Sat 19 October
11:00–17:30
WORLDING ECOLOGIES SYMPOSIUM — 19 and 20 October

A two-day symposium on art, science and activism towards climate justice, including contributions by Federica Bueti, Eva Burgering, Lisa Doeland, Taru Elfving, Sami Hammana, Christopher F. Julien, Niekolaas Johannes Lekkerkerk, Michael Marder, Victoria McKenzie, Vincent Normand, Filipa Ramos.

Following the recent release of the publication WORLDING ECOLOGIES, published in collaboration with Valiz, RADIUS has the pleasure of inviting you to the two-day WORLDING ECOLOGIES SYMPOSIUM for a series of lectures and panel discussions involving several contributing authors, as well as a convivial launch of the publication. The symposium is aimed at a further discursive unpacking of the different topics addressed by the book’s contributing authors, shaped alongside three panels taking place across two days: Art & Institutional Ecosystems (19 October), Science & Climate Truth (20 October), and Activism & Climate Justice (20 October). The aim of this event is to bring together artist, scholars, curators, philosophers, activists, scientists and every other being interested in discussing worlding-possibility towards worlding a more earthly Earth. Each panel will feature three lecture presentations, followed by dialogue and the possibility of public interaction.

PROGRAM — SATURDAY 19 OCTOBER

11:00 – 12:30
INTRODUCTION AND OPENING LECTURE OF THE WORLDING ECOLOGIES SYMPOSIUM
With Niekolaas Johannes Lekkerkerk (director of RADIUS and co-editor of WORLDING ECOLOGIES).

The lecture Three Ecologies of Art in the Climate Regime – A Report from RADIUS, revolves around the question: By what means can RADIUS provide grounding, subsist, and seek its inscription in contemporaneity by employing imagination and climate action to shape the blueprints for regenerative more-than-human worlds?

12:30 – 14:00
LUNCH

14:00 – 16:30
PANEL I: ART & INSTITUTIONAL ECOSYSTEMS
With Federica Bueti (writer and lecturer, author of Critical Poetics of Feminist Refusals: Voicing Dissent Across Differences), Taru Elfving (curator and writer, and artistic director of CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago), and Vincent Normand (art historian, writer, curator, and author of Theater, Garden, Bestiary: A Materialist History of Exhibitions).

What role should art institutions play in striving towards a more sustainable and climate-just system? The panel ART & INSTITUTIONAL ECOSYSTEMS examines the multifaceted responsibilities and considerations of artistic and institutional practice within the discourse of art and ecology. This panel not only sheds light on the potential impact of these institutions, but also explores how they can overcome a mere thematic affiliation to become pivotal stakeholders in integrating sustainable policies into their organizational frameworks and extend their programming tentacularly into expanded societal spheres. Art institutions occupy an essential position in society in the production of subjectivity. As such, their commitment to sustainability extends beyond their physical operations to encompass a broader responsibility in fostering environmental consciousness and action. Speakers in this panel will delve into the dynamic interplay between art institutions and artists in fostering a more ecologically conscious system, whilst examining the relevance of intersectional approaches in this regard.

17:00 – 19:00
PUBLIC LAUNCH OF THE WORLDING ECOLOGIES PUBLICATION AND DRINKS RECEPTION
With Eva Burgering (co-editor of WORLDING ECOLOGIES), Simone Wegman (Valiz).

Please be welcome to this freely accessible conviviality moment, during which we will celebrate the launch of WORLDING ECOLOGIES. Co-editor Eva Burgering and project editor Simone Wegman will provide insights into the contents and coming-into-being of this publication, followed by a drinks reception, as well as the possibility of book signing and engaging with the different contributing authors.

PROGRAM — SUNDAY 20 OCTOBER

11:00 – 13:30
PANEL II: SCIENCE & CLIMATE TRUTH
With Sami Hammana (artist and teacher, head of the Honours Programme at the Willem de Kooning Academy), Michael Marder (Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, and author of Time Is a Plant), and Filipa Ramos (writer, curator and lecturer, and curator of Bestiari, the Catalan Representation at the 60th Venice Biennale).

