Metamorphosen der Gegenwart is an Open Air Film Programme at the Botanical Garden of the University of Bern (BOGA). We will screen and discuss documentary and experimental films (Andrea Bordoli, Ursula Biemann, Ben Rivers, Ana Vaz) inside the BOGA. The programme, curated by Toni Hildebrandt, Peter J. Schneemann, and Magali Wagner (from the SNSF Sinergia Project Mediating the Ecological Imperative) in collaboration with Flavia Castelberg (from BOGA), is a response to the BOGA project Chronoversum – Pflanzen im Wandel der Zeit.

The entire ecosphere – the oceans, the air, our food, the soil, even the Antarctic – contains residues, particles and chemicals derived from our consumer culture. The extraction of raw materials leaves behind destroyed landscapes and toxic spoil. Waste is everywhere. On December, 2nd, the Sinergia team will discuss the exhibition "Territories of Waste. On the Return of the Repressed" at Museum Tingueley, Basel, together with curator Dr. Sandra Beate Reimann.

The conference After Nature – Nach der Natur – Aprés Nature—5th conference of the research group Aesthetics & Critique, coordinated by Emmanuel Alloa—is going to take place on 26 November 2022 at Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg, with lectures by Sabeth Buchmann (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), Howard Caygill (Kingston University London), Toni Hildebrandt (University of Bern), Federico Luisetti (University of St. Gallen), Pietro Montani (Sapienza University of Rome), Pauline Nadrigny (Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University), and a book presentation with artist Nora Kapfer.

The Sinergia team welcomes the writer Alexandra Kleeman (New York) to Bern for a discussion about her new novel Something New Under the Sun (Hogarth, 2021), organized jointly by the subproject Ecological Imaginaries: Eco-Ekphrasis in Twentieth- and Twenty-First North American Fiction and the Collegium Generale of the University of Bern as part of the latter's Literarische Lesungen series on Climate Fiction. The discussion will take place at University of Bern, Hauptgebäude 4, Hörsaal 220.

The exhibition STRATUM at the MUCA, UNAM, Mexico City by Luis Carrera-Maul curated by Prof. Dr. Peter Krieger will take place from the 30 of July until the 29 of October. It is also possible to see the development of the landscape-installation created in the museum's online inner space. In addition, a colloquium will be held in the MUCA auditorium on September 21 at 10:00 (GMT-5) on the concept of geo-aesthetics.

Peter J. Schneemann and Michaela Schäuble from the SNSF Sinergia Mediating the Ecological Imperative will give lectures at the International Conference Toward a Sustainable Attitude: Aesthetics, the Arts, and the Environment at Ca' Foscari University of Venice (Aula Magna Ca’ Dolfin). Toward a Sustainable Attitude is organized by Diego Mantoan (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) in collaboration between Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, New York University Tandon and the University of Bern. Scientific committee: Roberta Dreon, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; Carolina Fernandez Castrillo, Universidad Carlos III Madrid; Diego Mantoan, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice; Peter Schneemann, Universität Bern, and Jonathan Soffer, NYU Tandon.

Andrea Bordoli's latest short film Per Voi Oggi la Luce del Sole non Splenderà will make its international premiere at the Grands Rencontres des Arts Médiatiques en Gaspésie (1-4.09.2022, Percé, Québec). It will also be screened at Arquiteturas Film Festival in Porto (27.9–1.10.2022), and will be part of the short films competition at the Vancouver International Film Festival in Vancouver, Canada (27.09 – 09.10.2022).

The Sinergia team welcomes Prof. Dr. Jørgen Bruhn (Linnaeus University) and his team to Bern for the workshop Images, Imagination, Intermediality: Form and Content in Anthropocene Media, organized by the literary studies subproject Ecological Imaginaries: Eco-Ekphrasis in Twentieth- and Twenty-First North American Fiction. In a series of talks followed by discussion, Prof. Bruhn and his team will present their current project, Intermedial Ecocriticism: Transmediating the Anthropocene, which investigates how specific representations of the climate crisis in scientific media changes when transformed into other types of media. Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl and members from the Mediating the Ecological Imperative team will present their projects. The two research groups will also discuss several key methodological and theoretical texts. If you are interested in participating, please send an email to Jonathan.sarfin@unibe.ch.

