International Conference „REMEDIATIONS: Ecologies – Encounters – Engagements“
The SNF project “Mediating the Ecological Imperative:
Formats and Modes of Engagement” is a joint research project from Art History, North American Literatures, and Social Anthropology at the University of Bern. The project focuses primarily on the visual politics of climate change, the role of ecological issues
in art and literature, as well as on the social engagement with environmental issues of and in indigenous communities. As an interdisciplinary team of researchers, we investigate imaginaries of future scenarios by proposing new notions (for example, “eco-ekphrasis,”
“eco-ritual performance,” “post-apocalyptic
imaginations”) and elaborating on innovative methodological practices (“co-creative filmmaking”). These novel notions and methods draw on four modes of mediation which ground our understanding of our umbrella term, the ecological imperative: 1) modes of display,
2) modes of materiality, 3) modes of temporality, and 4) modes of spatialization.
A central component of our research revolves around the problem
of “contamination,” and we argue for an ecological imperative “against purity” (Shotwell) in our compromised times.
This conference’s point of departure is remediations—understood as different forms of mediations and media formats that comment upon and refashion each other. Our conference aims
to foster dialogue on plural perspectives on ecologies, enable diverse encounters, and discuss multiple engagements—synergies that thus jointly circumscribe the complex and contested term of the “ecological imperative.”
Datum: 8.-9. September 2023
Veranstaltungsort: UniS / Kino Rex
