Resonances IV - NaturArchy: Towards a Natural Contract

Inivited by EU Commission's ArtScience Summer School as expert in eco-arts and philosophy.

Informed by cutting-edge scientific research and public policy discussions, the aim of Resonances IV is to explore contemporary societal concerns with a transdisciplinary approach. Spurred by artists and creatives around the world we want to develop discourse, visions, artworks and exhibition that raise questions, change perceptions and widen awareness, that can trigger systemic change in support of the European Commission’s Green Deal.

Trees, forests, rivers, mountains, seas, stardust, DNA — imagine the environment not as the backdrop of our activities, imagine objects of nature not as items to be appropriated or exploited, but as subjects with intrinsic value and full juridical rights. Cancel the tired subject-object dichotomy between person and environment, the obsolete opposition nature and culture that does not hold in view of modern scientific discoveries; do away with conditions of mastery, appropriation, and submission; reimagine human concerns as unreservedly dependent on the natural world, integrated within nature. Only such a shift in our conceptualisation of nature can change our deep relation to the matter, species, ecosystems around us. A real Green Deal requires a systemic change of ground.