Agenda

31 May 2023, 3.30-6.30pm
Yellow room, NICHE (Ca' Bottacin, Dorsoduro 3911)

UNRULY NATURES
A seminar with Federico Luisetti and Flurina Gradin (Universität St. Gallen)
Discussant: Emiliano Guaraldo (NICHE)
By invitation only.

The Unruly Natures team will discuss their methodologies and previous projects. They will also initiate a dialogue about a potential research field trip in the Venetian Lagoon in Autumn 2023, exploring the socio-natural subjects that could be encountered in such a setting.

This seminar is part of the series of events organized by Cristina Baldacci and Emiliano Guaraldo in the frame of the Ecological Art Practices research cluster.

Unruly Natures is an ongoing collaborative research project initiated by Federico Luisetti, Flurina Gradin, Rony Emmenegger and Emiliano Guaraldo in 2020. Research activities are focussing on the cultural, epistemic, and socio-political implications of experiencing natural entities as subjects. The aim is to study those socio-natural subjectivities, promote transdisciplinary conversations, and organize innovative critical ecopolitical initiatives. The project involves a growing international network of scholars from different disciplines such as Political Geography, Environmental Humanities, Natural Sciences, Design, Philosophy, Critical Theory, and the Visual Arts. 

Flurina Gradin, a designer and ecologist, engages in research and teaching to promote regenerative interventions for ecosystems and biodiversity in the built environment. Her company Wild Spots bridges expert discourses, place-based experiences, and applied research projects. Her practice is defined by transdisciplinary collaboration across architecture, natural sciences, environmental humanities, and the arts.

Federico Luisetti is an Associate Professor of Italian Culture and Society at the University of St. Gallen. His recent works focus on the contemporary "state of nature" and the subjectivity of nature, exploring narrative models, aesthetic and political implications, and connections with the Anthropocene paradigm. These research paths have resulted in the forthcoming books Essere Pietra. Ecologia di un mondo minerale (Wetlands) and Non-human Subjects. An Ecology of Earth Beings (Cambridge University Press).

Ecological Art Practices is one NICHE's Research Clusters 
Principal Investigator: Cristina Baldacci

The research cluster Ecological Art Practices questions the relationship between art and the environment intertwining ecocritical approaches, radical imagination and creative sustainability. It focuses on environmental concerns related to anthropogenic climate change on a local (Venice) and global level, by examining the challenges and possibilities of art practices, as well as of art histories and theories, and of natural and cultural archives. Water as a medium, a metaphor, a space for action and (social, cultural, biological) diversity is a core topic. The cluster aims both to create inclusive occasions for interdisciplinary exchange – among scholars and cultural practitioners working across the field of contemporary art practice and theory – and to foster international collaborations with (art) research centers and commons. 

To learn about the other Research Clusters, see THIS PAGE of our website