The panel SCIENCE & CLIMATE TRUTH examines the multifaceted nature of climate responsibility through the lenses of science and artistic practice. Climate truth encompasses not only the scientific evidence of climate change (matters of fact), but also the broader societal and cultural narratives that shape our understanding of climate issues. This entails acknowledging the interconnectedness of human actions within ecologies and recognizing the imperative for collective action to mitigate climate change and its impacts. Through an examination of ecology as a scientific discipline and its potential integration within the art field, this panel invites you to consider the language and methods used in the climate discourse, as well as facilitating the exploration of truth-finding beyond Western paradigms, common thinking, and behaviour. The speakers in this panel explore the intertwined concerns of fossil fuel dependence, the dichotomy between individualistic thought and collective consciousness, and the importance of community and solidarity in pursuing sustainable other-than-human futures. What methods and methodologies might we employ to navigate the intricate web of local and planetary scales and reaches, all the while pursuing a more locally grounded approach and curbing the tide of climate change?

13:30 – 15:00
LUNCH

15:00 – 17:30
PANEL III: ACTIVISM & CLIMATE JUSTICE
With Lisa Doeland (philosopher and lecturer, author of Apocalypsofie), Christopher F. Julien (activist, researcher, spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion NL, and author of Alledaags Activisme), and Victoria McKenzie (academic activist, teacher, and artist).

The panel ACTIVISM & CLIMATE JUSTICE presents a discussion on the vital role of protest movements and climate activism by shedding light on the dynamic interconnectedness between artistic practice, political engagement, and environmental justice. As climate activism increasingly unfolds within and through both societal and artistic contexts in holding corporate entities and political establishments to climate responsibility—from targeted paintings to public demonstrations and legal work towards institutional accountability—the speakers in this panel will discuss the multifaceted dimensions and potential of activism and protest within the context of the art field. Through the lenses of environmental care and social equity, climate justice calls for a transformative approach that fosters resilience and sustainability for the collective well-being of humanity and the planet. In this panel, climate justice is set forth as an embodied practice driven by the ethical imperative to ensure that the impacts of climate change are not borne disproportionately by marginalized communities and future generations, but are instead shared equitably among all. This underscores the need to rectify historical and structural injustices that have exacerbated environmental degradation and perpetuated social inequalities.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION
⌀ Dates: Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 October 2024
⌀ Doors open: 10:30
⌀ Symposium hours: Saturday 11:00 – 16:30 / Sunday: 11:00 – 17:30
⌀ Public book launch: On Saturday 19 October, from 17:00 – 19:00, we are organizing a public launch of the WORLDING ECOLOGIES PUBLICATION, which can be attended free of charge. R.S.V.P. required.
⌀ Language: English
⌀ Tickets: €25 (one-day ticket), €40 (two-day ticket)
⌀ Symposium tickets (paid) include lunch and free access to the exhibition FEMKE HERREGRAVEN: DIALECT.
⌀ Limited capacity of sixty spots per day for the symposium.
⌀ Location: RADIUS Water Tower, Kalverbos 22 and RADIUS, Kalverbos 20.
⌀ Note that both locations are not wheelchair accessible. Please get in contact with us to discuss alternative ways to allow your participation.  
⌀ The WORLDING ECOLOGIES SYMPOSIUM is funded by the Municipality of Delft and Ekoplaza.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
FEDERICA BUETI is a writer, lecturer, occasional curator, and aspiring video-maker. She is the author of Critical Poetics of Feminist Refusals: Voicing Dissent Across Differences (Routledge, 2022), and is currently working on her second book, which looks at the politics of slow violence, decoloniality, and feminism in the context of the Mediterranean, where she grew up. She is a Lecturer in the Anthropology of the Mediterranean at UniCal, Reggio Calabria, Italy, where she teaches how to question the ‘Mediterranean’ from the perspective of the Global South. She is also a Writing Tutor on the MA in Fine Art at the Piet Zwart Institute.

EVA BURGERING is a curator, exhibition-maker, and writer. She works for various art institutions and museums, such as Nest in The Hague and the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. Her research focuses on the impact of historical lines in contemporary art, particularly in the fields of ecology, botany, and intersectional feminism. She has worked on the exhibitions The Botanical Revolution (2021) in Utrecht, Is it possible to be revolutionary and love flowers? (2021), and Cycle, Portal, Path (2023) in The Hague, and has done (image) editing work for various publications such as Sixteen Trees of Delft (RADIUS, 2022) and On the Necessity of Gardening (Valiz, 2021).

LISA DOELAND is a philosopher. She lectures at Erasmus University and the University of Amsterdam and does PhD research on the spectrality of waste. Her essays have appeared in De Groene Amsterdammer, Wijsgerig Perspectief and the Dutch Review of Books, among others. Her book Apocalypsofie on the illusion of recycling and green growth was published in 2023.

