which historical events take place, rather they are active participants in history and politics. How do we engage with their more-than-human witnessing, how do we listen to plants’ ‘echoes’ from past and present? I will present some of my recent work which engages with plants as witnesses and asks what restitution to nature might mean. 
 
7.30 pm Q & A  
 
7.45 pm End of the Symposium with Apéro 

Ursula Biemann is a Swiss artist and theorist, whose practice centres on fieldwork, often in Indigenous territories, and the creation of networks between different fields of knowledge. Her work reflects on diverse forms of environmental degradation and its related historical and contemporary forces, creating through her videos, books and installations critical perspectives on the dynamics of extractivism and also proposing alternative eco-centric and knowledge-based modes of engagement with the world. Her latest field research took her to the South of Colombia where she is involved in the co-creation of an indigenous University for biocultural knowledge for which she generates video archives, exhibitions and the online platform deveniruniversidad.org. The newest video work and artist book Forest Mind (Spector 2022) emerge from this collaborative context of bridging western and indigenous knowledge systems.
geobodies.org

Roosa Laitinen is a Finnish plant scientist. After working for fifteen years at several Max Planck Institutes in Germany, she is now Associate Professor at the University of Helsinki. Her primary focus lies in unravelling the mechanisms that govern how plants respond and adapt to ever-changing environmental conditions and investigating their role in evolution. In her research, she uses Arabidopsis thaliana, of the mustard family, which is known as a model organism for plant genetics and molecular biology. This small, fast-growing plant naturally grows in various habitats across the world, making it an ideal subject for understanding adaptive traits.

Nadja Mazouz is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the ETH, Zurich. Studied physics at the Technical University of Berlin; philosophy at the Technical, Free and Humboldt Universities of Berlin and Leipzig University. Doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) at the Fritz Haber Institute, Max Planck Society and the Free University of Berlin, 1999; Doctorate (Dr. phil.) at the Institute of Philosophy, University of Stuttgart, 2003; research assistant at the Universities of Stuttgart, Tübingen, Dortmund and ETH, Zurich; several research visits at the School of Philosophy, Australian National University, Canberra; Habilitation in Philosophy at the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences, ETH, Zurich, 2016; Professor of practical philosophy, University of Marburg, 2017 – 2021; since 2022 Professor for Practical Philosophy, ETH, Zurich.

Julia Mensch is a visual artist based in Berlin. She studied at the National Art University in Buenos Aires and at the Hito Steyerl’s class at the UdK, Berlin. Currently she is a PhD Candidate at Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar and part of the research project Plants_Intelligence. Learning Like a Plant funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and hosted by the Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW. Her work is an intersection of text, drawing, installation, public events, photography, video and lecture performance. Her practice deals with the history of Socialism and Communism, and with environmental sociopolitical conflicts in Latin America confronting the exploitative conditions of the land and beings since colonization, and throughout neocolonialism.
She has taken part in several international residency programs and exhibitions, including Savvy Contemporary and NGBK (Berlin), Museo Nacional de Grabado (Buenos Aires), Shedhalle (Zurich), Kunsthalle Appenzell, Art Biennial Sesc_Videobrasil (São Paulo), BienalSur (Buenos Aires), among others.

Christiane Meyer-Stoll is Chief Curator and Member of the Executive Board at the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein. She curated the exhibition Parliament of Plants I (2020) and Parliament of Plants II (2023) in collaboration with co-curators.

Uriel Orlow is a visual artist and educator. Orlow’s work has been presented at numerous international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2011), Manifesta 9 (2012, Genk, Belgium) and Manifesta 12 (2018, Palermo), and biennials in Berlin, Dakar, Kochi, Taipei, Sharjah, Moscow, Kathmandu, Guatemala and elsewhere. Solo exhibitions include Castello di Rivoli, Kunsthalle St Gallen, Kunsthalle Mainz, State of Concept Athens and others. In 2023 he received the Prix Meret Oppenheim / Swiss Grand Prix of Art. Monographic publications include Conversing with Leaves (Archive Books, 2020), Soil Affinities (Shelter Press, 2019) and Theatrum Botanicum (Sternberg Press, 2018). He teaches at ZHdK, University of the Arts, Zurich, University of Westminster, London and Maumaus ISP, Lisbon.