Pauline Julier is an artist and filmmaker. She explores the links that humans create with their environment through stories, rituals, knowledge and images. Her films and installations are composed of elements of diverse origins (documentary, theoretical, fictional) to restitute the complexity of our relationship to the world. Her films were presented in festivals, art centres and institutions around the world. She was awarded the Swiss Federal Art Price at Art Basel in 2010 and 2021. She has presented a solo exhibition at the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris in 2017, and she took part in Bruno Latour's exhibition Critical Zone at the ZKM. On 27th September, her new film WAY BEYOND will be shown at Kino Rex Bern, followed by a conversation between Pauline Julier and Toni Hildebrandt.

Prof. Dr. Peter J. Schneemann, cPI of the SNSF Sinergia Mediating the Ecological Imperative, will give the opening lecture (in German) at the conference Ökotopien und Dystopien in Kunstgeschichte, Kultur und Film [Ecotopias and dystopias in art history, culture and film] at the Institute of Art History at the University of Regensburg.

The Summer School 2022 on The Ecological Imperative. Past and Contemporary Perspectives and Practices, in collaboration with the GSAH TransHumanities, will take place at the Hotel Schloss Wartegg, Bodensee. Keynote Speakers: Prof. Dr. Macarena Gòmez-Barris (Professor and Chairperson of Social Science and Cultural Studies at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York), Prof. Dr. Caroline A. Jones (Professor in the History, Theory, and Criticism section, Department of Architecture, MIT), Prof. Dr. Hubert Zapf (Professor and Chair of American Literature at the University of Augsburg, Germany). Project Team: Dr. Eva Bader, Dr. Toni Hildebrandt, Prof. Dr. Urte Krass; Prof, Dr. Gabriele Rippl, Prof. Dr. Michaela Schäuble, Prof. Dr. Peter J. Schneemann, and Dr. Michael Toggweiler.

Wo gibt es Raum für selbst­gefährdende Forschungs­prozesse, innere Reisen, bei denen wir nichts von dem finden, wonach wir suchen, nur etwas von uns, von dem wir nicht wussten, dass es exis­tiert. Sind Sanatorien, Psychiatrien und Künstler­häuser nicht auch Häuser der Gast­freund­schaft, offen für unvordenk­liche Empfindungen und Prozesse, die in uns geschehen, die aber nicht wir sind? Das Kolloquium versteht sich als eine Einladung an die verschiedensten Sprachen und Sprech­formen, sich ins Vernehmen zu setzen und zusammen in See zu stechen.
Mit Emmanuel Alloa, Alexander Kluge, Elke aus dem Moore, Rüdiger Safranski, Sigrid Weigel, Gerhard Wolf u.a., konzipiert von Toni Hildebrandt, Friederike Kretzen, Cornelia Schwab und Luke Wilkins für die Fundaziun Nairs in Scuol (Engadin).
Alle Vorträge und Gespräche werden live auf dem youtube-Kanal der Fundaziun Nairs übertragen.

The 5th Swiss Congress for Art History, organized jointly by the Swiss Association of Art Historians (VKKS) and the Institute for Art History of the University of Zurich, will be held in Zurich from 22 to 24 June 2022. Session conveners: Toni Hildebrandt und Peter J. Schneemann (University of Bern); speakers of the session: Natalia Ganahl (University of Vienna), Suzannah Henty (University of Melbourne / EHESS, Paris), Veronika Hirth (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology), André Rottmann (Free University Berlin) and Yvonne Volkart (IAeP, Academy of Art and Design, FHNW Basel / ZHdK Zürich).

Confirmed Participants: Nina Amstutz, Amanda Boetzkes, Mark Cheetham, Sria Chatterjee, Maura Coughlin, Heather Davis, TJ Demos, Jaimey Hamilton Faris, Emily Gephart, Dehlia Hannah, Catherina Karkov, Gregory Levine, De-nin D. Lee, CC McKee, Yvette Mutumba, Astrida Neimanis, James Nisbet, Sugata Ray, Bernd Scherer, Peter J. Schneemann, Vera-Simone Schulz, Jeannine Tang, Greg M. Thomas, Tihomir Topuzovski, Organisers: Olga Smith (University of Vienna), Andrew Patrizio (University of Edinburgh).

The Sinergia team welcomes Prof. Dr. Eva Horn (University of Vienna) to Bern for the workshop Mediating the Ecological Imperative: Interdisciplinary Exchanges, organized by the literary studies subproject Ecological Imaginaries: Eco-Ekphrasis in Twentieth- and Twenty-First North American Fiction. In a series of talks followed by discussion rounds, Prof. Dr. Horn will discuss her current project, Air: A Cultural Theory of Climate, which investigates climate as a cultural phenomenon, Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl and Jonathan Sarfin will present their work on eco-ekphrasis and intermediality in contemporary anglophone fiction, and Prof. Dr. Peter J. Schneemann and Dr. Toni Hildebrandt will introduce the art history sub-project Formations of the Ethical Imperative: From Postmodernity to Relational Aesthetics and the Contemporary Period, 1960–2019.

