UNSTABLE BODIES – Symposium

04.06.2026

13:00–13:30  Prof. Dr. Martin Schulz  
lntroduction: Representation of Unstable Bodies  

13:30–14:30  Prof. Dr. Cecilia Sjöholm  
Blobs of Nature: On Climate Activism in the Anthropocene  

14:30–15:00  Mitra Bostani  
Body without organs  

15:00–15:30  Lucy Liang  
Co-creating community garden furniture atelier in Bremer public housing estates 

05.06.2026

13:00–13:30  Anna zur Nieden, Mitra Bostani, Lucy Liang & Anja Segermann
lntroduction  

13:30–14:30  Prof. Henrik Oxvig  
Engaging bodily in dialogue with historical works and discovering neglected possibilities  

14:30–15:30  Dipl. Arch ETH, MArchUD / BDA Christoph Hesse  
Resonance  

15:30–16:30  Prof. Dr. Bettina van Hoven  
Stories of This Abled City 

Prof. Dr. Cecilia Sjöholm 

Bio:
Prof. Dr. Cecilia Sjöholm is a Professor of Aesthetics at Södertörn University. Her research is particularly focused on the relation between art and politics in contemporary culture. She has published extensively on art, psychoanalysis and critical theory, including monographs on Julia Kristeva, Greek tragedy and the aesthetics of Hannah Arendt. Her latest book Through the Eyes of Descartes; Seeing, Thinking, Writing (with Marcia Cavalcante Schuback, Indiana University Press 25) examines Descartes as a thinker of a baroque aesthetics, and brings forth a pre-conceptual subject of the senses, desires and drives. 

Abstract: 
Why do climate activists glue their hair to old masterpieces, throw soup or paint, and shout messages to museum visitors? What does it even have to do with environmentalism? To many, the relation between the happening and the message is difficult to comprehend, and the actions have drawn the anger of politicians and museum institutions. In the following, I will ask, what kind of action is it? Does it make sense, and if so, how? Can we conceive of climate activism, acted out in and through art, as an intervention fostering environmental relationality? 

Prof. Henrik Oxvig 

Bio:
Prof. Henrik Oxvig was formerly affiliated with the departments of art history at Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen. Since 2005, he has been employed at the Royal Danish Academy – Architecture, Design, Conservation, where he established the PhD program and, through this work as well as through his own research, has “institutionalized” a dialogue between philosophy, science, and art. 

Abstract: 
Engaging Bodily in Dialogue with Historical Works and Discovering Neglected Possibilities 
When Heinrich Wölfflin described the Baroque in his seminal and eye-opening Renaissance und Barock (1888), he led us to understand that “the Baroque does not adapt itself to the landscape, but subjugates it.” Wölfflin also indicated that he himself was puzzled by this fact: “It may seem strange that the painterly style most decisively subjects the most painterly of objects, the landscape, to an architectural lawfulness.” 

Today, we may in turn wonder why Wölfflin did not examine whether this claim was actually correct. The question I wish to discuss is whether the “resetting of modernity’s operating systems” - including perspective - which Bruno Latour called for, insofar as these systems have given us the impression that we can view the world from a position outside it, might also foster renewed attention to aspects of the Baroque that Wölfflin did not notice. 

My thesis is that such aspects require a bodily and involved engagement with historical works - a form of engagement to which Wölfflin’s “modern” analysis remained inattentive. Through such a shift in attention, the Baroque may appear not simply as a style that subordinates landscape to architectural order, but as a field in which neglected spatial, perceptual, and bodily possibilities can be rediscovered. 

Christoph Hesse, Dipl. Arch ETH, MArchUD / BDA 

Bio:
Christoph Hesse grew up in the Sauerland region, in the green heart of Germany. He earned a Master of Architecture from ETH Zurich and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design with distinction from Harvard University. 

He is the founder of Christoph Hesse Architects, with offices in Korbach since 2010 and in Berlin since 2018. The interdisciplinary practice specializes in cultural and ecological projects. Its collaborative approach fosters regenerative thinking and action, aiming to strengthen individual self-efficacy within communities. 

Christoph Hesse’s academic work includes teaching and research at ETH Zurich, Harvard University, TU Darmstadt, Cairo University, and Sapienza University. From 2020 to 2024, he was a visiting professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Currently he is at King Khalid University in Abha, Saudi Arabia. 

The work of Christoph Hesse Architects has been presented at various international venues, including Aedes Architecture Forum in Berlin, documenta fifteen in Kassel, the New Museum in New York, and the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt. At the most recent Venice Architecture Biennale, the office was represented at the Arsenale and the German Pavilion. 

Abstract: 
In this lecture, Christoph Hesse explores our relationship to the world through architecture that shifts perspectives. At its core lies a fundamental question: how can resonance lead to self-efficacy? 

Prof. Dr. Bettina van Hoven 

Bio:
Prof. Dr. Bettina van Hoven is Aletta Jacobs Professor Place, Social Change and Collaborative Research for Wellbeing and Justice at the University of Groningen and affiliated with the Rudolf Agricola School for Sustainable Development. Her work focuses on place, wellbeing, participation, encounter and inclusive urban life. She leads the NWO-funded project Everyday Geographies of Being and Becoming Disabled, from which the public exhibition Stories of This Abled City emerged. Her research combines participatory methods, lived experience and creative public engagement to explore how more inclusive cities can be imagined and made. 

Abstract: 
Stories of This Abled City: experiential dialogues on disability in urban life 

This presentation introduces Stories of This Abled City, an interactive exhibition that brings together participatory research, lived experience, creative practice and public dialogue around disability, accessibility and urban life. Developed from around ten years of collaboration between researchers, students, artists, societal partners and co-researchers with disabilities, the exhibition explores how cities are differently experienced depending on how bodies move, how public space is designed, and whose needs are taken into account. 

Through maps, route-based materials, film, games, workshops, student projects and public activities, Stories of This Abled City invites visitors to rethink accessibility not as a specialist add-on, but as a central question of urban justice, participation and everyday life. The exhibition highlights both barriers and possibilities: from everyday obstacles in the street, to adaptive design, inclusive play, co-research, and creative encounters across difference. 

In the presentation, I reflect on the exhibition as a public-facing research format: one that translates experiential knowledge into urban learning and practice, while also creating space for encounter between researchers, policymakers, students, practitioners and the wider public. I discuss the making of the exhibition, its main themes, and what such a format can contribute to wider debates on disability, inclusion and the city.