Date: November 29 - 30, 2024
Day One: 15.30 - 22.00
Day Two: 14:30 - 21:00
Location:
Location: Löwenbräukunst, Migros Museum, Kunsthalle Zurich and WE ARE AIA I Awareness in Art
Location: November 30 all events will take place at schwarzescafé, Luma Westbau.
The Futurological Congress invites you to think about the future together. Different voices, experiences and ideas should enter into an open dialog and give rise to new ideas. The aim is to share many futures in order to influence the present. The congress is a structured collective brainstorming session aimed at making things happen. The public will be invited to actively participate and imagine a variety of interwoven, animal, polysemic, astronomical, indigenous, aquatic and post-planetary futures. They will also be challenged to think, try and fail at unattainable futures in order to venture together into the unknown and expand the horizons of what is possible.
Organized by Julieta Aranda, Mareike Dittmer and Martina Huber in collaboration with Löwenbräukunst, Migros Museum, Kunsthalle Zurich and WE ARE AIA I Awareness in Art
Register here for the:
PRE-Conference, November 28, 2024
CONFERENCE DAY ONE, November 29, 2024
Coalition Workshop, Nov 29, 16:00 - 18:00 please register with e-mail including your name, pronouns and accessibility requirements to hello@lorenbritton.com
CONFERENCE DAY TWO, November 30, 2024
RECORDING OF THE WHOLE CONFERENCE
AGENDA OF THE CONFERENCE
PRE-Conference | November 28, 2024
18:30 – 19:30: Walk-Through the exhibition Knowledge is a Garden with curator Nadia Schneider Willen
\
Childcare
For the children of participants at the Futurological Congress, the art educator Alexandra Eichenauer will prepare an artistic education program for children aged five to ten, Saturday 14:30 - 21:00. The main language will be German, though Alexandra Eichenauer, AIA, also understands English and French. Participation is free of charge and is made possible thanks to the support of the Migros Museum, Registration is required: Childcare Registration
Location: LOI BISTRO, Löwenbräukunst, Limmatstrasse 270, 8005 Zürich, Contact: Alexandra Eichenauer, AIA
Accessibility
Individual needs will be assessed upon registration to accommodate each participant. A quiet room is available. The Löwenbräukunst center is barrier-free (entrance Limmatstrasse 268, 8005 Zurich by elevator). The main entrance is located at Limmatstrasse 270, 8005 Zurich. We will provide Sign Language please do register until November 24, 2024, Visual Impairment We will provide assistance at Löwenbräu Tram Exit, please do register until November 24, 2024 with email to: welcome@weareaia.art
Caring Space
There is a quiet room available for all participants to use during the entire time of the congress. The Caring Space is located at the ground floor level, within the Migros Museum, Limmatstrasse 270, 8005 Zurich.
Event Descriptions
Who’s going to clean up after the revolution?
Ethel Baraona Pohl, Chair of Architecture and Care ETH Zürich
Decades ago, in her well known Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969!, Proposal for an exhibition ‘Care’, Mierle Lademan Ukeles asked "After the revolution, who's going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning?", clearly emphasising the need of caring for the spaces we inhabit—not only to care for its inhabitants, humans and more than humans, but for all the materiality that form our cities and environments, and these practices of care might be a first step of rethinking human and more-than-human kinships and with that, contribute to the care ecologies of this small troubled planet—que pese a todo, es inmensamente bello.
Challenging what history indeed told us, at times politely, at times police-ly, and yet something was always sticking out, breaking loose, overthrowing—as Stanisław Lem would pose it— this presentation delves through a set of examples, on former and existent practices of care and material kindships, it is a journey through places, scales, and ways of understanding human and non-human relationships with different kinds of matter.
Coalition Bouquet Workshop by Ren Britton
The “Coalition Bouquet” workshop uses the metaphor of the bouquet to tell stories of successful community action in the political sphere. Participants will be encouraged to conceptualize, write and share their own experiences - especially those that have produced positive outcomes between groups with diverse needs. The goal is to expand our collective political imagination and find new ways to work together against complex systems of oppression. As an introduction, Ren Britton will show a short screening of their video installation “Coalition Bouquet: 504 Sit-In”. The film documents the collaboration between disabled activists and the Black Panthers at the 504 sit-in in the US in 1977, which was instrumental in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This piece of legislation has far-reaching implications for access to physical and digital infrastructure for people with disabilities and continues to mandate accessibility today.
Communities of Care by Athina Maria (Greece) & Adnan Hadzi (Malta)
This show & tell lecture performance explores the concept of communities of care, examining design ecologies from a community-centered perspective. By fostering safe, inclusive spaces, it highlights the interdependence between humans and nature, offering a framework for reciprocal care and interaction. Emphasizing collaborative design, this approach cultivates environments that sustain and nurture both human and ecological well-being. Through case studies and interactive dialogue, the lecture seeks to inspire a shift in design practices, advocating for ecosystems that prioritize relational values, sustainability, and resilience within communities. This exploration underscores the transformative potential of design rooted in care and connectivity.