Lecture and workshop Mare nostrum. Ökologische und politische Denkbilder des Meeres (in German) by Dr. Pablo Schneider (Berlin/Munich). The lecture will focus on ecological observations and political reflections in the context of a visually based understanding of the sea, moderated by Peter Krieger (UNAM, Mexico City) as part of the Sinergia subproject Political Geo-Aesthetics of the Anthropocene. The evening lecture will take place on May 19 at 18.15 at University of Bern / Hauptgebäude, Hochschulstrasse 4, room 201. The workshop will take place on May 20 from 9.00-13.00 at the Institute of Art History, Mittelstrasse 43, room 216.

Lecture by Toni Hildebrandt at the Centre at the Foundation Petrović Njegoš and the Centre for Contemporary Art of Montenegro in Podgorica, founded in 1995, by integrating two cultural institutions: the Republic Cultural Centre and the Gallery of Art of Non-Aligned Countries "Josip Broz Tito". In the context of the space, and its current exhibition by Irena Lagator Pejović, the lecture will discuss the aporia of a time in-between utopia and dystopia, of a past that haunts the present, and a present that is always open to a "some-thing" that is yet to arrive, but which needs an "other", allegorical space to unfold in front of our eyes.

Andrea Bordoli's Requerimiento (2020, 8’) is currently part of the digital exhibition To Spawn a Door in the Land of Broken Mirrors, hosted by New Art City, and TERRA AUSTRALIS INCOGNITA (2021, 9’) has been selected for the This is Short platform, and will be screened in the 4 short film festivals.

Prof. Dr. Evi Zemanek (Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg) will give an evening lecture on Resilience: Interdisciplinary Perspectives and Potentials for the Environmental Humanities on March 31 at 6:15pm, moderated by Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl (University of Bern). The lecture will be followed by a Colloquium for Advanced MA or PhD students on April 1 (9:30am-4pm). Both events will take place at the Walter Benjamin Kolleg at University of Bern (GSAH | Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies) – NEW: Online via Zoom.

Peter Krieger (UNAM, Mexico City) will give a lecture on Aesthetics and Political Iconography of Air Pollution in the Workshop Nature, Art and History – Thematic Workshop on Chinese Ecological Art History at Tsinghua University on Saturday, March, 5, 8:40pm (Chicago time). Access via the QR code on the poster.

Lecture by Peter J. Schneemann in the Ringvorlesung Kunst und Engagement. Von den biologischen Systemen der 1960er-Jahre zu Ökofeminismus und Queer Ecology in der Gegenwartskunst, organized by Ursula Ströbele, at Braunschweig University of Art (HBK)

séance de présentation of the new issue of Plastik – the Journal of the Ecole des arts de la Sorbonne entitled Vers une esthétique des éléments with the editors Maud Maffei, Benjamin Fellmann and Riccardo Venturi, the director of Plastik Christophe Viart, and an intervention by author Toni Hildebrandt at Université Paris 1 Panthéon - Sorbonne.

The exhibition curator Annette Amberg and Prof. Dr. Michaela Schäuble, Director of the Institute for Social Anthropology at the University of Bern, will guide through the exhibition Vídeo nas Aldeias: An Audiovisual Movement by and Among Indigenous Peoples in Brazil at Coalmine, Winterthur. Afterwards there will be a Brasilian dinner and a screening of Corumbiara: They Shoot Indians, Don’t They? (2009) by Vincent Carelli.

Thierry Dufrêne (University Paris 10 Ouest-Nanterre), Peter J. Schneemann (University of Bern), and Vera Beatriz Siqueira (UERJ, Brazil) will chair a session on Ecologies of Migration: Engaged Perspectives at the 35th CIHA World Congress | MOTION: Migrations, São Paulo | January 17-21, 2022, taking place at the Instituto Goethe de São Paulo - Rua Lisboa, 974 - Pinheiros, São Paulo, as well as online.

A late afternoon conversation about Ceylan Öztrük's exhibition Matter of non and her novel The Motive that accompanies the show. The discussion will start at 4pm, but you are invited to come earlier in the afternoon to get familiar with the exhibition, its ideas and the book. Discussion with: Ceylan Öztrük, Toni Hildebrandt, Li Tavor and Nicolas Brulhart.

