Mediating
the Ecological
Imperative

SNSF Sinergia 2021 – 2024
© Peter Krieger, *Bilderfahrzeug,* Mexiko-Stadt, 2018.
© Peter Krieger, *Footprints,* Mexiko-Stadt, 2020.
© Peter Krieger, *Ästhetik der Luftverschmutzung,* Mexiko-Stadt 2016.
Mixteca Alta Geopark, Oaxaca, Mexico, View from Yucu ñuun lookout, Photo by visual journalist Alex McDougall, 2021 © Alex McDougall (photo), Courtesy of the artist.
Zapatista women at the First International Gathering of Politics, Art, Sport, and Culture for Women who Struggle in the Zapatista Caracol of the Tzotz Choj Zone. Photo by Mexican photo-documentalist Regina López, 2018. © Regina López (photo). Courtesy of the artist.
Will Wilson, *AIR (Auto-Immune Response),* <br />© Will Wilson
Will Wilson, *AIR (Auto-Immune Response),* <br />© Will Wilson
Sky Hopinka, *Jáaji Approx.,* 07:39, HD video, stereo, color, 2015.
Sky Hopinka, *Fainting Spells,* 10:45, HD video, stereo, color, 2018.
*Sun & Sea (Marina),* Opera-Performance von Rugile Barzdziukaite, Vaiva Grainyte, Lina Lapelyte an der Biennale Venedig 2019. <br />© Andrej Vasilenko (Foto), Courtesy of the Artists.
Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder, *The Sense of Smell (The Five Senses series),* 1617-1618, Oil on panel, Museo del Prado, Madrid.
Gayil Nalls, *World Sensorium,* 1999-2000, World Aromatic Phytogenic Material (100ml at 25 in Amber Borosilicate Bottle), Photo by Bert Brouwenstijn (Displayed in the exhibition *Aromatic Art (Re-)constructed: In Search of Lost Scents* at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2017).
Peter de Cupere, *The Smell of a Stranger,* Exhibited in the 12th Biennial of Havana in 2015, Photo by Frederik Buyckx.
Precious Okoyomon, *Open circle Lived Relation* (Detail), Resistance is an atmosperic condition, 2020, Foto: Diana Pfammater.
Asad Raza, Absorption. *Down to Earth,* 2020 © Berliner Festspiele/Eike Walkenhorst.
Regina José Galindo, Still from *Tierra*, 2013. Video (HD, one-channel, 16:9, color, sound), 34 min, Courtesy the artist and Prometeo Gallery Ida Pisani Milan- Lucca.
George Steinmann, *The World and the Mind* (1988-2016) © George Steinmann.

© Peter Krieger, Bilderfahrzeug, Mexiko-Stadt, 2018.

© Peter Krieger, Footprints, Mexiko-Stadt, 2020.

© Peter Krieger, Ästhetik der Luftverschmutzung, Mexiko-Stadt 2016.

Mixteca Alta Geopark, Oaxaca, Mexico, View from Yucu ñuun lookout, Photo by visual journalist Alex McDougall, 2021 © Alex McDougall (photo), Courtesy of the artist.

Zapatista women at the First International Gathering of Politics, Art, Sport, and Culture for Women who Struggle in the Zapatista Caracol of the Tzotz Choj Zone. Photo by Mexican photo-documentalist Regina López, 2018. © Regina López (photo). Courtesy of the artist.

Will Wilson, AIR (Auto-Immune Response),
© Will Wilson

Will Wilson, AIR (Auto-Immune Response),
© Will Wilson

Sky Hopinka, Jáaji Approx., 07:39, HD video, stereo, color, 2015.

Sky Hopinka, Fainting Spells, 10:45, HD video, stereo, color, 2018.

Sun & Sea (Marina), Opera-Performance von Rugile Barzdziukaite, Vaiva Grainyte, Lina Lapelyte an der Biennale Venedig 2019.
© Andrej Vasilenko (Foto), Courtesy of the Artists.

Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder, The Sense of Smell (The Five Senses series), 1617-1618, Oil on panel, Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Gayil Nalls, World Sensorium, 1999-2000, World Aromatic Phytogenic Material (100ml at 25 in Amber Borosilicate Bottle), Photo by Bert Brouwenstijn (Displayed in the exhibition Aromatic Art (Re-)constructed: In Search of Lost Scents at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in 2017).

Peter de Cupere, The Smell of a Stranger, Exhibited in the 12th Biennial of Havana in 2015, Photo by Frederik Buyckx.

Precious Okoyomon, Open circle Lived Relation (Detail), Resistance is an atmosperic condition, 2020, Foto: Diana Pfammater.