Beyond Time: Decolonizing History for a Future of Care by Nikita Dhawan
A lecture by Nikita Dhawan, Professor of Political Science and Gender Studies at the University of Innsbruck. In many non-European languages, such as Mandarin, Urdu, and Hindi, the term for both past and future is the same. In Hindi and Urdu, the word for "yesterday" and "tomorrow" is the same: कल (kal). In Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie remarks: "No people whose word for ‘yesterday’ is the same as their word for ‘tomorrow’ can be said to have a firm grip on the time." Rushdie alludes to the complex relationship between temporality and hope, the desire for a future free from domination, and the impossibility of utopian thinking. Colonialism not only negates the past and history of the colonized but also undermines their capacity for the future, which Europe has monopolized. This issue brings to mind two important German words: Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung (coming to terms with the past) and Zukunftsfähigkeit (future viability). To be future-viable, one must be willing to reckon with the past, which means reflecting on how we arrived at our current condition. The lecture will explore how our histories of the past should help us strategically question the present to envision the possibilities of a post-imperialist future. This would involve a "decolonization of the mind," shifting from the Enlightenment principle of sapere aude (dare to know) towards the courage of "caring to know," which requires epistemic work that involves continuous careful attention and nurturing.
Film Screening: How Do We Want to Live Together, by Youth Group Taskforce 2123 with discussion
The Taskforce 2123 is part of our non-profit institution WE ARE AIA Awareness in Art. The youth group was initiated as part of the awarded community based public art project Co-Habitations. Together with Robert F. Kennedy Youth Ambassadors, we have created a short film focusing on what cities will look like in 100 years and how our lives and communities will be affected by the issue of climate change. The short film produced by Taskforce 2123 together with filmmaker Tobias Wanner includes interviews with people from communities directly affected by migration, climate crisis, disabilities, as well as interviews with organizations and activities who work with these groups.
Reimagining Care through Art + Science with Monica Bello & Giulia Bini
Exploring the future of care at the intersection of art and science featuring Monica Bello, Head of Arts at CERN and Giulia Bini, Curator and Head of the AiR Program Enter the Hyper-Scientific at EPFL Lausanne. This discussion will delve into how artistic and scientific practices are redefining care in a rapidly changing world. From technological innovation to environmental stewardship and the ethics of human and non-human relationships, the speakers will examine diverse perspectives on nurturing resilience, sustainability, and collective well-being. This conversation aims to inspire new ways of thinking about care, bridging disciplines and fostering a collaborative spirit for a more inclusive and equitable future.
“The Monadic Age” Ingo Niermann in conversation with Julieta Aranda
Ingo Niermann is a writer and the editor of the speculative Solutions Series at Sternberg Press. His new book The Monadic Age was published earlier this year, while recent books include Solution 295-304: Mare Amoris (2020), Burial of the White Main (with Erik Niedling, 2019), It’s Me! (with David Pearce, 2019), and Solution 275-294: Communists Anonymous (ed., with Joshua Simon, 2017). Based on his novel Solution 257: Complete Love (2016), Niermann initiated the Army of Love, a project that tests and promotes a need-oriented redistribution of sensual love that has been featured at Berlin Biennale, Castello di Rivoli, Shedhalle, Guggenheim New York and many other places. Niermann is a lecturer at Institut Art Gender Nature, HGK, FNHW, in Basel.
All that remains of the changing seasons by Lucia Pietroiusti
When we look at animals and plants, we witness movements upon seasonal change: the dropping of leaves, the building of nests... In the face of deep transformation, our more-than-human companions know how to prepare. In this talk, Lucia Pietroiusti draws from her experience as a curator working across art and ecology, to ask questions of a world that’s ending. In a time of profound transformation, what habits of mind, what stories, what rituals, may help us hold, and weather, change? How to make space for what we may never experience? And where do art and culture fit in this landscape?
The Initiative for Practises and Visions of Radical Care by Elena Sorokina
Elena Sorokina will present the The Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care, which started in 2020 in the Greater Paris region. It constitutes a diverse group of practitioners of arts, crafts, philosophies, healing and therapy coming from vastly spread geographies. Neither a classical collective nor a rigid structure, the Initiative is researching and reinventing modes of sustainable institutionalism. Based on friendships as well as professional bonds, it functions as an ecosystem and fosters interdependence and solidarity beyond identity. The focus on care is enacted as a flow of activities that nurture individuals and sustain social, environmental and political bonds, focusing as much on processes and methods as on outcomes. Through fluid artistic and curatorial ventures, the Initiative embraces languages, energies, histories, landscapes, bodies, and materials that reflect a non-extractive and sensitive relationship to the human and non-human alike.
The Initiative is currently fundraising for its member Magdi Masaraa and his association Durmongaa - please join and support via the link in our bio Horizon pour les filles au tchad et au soudan.
Caring for Ghosts, Learning from Plants: Performative walk through 'Knowledge is a Garden' by Uriel Orlow
This performative walk-through of the exhibition "Knowledge is a Garden" at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, led by artist Uriel Orlow will offer a reflective and immersive experience which invites participants to engage with Orlow's projects, where themes of justice, memory, and ecological interconnectedness converge. Together we will listen to ghosts demanding justice, explore the role of plants as active participants in history, consider the need to intervene with care in historical archives and taste artemisia afra tea. We will reflect on the importance of collaboration and ongoing care in our relationship with both nature and communities. The performative walk-through will follow the intricate connections between knowledge, justice, care and the botanical world.Image: Uriel Orlow: Botanical Dreams, 2017
Book launch «What if? Letter to the Future (Johannes Hedinger) Performative Reading (by Ishitia Chakraborty)
The reader deals with the speculative question “What if?” The 12 essays, 130 short texts and 15 art projects call for the creation of a liveable and sustainable future for all. After a short introduction by the editor, Ishitia Chakraborty presents her essay as a performative reading.
Slippery Grounds: Food Experience by artist Maya Minder Imaginations on how our food consumption transforms our terrestrial existence. By the act of daily eating we are sculpting our landscapes. The artist Maya Minder uses food as a media of transforming the experience of how humans interact with the material world, animated objects and commodified goods through eating.
