Mediating
the Ecological
Imperative

SNSF Sinergia 2021 – 2025
© 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
2025, December 13
Workshop "Art after Fukushima: Imaginations of the Atomic Age in the Anthropocene"

Workshop with four lectures by Gabrielle Decamous (Kyushu) on Fukushima and Other Nuclear Disasters in the Arts, Kyoko Iwaki (Antwerp) on Ghostly Realism: Matsubara Shuntarō and Atmospheric Subjects, Maria Stavrinaki (Lausanne) on Bomb, Human Head: Remarks on a Post-atomic Pattern, and Theresa Deichert (Heidelberg) on Representing the Unreal: The Nuclear Uncanny in Masaharu Satō’s Fukushima Trace, and responses by Vega Tescari (Mendrisio) and Lilian Kroth (Fribourg).
Concept & Organization: Toni Hildebrandt, SNSF Sinergia Mediating the Ecological Imperative, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art History, Institute of Art History, and Walter Benjamin Kolleg, University of Bern, supported by the MVUB Grant at University of Bern.

Location: University of Bern, Mittelstrasse 43, room 324.

2025, November 15-16
International Conference: Collaborations Texte-Image dans le monde anglophone du moyen âge au présent, Keynote lecture by Gabriele Rippl

Gabriele Rippl, PI of the Sinergia subproject Ecological Imaginaries: Eco-Ekphrasis in Twentieth- and Twenty-first Century North American Fiction will give a keynote lecture at the conférence plénière on Ecological Imaginaries: Ekphrasis and the Mediation of the Anthropocene at the International Conference on Collaborations Texte-Image dans le monde anglophone du moyen âge au présent at University of Strasbourg, November 15-16, 2024.

2025, November 14-15
Conference "Surrealism and Anti-fascism: The Political Imagination between Reason and Dream", New York University

2024 marks the centenary of the Surrealist movement—more specifically of its founding manifesto and attendant journal. The title of the latter, La Révolution surréaliste (1924-29) made plain the movement’s ambition: nothing less than a social and political revolution, a synthesis of unconscious desire and waking reality. Hamstrung by both communist resistance to its "interior model" and by the rise of fascism and a new World War, this sur-reality never came to pass in the terms imagined by its originators. Toni Hildebrand, Coordinator of the SNSF Sinergia Mediating the Ecological Imperative, will give a talk on Expressionlessness: The Anti-fascist Significance of Surrealist Image-Space.

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.