Carolin Melia Sabine Brendel

Taking the medium of water and the planetary hydrosphere as a starting point, we want to look at theoretical approaches and aesthetics of relationality. We will explore how the interconnection, entanglement and mutual conditionality of different spheres – such as the epistemological, social, cultural, political and economic – can be addressed. In this context, we also take up methodological questions of transdisciplinary work at the intersection of different sciences and art. How can these world-constituting webs of relationalities that are permeated by power structures be conceived? How do we negotiate them in our artistic practice? What aesthetics of entanglement are developed in other artistic positions? What possibilities do transdisciplinary working methods and collaborations offer for approaching this complexity? We will get to know Karen Barad's concept of intra-activity and read The Three Ecologies by Félix Guattari and Poétique de la Relation by Éduard Glissant. We will also be discussing artistic works that tackle this subject. There will be guest lectures by the transdisciplinary artist Su Yu Hsin “Waters as Geoarchive and how water calculates” and by the Oceanographies Collective on “framework of blue humanities and the methodology of oceanic thinking” as well as a workshop with the artist Nevena Savic. An excursion to the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg is planned to get to know their ArtScience program and we will visit the exhibition “The Rivers They Don't See” by Som Supaparinya in Hannover.