PROJECT

The residency at wpZimmer furthers the artistic research of the “Institute for Relocation of Biodiversity”* To this end, Christina Stadlbauer, Bartaku Vandeput and Bach Nguyen invite new voices: researchers with whom they have not collaborated with before. Also, the widening of the notion of biodiversity is envisioned by involving new species and new concepts that represent diversity. 

As for the framework they depart from the question: “What does a “real” engagement, a true encounter with our environment mean?” They dive into reflections on non-hierarchical ´hybrid communities’, ecological equality, the principles of diversity and symbiosis, holobionts, entanglements and a critical exploration of colonial values that are engrained in our way of seeing the world. 

During the residency, they propose to open the Institute as well to both the team of wpZimmer and possibly a peer public departing from the time-resistant ontological question: what are our sapientic blind spots when working with other-than-sapiens entities? Is it at all possible to engage with species without invading, enslaving, exploiting and instead accepting them as expert agencies ?

They would like their work to be inspired by sjamanistic traditions, rituals, art practice, and include hands-on practices to invite and create embodied knowledge like lucid dreaming, meditation, hypnotherapy directed towards the other-than-sapiens to connect.