Politics of Green Spaces

Contemporary understanding of the Anthropocene / Capitalocene is carried out through the artistic praxis: research, productions, and presentations of artworks.

The project that comprises research and workshops, Learning for the Crisis: Wild Edible Herbs of the Island of Korčula, commences with the fact that the cohabitation of plants and people represents one of the determinants which marked the evolution of humanity. Significant dynamic differences within systems of human communities are perceived through the alterations of the relationship between humans and plants, while we can also follow historical and civilisational evolvement via these changes. Taking into consideration the continuity of nourishment that includes wild edible herbs, that has been lasting ever since the beginning of humanity, even before agriculture and hunting skills, this project is a distinctive critique of contemporary bio-art that stems from scientific labs, expressed through the simplicity of “getting back to roots” and “techniques of survival” which have been taking place in nature and being actualized with a community.

Some artworks represented in this chapter include system theory and cybernetics. In the 1960s, cybernetics, as the science about the general principles of systems observed independently of their nature, initiated among other things the awareness of the importance of global ecology, as a positive example of the real synergy of apparently opponent social discourses. In his interactive sound installation for public space Brickets, Pierre Proske reflected on his cybernetic research of dynamics of natural synchronizations via the simulation of communication among crickets. AnneMarie Maes studied bees and the production of honey as a starting point for the artworks presented in the exhibition Guerilla Beehive.

Sound ecologies connect all the agents of the Anthropocene through sound. The member of the association grey) (area Manja Ristić published the Sound Map of the Island of Korčula. Together with Anamaria Pravicencu, Ristić carried out a participative performance on the nearby islet whereby the act of listening served as a methodology in the process of composing. Robertina Šebjanič recorded the sounds in the sea around Korčula town and together with the curator Annick Bureaud performed the Underwater: Escaping (Sound) Pollution. Leah Barclay recorded sounds of significant rivers, in collaboration with indigenous communities living nearby these rivers. Her performance Shifting Nature is constituted by fieldwork that took place during the project Sound Mirrors in Australia, India, Korea, China, and Brazil.

Inspired by Darko Fritz’s text Politics of Green Spaces, Shu Lea Cheang presented for the first time in Korčula the “green and red politics” as a follow-up of her rich artistic work, whereby “green” is related to nature while “red” is a signifier of queer politics, bio-art, and body politics. During her art residence in Korčula, she initiated this new, long-term project, as a creative dialogue among institutions, curators, artists, activists, civic initiatives, politicians, and other citizens interested in introducing these fields into public discourse.