Lecture by Alice Smits

Alice Smiths researches the way in which the relation between nature and culture – which lies at the basis of our vision of how people position themselves – is given form in contemporary art that deals with land. In the face of an urgent ecological crisis one of our most challenging tasks is to redefine and reimagine our relationships to the land we inhabit and which supports us.

One of the starting points of this research is the essay The Three Ecologies by Félix Guattari, in which he tries to find new social and aesthetic practices of self in relation to the other: “The ecological crisis is a political, cultural and social one, calling for an eco-sophy as well as an eco-art, as a political, social and cultural revolution able to reorient the objectives of production, the forms of organization, the ways of being together”. Rethinking nature-culture relations does not only define nature in different ways but also repositions the human in a complete different way, pointing to new ways of knowing and being in the world. In this lecture she will explore through various artistic practices in which new relations between human and nature are being shaped and imagined.