Requerimiento, a recent film by Andrea Bordoli has been selected in the Ethnogeographic section of the program of Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival (12-21.11.2021).
Shortly afterwards, the film will be shown in the Filmic experiments in ethnography section of the Athens Ethnographic Film Festival – ETHNOFEST (25.11-05.12.2021).

ARTIST ENCOUNTER #2: What does cultural sustainability mean? How do we collaborate in ways that dehierarchize knowledge and exploit the full potential of transdisciplinary cooperation? And what role does blueberry juice play? Researchers from the Sinergia project meet the artist George Steinmann for a public round table discussion as part of his exhibition „FUTURE NOW“ at the Stadtgalerie in Bern. The event will be recorded and shared on our website, generously supported by the Stanley Johnson Foundation.

Conference Hope – Rethinking with Benjamin organized by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin in cooperation with the Akademie der Künste and the Leibniz-Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung, Berlin. The conference holds a panel on Architecture, Environment and Natural History organized by Maria Teresa Costa (MPIWG) and Toni Hildebrandt (University of Bern) with talks by Benjamin Fellmann (Warburg-Haus, Hamburg), Maria Filomena Molder (Nova University Lisbon), Noa Levin (Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin), Milena Massalongo (University of Mantova), Peter J. Schneemann (University of Bern), Giovanbattista Tusa (Nova University Lisbon), M. Ty (University of Wisconsin, Madison), Gerhard Wolf (KHI, Florence), a discussion between Emanuele Coccia (EHESS Paris) and architect Daniel Libeskind, and a final film screening with Chantal Benjamin, Lais Benjamin Campos, Aura Rosenberg and Frances Scholz, moderated by Maria Teresa Costa and Toni Hildebrandt.

Workshop organized by doctoral researchers Alice Gustson, Georgina Sánchez Celaya and Jonathan Sarfin (SNSF Sinergia Mediating the Ecological Imperative) as part of the Nachhaltigkeitstag at the three Bernese universities. Literature, film, and art portray visions of the future(s) and help us re-imagine the world. They also touch the core of ethical decision-making and ask questions of human flourishing (das Erblühen menschlichen Lebens). Through the lens of the Environmental Humanities, a trans-disciplinary approach, we will examine the relevance of cultural productions for discussions of human-nature interaction. Then, we will lead a collaborative poetry-making exercise: participants will compose centos, recycled poems, and imagine new ecological futures firsthand.

Prof. Dr. Peter J. Schneemann will give a lecture at the interdisciplinary colloquium Art & Ecologie. Dialogues Contemporains, a Journée d'études interdisciplinaire, organized by Julien Currat in collaboration of University of Lausanne and the Conférence universitaire de suisse Occidentale (CUSO). Other speakers include Prof. Roberto Barbanti (Université Paris 8, Saint-Denis), Dr. Guillaume Logé (Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne), Dr. Federica Martini (École de design et haute école d'art du Valais, Sierre) and Dr. Marie Rebecchi (Aix-Marseille Université).

Two principal investigators of the SNSF Sinergia Mediating the Ecological Imperative are invited to the Ringvorlesung Umwelt denken — Umwelt gestalten Medien, Metabolismen, politische Entwürfe, organized by Institut für Kunst- und Baugeschichte at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). Krieger will talk about his research on Politische Ikonografie der Megastadt im Anthropozän. Schneemann will give a lecture on Das Haus als Modell. Der ökologische Imperativ und die zeitgenössische Kunst (both lectures in German).

We screen a film from a work in progress by Land artist Hans Baumann and discuss his long-term creative partnership with the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian tribe and their collective reflection upon a rapidly disappearing sea in the California desert. The event is supported by the Stanley Johnson Foundation and the first of a series of Artist Encounters (2021-24).

How to think and represent nuclear disaster in its radicality? – Conversation and screening with Brazilian artist/filmmaker Ana Vaz and art historians Maria Stavrinaki (University Panthéon-Sorbonne – Paris 1) and Toni Hildebrandt (University of Bern) at LE BAL, Paris in collaboration with University Panthéon-Sorbonne – Paris 1. The event will be held in French and English.

Three films by Andrea Bordoli (The Depth Beneath, The Height Above, 2019, STABULUM, 2021 and Terra Australis Incognita, 2021) were selected for Mimesis Documentary Festival, Boulder, Pasaules Film Festival in Riga, Lithuania, and Cortocircuito International Film Festival, Santiago de Compostela, Spain. STABULUM is also part of Persistenze, a group exhibition that will open Saturday the 18th September at La Rada, Locarno. Andrea Bordoli is a filmmaker and doctoral student in Social Anthropology in our subproject Indigenous Futurisms: Counter-publics in the Slipstream.

