Towards Permacultural Institutions—Curating Transformation

How can institutional practices lead to a grounding and rooting in land, place and community in times of climate breakdown and neoliberal devastation? What kind of practices are there to cultivate restorative care, inclusivity and hospitality towards humans and more-than-humans? How can institutions become custodians and act in reciprocity with their surroundings?

With: Giulia Bellinetti (Head of Future Materials Lab, Jan Van Eyck, Maastricht), Biljana Ciric & Madeleine Collie (Study Pattern Collective), Paula Erstmann (artist & cook, Berlin), iSaAc Espinoza Hidrobo & Darya Myasnikova (maiskind, Cologne), Lucia Pietroiusti (Curator of Ecology, Serpentine Gallery, London)

The event is part of a series of workshops on social and ecological transformation in art institutions. The focus is on the question of what role art institutions can play in urgent transformation processes towards ecologically just and decolonial societies and what first steps towards structural change could be.

As a reaction to the precarious effects of hyper-capitalist modes of production and relationships, permaculture as a practice and philosophy is arousing increasing interest in the cultural sector when it comes to thinking about new approaches to institutional processes, program work and spatial practice. Permaculture provides ethical and practical guidance for designing processes and structures that recognize the close interconnection of self, community, and environment. Based on cycles of observation, experimentation and adaptation it builts on three ethical principles: (1) Earth Care: Care for the planet and all more-than-humans. (2) People Care: Care for people and equitable access to all the basics of life. (3) Fair Share: Fair distribution of limited resources.

In awareness of colonial power dynamics and problematic aspects of cultural appropriation that have played a role in the emergence of permaculture, the event series “Towards Permacultural Institutions: Curating Transformation” critically uses the ethical principles to address three specific topics:

In the spirit of People Care, the workshop on the topic of “Allyship” deepened the question of ways to support local environmental groups and climate justice activists and asked how to build solidarity and reciprocal relationships between actors and communities in the so-called Global South and North.

With: Antonia Alampi (artistic director Spore Initiative, Berlin), Chihiro Geuzebroek (organizer for decolonial climate justice, Amsterdam), Camilo Pachón (artist, Bogotá/ Berlin), Jakeline Romero Epiayú (environmental activist, La Guajilla, Colombia), Angela Serino (curator & researcher, Amsterdam), Ela Spalding (artist, founder & director of Estudio Nuboso, Berlin), Ama Twi (cook, Cologne).

In the spirit of Fair Share, the “Degrowth” workshop looked critically and constructively at the approaches of the post-growth movement, especially education for sustainable development, and focused on their transferability to the cultural sector.

With: CentrumCentrum (Łukasz Jastrubczak & Małgorzata Mazur, Szczecin), Helen Turner (curator & artistic director, E-Werk Luckenwalde), iSaAc Espinoza Hidrobo (artist, Cologne), Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie (Degrowth Think-Tank & collective, Leipzig), Beni Tonka (writer & cook, Cologne).

In the spirit of Earth Care, the “Grounding” workshop is dedicated to curatorial and institutional practices that aim at ecological regeneration and asks about the interaction between ecology, pedagogy and care.

The workshops aim to transfer the content into your own institutional practice and offer the opportunity to analyze the institutional/individual status quo, outline visions and strategies and identify first steps for action.

Following the summer seminar “Towards Permacultural Institutions: Exercises in Collective Thinking”, organised by the Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen in cooperation with CCA Temporary Gallery, the “Curating Transformation” series creates space to critically question contemporary institutional models. What could a permacultural (= socially and ecologically just) art institution look like?

Curated by Aneta Rostkowska and Nada Rosa Schroer for medienwerk.nrw.

The workshop series is a cooperation between Office medienwerk.nrw and the Temporary Gallery. Center for Contemporary Art in Cologne. The work of the Office medienwerk.nrw is financed by the Ministry of Culture and Science of North Rhine-Westphalia, on whose behalf it organizes coordination, professionalization and consulting in the field of media art. The Office medienwerk.nrw is located at HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund.