How can we think and relate with toxicity, both on a material but also on a conceptual level? How can we overcome the binary distinctions derived from modernity that separate what is toxic from what is safe and blur the boundaries between the natural and the artificial, between the body and the environment? How can we render visible the invisible, how can we materialise the ethereal? How are the limits between security and toxicity set and by whom?
While the term toxicity immediately unfolds a shared imaginary related to harmful agents, ecological violence and environmental quality levels, we also want to refer to toxicity in social and political relations, cultural practices and our co-existence with more-than-human worlds.
Over four days in July members of Floating University Berlin, the Institute for Postnatural Studies (Madrid) and researcher Maria Morata as pollinating agent gathered in Floating University’s rainwater retention basin together with guests and allies to think, exchange, explore and resonate with each other on the theme of toxicity, in search of new ways of survival on a planet that has truly become intoxicated. Employing various modes of engagement the group of artists and researchers worked collectively to expand the term, establish a more fluid understanding of it and establish a living archive on site.
The programm was opened to the public for screenings, workshops and discussions.
a 4-days encounter in Floating University Berlin, July 2023. curators: Floating e.V. (Jeanne Astrup-Chauvaux, Garance Maurer, Jöran Mandik), Institute for postnatural Studies (Madrid) & Maria Morata.
participating artists: Melt (Ren Loren Britton & Iz Paehr), Toxic Commons researchers Caroline Ektander (Germany) and Mya Yu (China).
2023, 4-days encounter in Floating University Berlin
© images: Sebastían Díaz de Leon