Transdisciplinary Dialogue on the global and regional effects of the Anthropocene as part of the exhibition in the Kunsthalle It is not the End of the World. Artists, Writers and Speakers: Frédérique Ait-Touati (literary studies/history of science, Science Po, Paris / ZKM Karlsruhe), Romana Ganzoni (writer), Michael Hagner (history of science, ETH Zurich), Stefan Haupt (filmmaker), Toni Hildebrandt (art history, University of Bern), Pauline Julier (filmmaker, artist), Thomas Kneubühler (artist), Diana Rojas (performer), Sabine Rusterholz Petko (curator), Rasa Smite (artist), Peter J. Schneemann (art history, University of Bern), Christian Schüle (philosopher, sociologist, theologist, essayist), George Steinmann (visual artist, musician, researcher), Riikka Taurianinen (artist), Yvonne Volkart (art and media studies, FHNW Basel).

De León's talk will conclude the exhibition Confronting Hostile Terrains (19.08.21-11.09.21) that examines the political causes and existential consequences of lethal border politics and aims to humanize the often-anonymous victims of border regimes and asylum systems. Confronting Hostile Terrains will center the participatory exhibit Hostile Terrain 94 from the Undocumented Migration Project directed by Jason De León. Two more interventions that explore migration and internal bordering complete the exhibition. These include Wasser from artist Sarah Hildebrand and Living in Direct Provision directed by anthropologist Darcy Alexandra.

Qiao Hu has been awarded a scholarship by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) to pursue her PhD research at the University of Bern. Her research project Mapping the Smellscape of Altermodern: Olfactory Art and Multidimensional Art History will explore how olfactory art brings into play the concept of relational aesthetics in order to reflect on the smellscape in altermodern, in which viewers' positions are replaced by participants and relations. Her dissertation project is part of the subproject Formations of the Ethical Imperative: From Postmodernity to Relational Aesthetics and the Contemporary Period, 1960–2019, under the lead of Prof. Dr. Peter J. Schneemann.

The work of artists is essential for the mediation and communication of ecological interdependencies: in pointing out and criticizing problematic conditions and phenomena as well as in actively intervening in environment-related discourses or even in directly engaging the environment itself. By means of images, materialities or scenarios, the artistic techniques of the present are able to fill gaps between scientific implications and social transformations with creative processes. The artists' agency takes a central role in addressing the comprehensive ecological challenges of our time.

This series is generously sponsored by the Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation.

Colloque suisse de la revèle en histoire de l'art / Nachwuchskolloquium für Kunstgeschichte in der Schweiz 2021, Department of Art History and Archeology, University of Fribourg

Roundtable with Dr. Toni Hildebrandt (SNSF Mediating the Ecological Imperative), Markus Reymann (Director of the TBA21–Academy, Venice), Mareike  Dittmer (Director of Public Engagement, TBA21–Academy, Venice) and Karin Zindel (Co-Leitung Geschäftsstelle Dossier Nachhaltigkeit, ZHdK), Moderation: Dr. Gabrielle Schaad, Co-Curator Le Foyer – in Process.

Speakers included Darcy Alexandra (Social Anthropology, Bern), Andrea Bordoli (Social Anthropology, Bern), Claus Beisbart (Philosophy, Bern), Alice Gustson (Art History, Bern), Toni Hildebrandt (Art History, Bern), Petra Tjitske Kalshoven (Anthropology, Manchester), Peter Krieger (Art History, Mexico City), Deborah Madsen (American Literature, Geneva), Gabriele Rippl (North American Literature and Culture, Bern), Jonathan Sarfin (North American Literature, Bern), Michaela Schäuble (Social Anthropology, Bern), Peter Schneemann (Art History, Bern), as well as an artist lecture by Minerva Cuervas (Mexico City).

Prof. Dr. Gabriele Rippl will give a Keynote (in German) at the Symposium “Kulturelle Nachhaltigkeit lernen und lehren”, Pädagogische Hochschule Niederösterreich.

With contributions by Hannah Baader, Toni Hildebrandt, Peter Krieger, Ursula Kluwick, Michi Knecht, Virginia Richter, Gabriele Rippl, Michaela Schäuble, Peter J. Schneemann, Ursula Ströbele, Hubert Zapf and a Keynote by Christof Mauch (Director, Rachel Carson Center, LMU Munich).

Tsinghua Arts and Design Institute in Milan with a lecture by Prof. Dr. Peter Krieger on Aesthetics and Ecology – Research Concepts

Interview (German) with cPI Prof. Dr. Peter J. Schneemann, Institute of Art History, University of Bern