TARU ELFVING is a curator and writer focused on nurturing undisciplinary and site-sensitive inquiries at the intersections of ecological, feminist, and decolonial practices. As Artistic Director of CAA Contemporary Art Archipelago she currently leads a research residency programme on the island of Seili in the Baltic Sea, in collaboration with the Archipelago Research Institute. She is also a Curatorial Researcher in the transdisciplinary Centre for Sustainable Ocean Studies (SOS) at Åbo Akademi University.

SAMI HAMMANA is an artist and teacher whose practice mainly focuses on the boundaries of perception. His work often results in visual projects, such as films, that are accompanied or contaminated by texts. Since 2018, Hammana has been leading and teaching within the Honours Programme at the Willem de Kooning Academy.

CHRISTOPHER F. JULIEN is an activist and researcher. He is a PhD candidate at Utrecht University, working on ecological governance with an emphasis on new materialisms and decolonial ecology. Next to this he has an independent practice at the intersection of ecology and culture and is active in, and a spokesperson for, Extinction Rebellion NL. He is the author of Alledaags activisme (Podium, 2024) and has published in MATTER: Journal for New Materialist Research, The More Posthuman Glossary, and Krisis: Journal for Contemporary Philosophy. He holds Master’s Degrees in Cultural Analysis and in Conflict Studies and Human Rights.

NIEKOLAAS JOHANNES LEKKERKERK is a director and curator at RADIUS, the Center for Contemporary Art and Ecology in Delft, which he founded in 2021. Previously, he was co-director of the art space A Tale of A Tub in Rotterdam from 2019 to 2021, the artistic director of Brussels-based platform POPPOSITIONS between 2016 and 2019, and a curatorial fellow at TENT in Rotterdam from 2015 to 2016. In 2012, he founded The Office for Curating. Central to Lekkerkerk’s work as a curator and writer are socio-political, theoretical, and philosophical discourses revolving around climate and systemic change, environmental and ecosystems thought, and social and climate justice. More specifically, he focuses on debates concerning the Anthropocene, modernism and natural sciences, regenerative ecologies, posthumanism, and the increasing entanglement between nature and culture, approached through the lenses of intersectional ecology and the philosophy of science. His publica- tions include Bestiary of Corona Animals (Onomatopee, 2020) and The Standard Book of Noun-Verb Exhibition Grammar (Onomatopee, 2018). In 2012, he received the inaugural Demergon Curatorial Award, and in 2014 he was the beneficiary of the Akbank Sanat International Curator Competition.

MICHAEL MARDER is Ikerbasque Research Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Basque Country, UPV/ EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz. His work covers the fields of environmental philosophy and ecological thought, political theory, and phenomenology, and his latest publications include Time Is a Plant (Brill, 2023) and, with Edward S. Casey, Plants in Place: A Phenomenology of the Vegetal (Columbia UP, 2024).

VICTORIA MCKENZIE is an academic activist, teacher, and artist. Her work focuses on the interconnections and entanglements of the Earth where the realms of individual, collective, (human and more-than-human) and systems align. She has a background in research architecture and ecology and currently runs an architectural research firm called ‘RRA’ Radical Research & Re-storying Agency.

VINCENT NORMAND is an art historian, writer, and curator. Currently a PhD candidate at the EHESS/School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences Paris, his research focuses on the aesthetic, conceptual, and political functions of the exhibition-form in the advent of modern and contemporary art. He is a Lecturer at ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, where he has led the research projects Theater, Garden, Bestiary: A Materialist History of Exhibitions and The Raving Age: Histories and Figures of Youth. He is a co-founder of Glass Bead, a journal and research platform concerned with transfers of knowledge across art, science, and philosophy.

FILIPA RAMOS is a writer and curator. Her research focuses on how art and culture address ecology. Ramos is the Curator of Art Basel Film and a founding curator of the online cinema Vdrome. She is a Lecturer on the MA Programme from the Arts Institute of HGK FHNW, Basel. She co-curated ‘Persons Persones’, the 8th Biennale Gherdëina (2022), and ‘Bodies of Water’, the 13th Shanghai Biennale (2021). Furthermore, she is the curator of Bestiari, the Catalan Representation at the 60th Venice Biennale, and is a co-curator of Songs for the Changing Seasons for the First Climate Biennale in Vienna, also in 2024.