In recent years, there have been ongoing discussions about moving beyond anthropocentrism to find more pertinent ways to interact with the more-than-human world. Despite our best endeavors, our human
perspective and language-based communication have limitations. At the same time, these obstacles invite us to embrace other forms of relating to the more-than-human.
This two-day colloquium focuses on works of art, literature, and film that are believed to make embodied, speculative, and imaginative attempts at communicating beyond the human. In collective close reading/viewing/listening sessions, the colloquium will explore and reflect on ways of narrating, mediating, representing, and translating encounters with the more-than-human. How are gestures, sounds, or sign-based “conversations” between different beings narrated and/or translated back into language? How do such
practices challenge or transform the artist/researcher’s habits? And could artistic methods serve as a guide-
line for more-than-human interaction? Exploring communication through gestures, sounds, and images, while unlikely to help us bridge the gap between humans and the more-than-humans, may enhance an
attentiveness and sensibility that expands human language, thinking, and empathy.
Monday, 3rd April
19.00–21.00
Ji Yun Park, artist, Hong Kong
and Zurich
(Welcome to) The Planet of Orchids
Screening with Q&A
Tuesday, 4th April
10.30–13.00
Feixuan Xu, anthropologist, London
and Hong Kong
‘Just Like Human Babies’: Becoming
an Amateur Carer of Silkworms
Ellie Kyungran Heo, artist,
London and Seoul
The Garden on Your Belly
13.00 Lunch break
14.30–17.30
Marcel Bleuler, art researcher, Zurich
Unreliable Experience
Jessica Ullrich, art historian,
Munster and Berlin
Soliloquy as a Cephalopod: What is
it like to be an Octopus? (online)
Laura von Niederhäusern, artist, Zurich
Face No Face – Filmic means of
encountering non-human temporalities
17.30 Apéro
Wednesday, 5th April
10.00–12.00
Noemi Somalvico, novelist, Bern
Ist hier das Jenseits, fragt Schwein
(in German)
Barbara Preisig, art historian, Zurich
Feeling like a critter. Lydia Clark’s
Relational Objects
12.00 Lunch Break
13.30–16.00
Bo Zheng, artist, Hong Kong
Le Sacre du printemps 1 (online)
Rosie Benn, artist, Vienna
Limen
Organized by Barbara Preisig and Ji Yun Park, IFCAR Institute for Contemporary Art Research, Department of Fine Arts, Zurich University of the Arts, Pfingstweidstrasse 96, 8031 Zurich, 6th Floor, Room 6.K03
This is a public on-site event. For planning purposes, we kindly ask you to register by email
to barbara.preisig@zhdk.ch by March 27th.