Detail page - Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz

The relationship between plants and humans is a closely interlinked, reciprocal interplay of life forms. Humans are not only existentially dependent on plant life, but have always intervened in plant ecosystems. Recent studies have shown that their organisms have different, active forms of sensory perception. On a global scale, plants act as determining agents in the creation of human worlds. This new awareness of vegetal life requires new paradigms in art and transhistorical research that capture the broad spectrum of interaction between humans and plants across time and space.

The 4A_Lab is a cooperation project between the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max Planck Institute (KHI) and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (SPK). Since 2019, it has enabled young international researchers to explore the complex interrelationships between humans and plant and non-human life in the collections in the various institutions and museums of the SPK.

Building on the ecocritical turn in the humanities, this year's 4A_Lab Academy, led by art historian Hannah Baader (KHI), offers an interested audience the opportunity to rethink this interweaving of species, objects, practices and geographies in dialogue with international researchers, museum experts and students.
The Academy is dedicated to a new topic and different collections every day: From the Ibero-American Institute to the Hamburger Bahnhof, the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the Gemäldegalerie and the Musikinstrumenten-Museum to the Museum für Fotografie, the Academy offers an exciting insight into Berlin's rich research landscape. The Academy lectures are in English and will be accessible online. Selected events will be offered in German. Panels, lectures, workshops, site visits and artistic, auditory and musical performances will create synergies between different perspectives and forms of knowledge.

The first day, "Discourses, Imaginaries and Common Sense", begins with a critical reassessment of environmental thinking, which is inextricably linked to religious and political constellations, racial and colonial dominances, the arts, the history of science and plant biology. A performance by radio artists Kate Donovan and Ella Finer will round off the day of discussion. The second day, "Environmentalism in Contemporary Art after 1970", will focus on the critical appraisal of environmental theories and the colonial legacy in contemporary art. Day 3, "Paradise Drama", is dedicated to the connection between vegetation, power and resistance in Safavid Iran, pre-colonial and post-colonial India and China, with a focus on Asia and beyond in the period between 1600-1850, discussing the design of gardens as religious, spiritual and political power structures and their resilience. The fourth day, "Plants, Sensory Interactions and Language in Early Modern Europe", will focus on communication between plant and non-human life forms. Sensory perceptions of sounds, odours, music and feelings in and through plants will be reconsidered. A concert by the renowned baroque harpist Margret Koell in the Gemäldegalerie will conclude the day. The last day will shed light on plant photographs in lectures on "Plant Photography, Coloniality and Art in and after the 1920s" and will conclude the academy with an open discussion round dedicated to the question of the significance of ecology, vegetal life and plant knowledge in current collection presentations.

Further information and registration at:
https://www.khi.fi.it/it/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/2024/11/ecological-entanglements-across-collections.php