Dan Farberoff, Author at Common Views

Comming Lab – The Manual of Commoning

Dan Farberoff — Wed, 17 Jul 2024 15:36:18 +0000

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The Naples Preennale of Water 2024 Commoning Lab

Dan Farberoff — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 17:19:38 +0000

The Naples Preennale of Water 2024

June 23 – July 7, 2024

The Preennale of Water (“Preennale dell’acqua”) is a trans-disciplinary gathering and a collaborative initiative by Common Views, together with partners in Naples and across the Mediterranean region. The Preennale, which is taking place in the summer of 2024, invites artists, architects, activists, writers, researchers, designers, planners and others to imagine, discuss, create and design effective and durable responses to a range of social and environmental issues relating to water, both locally and in the wider Mediterranean region.

A central aim of the Preennale is to explore the creation a new grassroots Biennale of Water that will take place in Naples in 2026 and will tour in future to different cities along the Mediterranean coast.

The Commoning Lab

As part of the Preennale gathering in Naples, Common Views will be holding a two-week-long Commoning Lab in which artists and activists who work in the field of Commoning will be taking part in an open exchange, with the intention of advancing new perspectives for Naples’ urban environment, drawing on the overarching themes of interconnection, complexity and emergence. Commoning Lab participants include persons whose work, individually or as part of existing collectives, involves social and environmental practices, site-specific and participatory practices, community-engaged arts, creative interventions and performance in public space.

The Commoning Lab program includes group sessions as well as extended periods for creative research and self-practice. Lab participants will have the opportunity to work individually or in groups towards a presentation of their work, reflecting their contribution and explorations of the themes examined during the Lab, and to present these as part of a concluding Preennale exhibition, as well as in Naples’ outdoor public spaces.

Some of our proposed inquiries for the Commoning Lab’s collective explorations are:

the enclosure of Naples’ water resources;
the generating of public participation and engagement;
water related sustainability;
urban water utopias;
more-than-human water perspectives;
hacking of existing systems and novel approaches and technologies;
the underground water commons;
animating local water histories;
cultural water landscapes;
developing collaborative working methods;
and more.

The Preennale of Water Program

In addition to the Commoning Lab held by Common Views, the Preennale will also include a design workshop led by CoolCity, as well as a series of presentations, site tours and round table discussions, which participants are welcome to attend.

Schedule Week 1 Schedule Week 2

For additional information and the event’s full program, check out the Preennale pdf brochure below:

The Location

The epicenter of the Preennale in Naples is the area of Porta Capuana and the Lanificio, a former textile factory within a XIV century cloister. The site is located next to the historical city gate, the arrival point of the ancient aqueduct of Bolla that fed water from Mt. Vesuvius into the city for over two millennia. The site, which is part of the Santa Caterina a Formiello Church, now houses Preenale’s hosts laboratorio architettura nomade (LAN), as well as art galleries, social cooperatives, laboratories, apartments, offices and music clubs

Preennale of Water Partners

The Common Views collective founded in 2019 by artists David Behar Perahia and Dan Farberoff, applies a commoning, social-ecological perspective to arts engagement. The collective carries out site-specific, participatory projects worldwide, addressing the relationship between communities in the context of their relationship to their environment.

Laboratorio Architettura Nomade is a non profit association based in Naples founded in 2004, comprising thinkers, artists, and architects who experiment with new research concepts and ideas about urban life and built environments, through the production of projects, events and workshops.

CoolCity is an international school that was founded in 2021 to revisit ancient and revise contemporary technologies for the creation of a new eco-culture in the climate endgame. It is opposed to the privatization and materialization of urban spaces, and wants to imagine future communities and myths in the post-anthropocentric cities.

Commonspace is a collaborative, interdisciplinary planning and design group based in Athens, established in 2012. The wide range of Commonspace members and associates form a network of experts and scientists involved in urban and spatial planning and environmental management.

Additional Biennale Project Partners
Casaforte, ABC Water Company, Made in Cloister, Laboratorio di Urbanistica e Progettazione Territoriale University Federico II Naples (LUPT)

The Commoning Lab and Common Views’ participation at the Preennale is supported by the Culture Moves Europe mobility fund, funded by the European Union and implemented by the Goethe Institute.

This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

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Common Views Declaration on the War in Gaza

Dan Farberoff — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 13:38:00 +0000

Stop the War Now!

