Utopian Relationships: Autoethnographies of Naturecultures

#arttheory

The course explores the entanglement of nature and culture through embodied somatic knowledge production. By investigating the concept of naturecultures, participants will engage in multi-sensory, creative, ethnographic and critical practices.

This five-day summer school course explores the entanglement of nature and culture through embodied somatic knowledge production. By investigating the concept of naturecultures (a term coined by Donna Haraway), participants will engage in multi-sensory, creative, and critical practices to explore how our surroundings inform our learning experiences and relationships with non-human actants. This workshop holds utopian potential by fostering a space where participants can radically reimagine their relationships with nature and culture. 

We will develop individual research projects to explore the intersections of nature, culture, places, and phenomena in Berlin. By investigating diverse forms of knowledge production, including acoustic fieldnotes, sound collages, poetry, color palettes, and forms we will experiment with utopian research approaches. These contain somatic and aesthetic practices to deepen the connection between self and environment. By the end of the workshop we will create artistic responses to the explorations, culminating in a collective installation or small exhibition. Participants will position themselves as vulnerable observers (Ruth Behar), recognizing how their experiences, biases, and emotions inform their understanding of naturecultures.

The workshop will take place at the nature and culture learning space Floating University in Berlin Kreuzberg. The results of the workshop will be shown there afterwards as part of an exhibition that focuses on the process rather than finished products.

Schedule

Monday

Introduction: Ethnography, Naturecultures, Radical Subjectivity, Situated Knowledge, Autoethnography

Tuesday

Sensual Research: sight, touch

Wednesday

Sensual Research: sound, taste, smell

Thursday

Entanglement of Sense & Individual Field Research 

Friday

Exhibition & Community Lunch

Equipment requirements

Please bring your smartphone.

Johanna Kirschbauer, M.A.

Johanna Kirschbauer is a research assistant at the Berlin University of the Arts and researches biomimetics in humanities by disclosing the potential of clouds, water, swarms and mucus as aesthetic and functional models of the present. She studied media culture at Bauhaus University Weimar and GWK at Berlin University of the Arts. Her focus in research and teaching is on linking perspectives from different disciplines. She is co-editor of the book series Texturen (Logos Berlin).

Vera Klocke, Dr.
Vera Klocke is a researcher and lecturer in the field of media and popular culture as well as a cultural critic and cultural producer who combines ethnographic methods and artistic approaches. Her research focuses on media appropriation processes, media culture and digital ethnographies. Most recently, she conducted research on homelessness and digital media at the University of the Arts in Berlin. She is co-host of the podcast "Fashion The Gaze" which explores the political potential of contemporary phenomena and analyzes (pop) cultural events as a cultural critic for Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

Photo: Kristin Gröbner