Two seminars co-curated with Agat Sharma will address themes and questions emerging from his long term research about the history of cotton: conducting theatrical experiments exploring cotton's pre-colonial legacy, colonial extractivism and the ongoing agrarian crisis in India.

Two seminars co-curated with Dorothy Blokland will invite participants to consider the relationship between oceanic climate change and colonialism with a focus on the relationship between the Netherlands and Suriname. They will also explore the foundation of her practice in Ubuntu philosophy and how approaches to artistic and participatory research processes can embody values of interdependence and commonality across difference. 

The program as a whole will also investigate the shared concerns of both studios with the question of the nature and role of imagination in shaping less extractive, more regenerative futures in relation to bodies, lands and waters. 

The proposed program relates to topics of past ASCA seminars - such as the What is Landscape? series - and to research groups such as Mikki Stelder’s Oceanic Imaginaries, Oceanic Solidarities. Connection will be made to these past and ongoing activities by inviting ASCA colleagues to play a role (such as moderator or respondent) in the proposed seminars.

Seminar 1: Performing land and the non-human: Necrosonic Landscapes and The Return of the Wolf

Date/time:   Wednesday 5th March, 5-7pm

Guest speakers: Berkveldt Collective (Noëlle Ingeveldt and Juriaan van Berkel) | ASCA respondent: Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca with Agat Sharma | Location: DAS Graduate School, Studio 2.10, Overhoeksplein 2 (2nd floor)

Berkveldt is a Rotterdam-based audiovisual art studio founded by Noëlle Ingeveldt and Juriaan van Berkel. In this seminar, the artists will share insights from their research, focussing on two recents: Necrosonic Landscapes (2023) and The Return of the Wolf (2021). Necrosonic Landscapes is an immersive audiovisual installation that integrates the sounds of decomposing organisms with visually captivating landscapes, creating a sensory experience that explores the complex cycle of life and death in nature. The Return of the Wolf is a transformative journey, where Berkveldt becomes wolf (but to do so also ought to become sheep) in order to interrogate a cultivated and disconnected landscape of the Netherlands. The story is told as a contemporary fairy tale through film. Various costumes and props allow this transformative journey to take place. For the body to become other. As explored by scholars like Donna Haraway and Karen Barad, the project questions the centrality of the human subject and acknowledges the agency and importance of non-human entities and the role they play in shaping societies, cultures, and their architectures. With this work, Berkveldt re-evaluates spatial design methodologies, emphasizing a collaboration with the natural material world. They put forward a more holistic and ecological approach by going far in exploring the entanglement of matter and meaning and indeed engage with the ethical responsibilities that arise from this entanglement.

Seminar 2: Practicing Ubuntu 

Date/time:   Thursday 3^rd April, 5-7pm      

Guest speaker: Wakanyi Hoffman | ASCA Respondent:  John Taukave | Location: AHK Culture Club, Marineterrein

Wakanyi Hoffman is a storyteller, author, keynote speaker specialized in Ubuntu philosophy, a scholar of indigenous knowledge, and narrative weaver of wisdom in AI. Wakanyi is the leader of the African folktales project. She is currently an academic fellow at The New Institute in Hamburg as part of the program on 'Conceptions of Human Flourishing.'

https://www.wakanyihoffman.com/

Abstract to come.

Seminar 3: 

To Forgive the Ocean: Re-imagining the Caribbean through Relation and Poetry.

Name: Imani Heijmans
Imani (they/them) is a queer Surinamese artist focusing on performance and poetry. Caribbean thought and Decolonial dreams underpin their work. Their primary inspiration and research focus is oceanic thinking, in which they treat the ocean both as a more-than-human mother and as a symbolic tool to express and explore ancestral trauma.

In this seminar, they will explore how ocean-based theories, such as Kamau Brathwaite’s concept of Tidalectics and Édouard Glissant’s notion of Relation, present ways to understand world-building through a historically Caribbean lens. As complex, varied, and alive rather than linear and absolute. They will discuss how this oceanic tendency carries over into poetry and art from the archipelago, serving as expressions of identity that resist simplification and colonial narratives.

Guest speaker: Imani Heijmans | ASCA Respondent: Mikki Stelder  | Location: AHK Culture Club, Marineterrein

Seminar 4: De/Postcolonial Climate Imaginaries 

Date/time: Wednesday 4th June, 5-7pm

Guest speakers: Dorothy Blokland + Agat Sharma | ASCA Respondent: Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca | Location: AHK Culture Club, Marineterrein