Linda Schädler is Head of the Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich (ETH’s Collection of Prints and Drawings) since 2016. She has curated several exhibitions with an interdisciplinary approach, as for example, Irene Kopelman. On Glaciers and Avalanches. In Search of Glaciological Traces (2018) and Lara Almarcegui. Deep Inside – Out (2019). Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow for the Chair of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Zurich and for the Chair of the History of Art and Architecture at the ETH Zurich. Before her dissertation James Coleman and the Anamorphosis. The View from the Side was published in 2013, she worked at the Kunstmuseum Basel and the Kunsthaus Zürich. She is the Curator of the exhibition The Politics of Plants, Insert in the exhibition Parliament of Plants II.

Patrícia Vieira is Research Professor at the Center for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra in Portugal. Her fields of expertise are Latin American and Iberian Literature and Cinema, Utopian Studies and the Environmental Humanities. Her most recent book is States of Grace: Utopia in Brazilian Culture (SUNY UP, 2018) and her most recent co-edited book is The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence (Synergetic, 2021). She is the recipient of a European Research Council Consolidator Grant to work on a project titled ECO – Animals and Plants in Cultural Productions about the Amazon River Basin.
eco.ces.uc.pt
patriciavieira.net

Yvonne Volkart is head of research and lecturer of art theory and cultural media studies at the Institute Art Gender Nature, Basel Academy of Art and Design FHNW. She also holds a teaching position at Zurich University of the Arts and works as freelance curator and art critic. From 2022 – 2025 she directs the SNSF-research project Plants_Intelligence. Learning like a Plant. This fall, her monograph Technologies of Care. From Sensing Technologies to an Aesthetics of Attention will be released at Diaphanes, Zurich.

Think about the Ocean as you think about a relationship. We know that humans are bad at being faithful, infidelity has a tenacity that faithfulness can only envy. If you ask about Nature or the Ocean, everyone would be ready to declare their love, or our dependency, and yet we cheat on the seas, on water, on resources, on the images, on life. Ocean Adultery has many forms, and historically it has been—as Anthony Burgess describes it—«the most creative of sins». We deplore the many times and many ways we were unfaithful to the Ocean, and yet pro-hibition only fuels the eagerness with which we consume our forbidden apples —or better said, our forbidden waters, fish, corals, sea beds, and human lives…  We need to face this: If we keep failing to meet our own standards, the solution is simply to try harder. This exercise cannot happen without thinking through  a question: Who is the injured party? One would say the Ocean, but would that be to demonize our actions without pausing to explore our motives? Without learning how to weather its occurrence?

Inspired by the history of fear, power abuse and its relation to the elements rather than only to the humans, and drawing on the thinking of many poets, writers, and philosophers about the importance of the complaint to raise aware-ness, the first day of our convening will be structured as a lament: a collective performance where activists and artists give body, form, and voice to what we lament. Lamenting the Ocean, but also current forms of inequality, considering how gender and racial inequality are in complete entanglement here.

On the second day, the lamenting voice will raise an Awe. Admiration, reverence, a series of acts, performances, and lectures on the issues we admire, on all in life that bring us to this strange space of generosity, since to admire means to go out of oneself.

The Night of Ohs!

Day One: Friday 28 September, 2018

The Day of the Ahs!

Day Two: Saturday 29 September, 2018

Symposium

April 12, 2018, Atelier Building, room A 0.11
With Julieta Aranda, Francesca Habsburg, Chus Martínez, Ingo Niermann, Markus Reymann and Teresa Solar

Part I: On Spheric Ocean
Francesca von Habsburg, founder of TBA21, and Markus Reymann, director of TBA21–Academy, will present the work of their foundation, their investment in creating a new working and research ground for artists and scientists, as well as their initiative to open a permanent art and research space on the Ocean in Venice. They will also introduce Patricia Francis, with whom they are currently working. A short series of presentations, and round table will follow with: Julieta Aranda, Patricia Francis, Francesca Habsburg, Chus Martínez, Markus Reymann and Teresa Solar. Moderation: Ingo Niermann