Asad Raza, Absorption. Down to Earth, 2020 © Berliner Festspiele/Eike Walkenhorst.

Regina José Galindo, Still from Tierra, 2013. Video (HD, one-channel, 16:9, color, sound), 34 min, Courtesy the artist and Prometeo Gallery Ida Pisani Milan- Lucca.

George Steinmann, The World and the Mind (1988-2016) © George Steinmann.

The SNF project “Mediating the Ecological Imperative: Formats and Modes of Engagement” is a joint research project of the Institutes of Art History, American Studies and Social Anthropology at the University of Bern. In addition, a collaboration with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) is being realized. Research focuses on the visual politics of climate change, the role of ecological issues in art and literature, and social engagement with the environment in indigenous cultures. The philosopher Hans Jonas coined the term “ecological imperative” in his book Das Prinzip Verantwortung (The Principle of Responsibility, 1979), in which he formulated an ecological maxim for action based on Immanuel Kant’s “Categorical Imperative”: “Act in such a way that the effects of your actions are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life on earth”. → Read more about the project

Team
Latest News
2024, November 4-8
Ecological Entanglements across Collections, 4A_LAB Academy 2024

As much as plants have contributed to the making of human worlds, human intervention has also had a deep impact on vegetal ecosystems: the plant-human relationship is one of reciprocal interplay and mutual exchange, with humans existentially depending on plant life – with every breath. Recent studies have highlighted how these organisms, far from being passive receivers at the other end of the life spectrum, are endowed with active forms of sensory perception, can react, can move and have sex. For all these reasons, vegetal life constitutes a privileged field of investigation and knowledge production, both in terms of applied technologies, as well as of theoretical thinking. This new awareness calls for novel paradigms of historical and transhistorical inquiry, focusing on the wide range of interactions between humans and plants across time and space. In particular, there is a need for transdisciplinary and transregional approaches to the interactions of plant and human ecologies that can help to retrace the Anthropocene, and think beyond it. Peter J. Schneemann will give a lecture on The Empty Lot: Of Remediating Brownfields and Resisting Vegetation at the conference Entanglements across Collections, November 4-8, 2024 in Berlin. The conference is organized by the Berlin-based 4A_LAB Academy: Art Histories, Archaeologies, Anthropologies Aesthetics Ecological, concept and organisation by Hannah Baader in collaboration with Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz.

2024, September 19
Lecture by project partner Prof. Dr. Hubert Zapf (University of Augsburg)

Hubert Zapf, Chair of American Studies, Department of English and American Studies, University of Augsburg, and a long-term project partner of the SNSF Sinergia Mediating the Ecological Imperative in Gabriele Rippl's subproject Ecological Imaginaries: Eco-Ekphrasis in Twentieth- and Twenty-first Century North American Fiction will visit Bern to give a lecture on Cultural Ecology in Decolonial Perspective. The Lecture will take place on September 19, 16:15-17:45 at Unitobler, room F-102.

2024, September 13
Re-Imagining Landscapes in Times of Ecological Crisis with Andrea Bordoli

The Visual Methods Studio of the Concordia Ethnography Lab will explore the intersections between anthropology and filmmaking through the screening of three short audiovisual works by Andrea Bordoli, each of them proposing a formal and conceptual encounter with a specific territory. By considering human-nonhuman entanglements, by tracking flows and transformations of matter, and by imagining speculative scenarios that blur past, present and future tenses, each of these films proposes a filmic encounter to think with and think through some key elements of the contemporary ecological crisis. Andrea Bordoli is a PhD student in the SNSF Sinergia project Mediating the Ecological Imperative.

All
Gardening
Drought
Climate change
Carbon Footprint
Digitalization
Art History
Responsability
Anthropocene
Human
Supererogation
Duty
Sustainability
Textile
Art
Repair
Second Hand
Commodity
Capitalocene
Extinction
Climate Change
Sculpture
Animal
Peru
Nature
Venezuala
Flora and Fauna
Community
Indigenous
Nahua
El Salvador
Anthropology
Object
Mexico
Empathy
Wáxarika
cacao
cooperation
cooperative strategies
water defense;
Metlapanapa River
socio-environmental activism
potentiality
transgender
body
Guatemala
Territory

Voices is our public outreach format. In collecting short statements and responses from all society, we want to include otherwise unheard voices and foster a broader dialogue on the ecological imperative. We also want to relate our own conception to perspectives from outside academia. The format of Voices relies on Hito Steyerl's concept the poor image, which emphasizes the potential of easily accessible, low resolution footage brought to common use.

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This interactive platform has been made possible thanks to the support of the Anniversary Foundation of La Mobilière Cooperative.