Venue: Wolfgang-Neuss-Salon
Address: Viktoriastraße 10-18, 12105 Berlin, Germany | Venue Information | Event Map

Captions are available for this session. 

Western cultural frameworks have long positioned humans as separate from - and dominant over - nature, fueling extractive systems that treat the Earth as a resource. Colonialism as a structure continues to claim land, disrupt relationships to self and community and unravel ancestral knowledge of ecosystems. It is not a relic of history but an ongoing force of harm deeply entangled with climate change, systemic inequality and environmental degradation.

Ancestral ways of knowing offer powerful alternative holistic worldviews in which culture, biodiversity and reciprocity are inseparable. These knowledge systems don’t simply suggest ‘going green’; they call for a radical reshaping of hierarchies, visibility of erased truths and the restoration of Indigenous presence, sovereignty, and responsibility.

This session invites us to reimagine the future by listening to those who carry generational memory knowledge rooted in coexistence with the planet.

Merindah Donnelly (BlakDance, Australia) and Thomas E.S. Kelly (Karul Projects, Australia) starts the session with a video conversation discussing the myth of separation between humans and nature, and how this operates within cultural institutions. Following this discussion, Martha Hincapié Charry (Germany/Colombia) will lead a participatory fishbowl workshop that will invite reflections on decolonising power structures, strategies to move beyond performative activism and tools to embody genuine climate justice, representation and reparation.

Please note: Merindah Donnelly is no longer able to join the session live. 

Facilitators:

Martha Hincapié Charry, artist/curator, Germany/Colombia 
Merindah Donnelly, BlakDance, Australia
Thomas E.S. Kelly, Karul Projects, Australia
Vikram Iyengar, Pickle Factory Dance Foundation, Global Connector 2024, India

Find Merindah's and Thomas' video intervention below:

WATCH THE VIDEO

Please read the following resources carefully to prepare for the session:
• Performing Identity: Navigating Cultural Identities through the Arts (report)
• Indigenous Ecological Knowledge I: Insights from Outside the Arts (report)
• Climate Justice: Through the Creative Lens of the Performing Arts (podcast)