Part II: Dialog about the Agency of the Ocean
Julieta Aranda, Ingo Niermann and Teresa Solar, Summary and Discussion

Workshop

April 13, 2018
With Julieta Aranda and Fernando García-Dory

The second day of the symposium will be dedicated to two subjects: «The Ocean» and «The Land». One group will work with Julieta Aranda, whose work addresses energy, the politics of water as well as the capacity of some animas to change form. She will reflect on the importance of seeing nature and the oceans as a crucial expansion possibility for artistic research and artistic practice, but she also will link nature with the development of technology and the question of time.

Fernando García-Dory has been investing a great deal of his practice to understanding the role of non-urban knowledges and practices. He has been in contact with farmers and shepherds all over Europe and other parts of the world to understand the ancient routes of animals, traditional ways of growing plants in water – aquaponics –, and he is currently developing the collaborative platform INLAND, that combines cultural and farm production recovering a desert village in the mountains of Northern Spain amongst other actions. Art production and sustainability go hand in hand in his thinking.

Master Symposium: On Ocean Intelligence, 12.-13. April 2018

Master Symposium: On Ocean Intelligence, 12.-13. April 2018

Master Symposium: On Ocean Intelligence, 12.-13. April 2018

Master Symposium: On Ocean Intelligence, 12.-13. April 2018

Master Symposium: On Ocean Intelligence, 12.-13. April 2018

Master Symposium: On Ocean Intelligence, 12.-13. April 2018

Master Symposium: On Ocean Intelligence, 12.-13. April 2018

At first sight there are «things» that can only be described in positive terms, like the Ocean. It is beautiful how some experiences of nature—of the Ocean—remind us that to live means first and foremost to feel the world around us. But sensibility is not just a faculty, sensibility is much more than that: it is an organ that both senses ourselves and others, and our life is through and through a sensible life. So, being at sea, I cannot but think of the many ways we need to—we must—rehabilitate sensible existence from its marginalization at the hands of modern philosophy, art, and politics and that the only way to do so is to create the conditions for philosophy, art, and politics by defining the ontological status of experience, of organic and inorganic intelligence.

The Ocean is making me aware of its philosophical status. Being at sea is being in an atmosphere, and being in an atmosphere is a very powerful image of thought, one that immediately calls for a challenge of the distribution of disciplines in the human sciences and humanities. I imagine a philosophy of the Ocean, a philosophy of plants, a philosophy of animals, as part of a philosophy of life that will, then, be entangled with all the developments in the philosophy of consciousness. I know that many think action is first, but how can we act differently if we are unable to deeply think/sense differently? Logically speaking, no real difference can emerge from a doing that only perpetuates or corrects and reforms past doing. Also, how can doing be separated from Modernity’s stubborn pretension to see the human spirit as achieved only through the material production of objects and their exchange, that is, material culture? So, doing cannot survive without an Ocean of conditions for biological existence… I see all this water and feel a monstrous urge to reunite all thinkers and artists to meet here and start this new school of sensing intelligence.

And the next question arises: is the Ocean an art space? Or a future space within the arts? We will be addressing this paradoxical question at The Current Convening and Summer School upcoming September.

Chus Martínez

About TBA21-Academy and The Current
TBA21–Academy, founded by Francesca von Habsburg in 2011, and drawing on her experience as a producer of cross-disciplinary art installations and socially engaged cultural programming, leads artists, scientists, and thought-leaders on expeditions of collaborative discovery. TBA21A–Academy under the directorship of Markus Reymann is guided by its mission to foster a deeper understanding of the ocean through the lens of art and a belief in the power of exchange between disciplines to engender solutions for the ocean’s most pressing issues. Chus Martinez will envision three expeditions of The Current ’s second cycle. The Current is TBA21–Academy’s three-year field study programme for artists, cultural agents and scientists. Its aim is to value the crucial role artistic intelligence plays in understanding the radical reality of our climate, as well as to help us engage emotionally and cognitively with the ocean and all who inhabit it.