We are shocked, horrified, and extremely worried by the events currently unfolding in and around Gaza. Having been active over decades in the arena of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both as individuals and in our work as a collective – engaging in conflict-resolution, in collaborative peace initiatives with Palestinians and Israelis, and in creating work that seeks to challenge the existing paradigm of endless aggression and to redress the resulting injustices – we share the distress of compassionate persons around the world at the unfolding horror and its consequences.

In days like these, when one is required to “take sides”, the side we choose is clear: we stand by all those who have lost their loved ones in this war; by all those who have had to flee for their lives and leave their homes; by all those who fear for their lives and the lives of their family and loved ones, in Gaza, the West Bank, in Israel and the surrounding region.

In line with the collective declaration issued on February 7th, 2024, by the major human-rights organizations working in the region, it is our duty in these challenging times to raise our voices loud and clear against the violence and the harming of innocent civilians. We join the call for a cessation of all hostilities in Gaza, and for an end to the horrendous cycle of violence and aggression.

We abhor any expressions of genocidal intent, and view in this light with great concern the violent actions by the Israeli government and military towards Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere – against non-combatants, against helpless children and their families, the wholesale destruction of homes, the mass displacements, the withholding of food, water, medical treatment and other essential necessities.

As a collective, we stand, actively and in practice, by those who are unfairly and unjustly treated, those who are marginalized and are socially, economically and politically excluded. We oppose all forms of bigotry, including all manifestations of racism in its many guises. We urge all our collaborators and partners around the world to consider the shared values of justice, equality and peace which we all cherish, and to translate them into meaningful action, for a better future.

– Common Views collective co-founders, David Behar-Perahia and Dan Farberoff

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To Make A Garden Wilder Than The Wild

Dan Farberoff — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 16:24:20 +0000

To Make A Garden Wilder Than The Wild

The Ins and Outs of Cities and Forests

December 23, 2022/inThe Urban Biosphere Handbook/byDan Farberoff

“Just as we’d closed the loop and linked ourselves
Back to the living planet we had ruined,
And made a garden wilder than the wild”

– Frederick Turner, Apocalypse

“No man manages his affairs as well as a tree does”

– George Bernard Shaw

Germans are credited with starting the Christmas tree tradition as we now know it, in the 16th century when devout Christians brought decorated trees into their homes. This midwinter ritual that has its roots in older forms of nature veneration — a celebration of evergreen vegetation that has morphed into an idolisation of the evergreen growth economy — is a good starting point for an exploration of humans and trees, cities and forests.

Across Germany almost 30 million Christmas trees are sold each year. In Berlin alone 400,000 trees are cut down and used every Christmas and then thrown in the trash, while a report by Friends of the Earth Germany puts the overall number of street trees in Berlin at 430,000 — a stark ratio of one felled Christmas tree a year for every living street tree.

How is the cutting down of Christmas trees related to a cutting off from body and from other beings? And how is this related to our explorations of the urban biosphere — of what the city is and what it could be?

The living trees in the city play a central role in protecting the environment and are therefore vital for our own health and well-being. Briefly, trees and green-cover act as an an “air conditioning” system for the city, releasing water vapor through photosynthesis, refreshing the air, and filtering pollutants. Berlin’s abundant verdant spaces – surrounded as it is by nature conservation areas and containing many parks and reserves within city limits – serve as its purifying lungs and carbon sinks. Trees play a pivotal part in the regulation of the groundwater levels¹ of a city born in the swamps at the junction of two rivers². They provide food and habitats for many animal species, and much more. A rich and vital tree population is a testament to a city that cares for all its inhabitants and strives to provide them with a wholesome environment.

Berlin’s oldest tree, older than the city itself, is an ancient oak named Dicke Marie (“Fat Mary”), which stands in the woods a short walk from the houses of the northern neighbourhood of Tegel, where we’ve been working these past few months, exploring the urban biosphere in a series of walks, workshops, gatherings and conversations. On one of these biosphere exploration walks we paid a visit to this majestic old tree, taking turns reading from Suzanne Simard’s “Finding the Mother Tree”³, which tells of the important role that such mature trees play in their environment, helping to coordinate an interlinked network that heals, feeds and sustains the other members of the forest.

Simard calls the complex underground web of mycorrhizal fungi that facilitate the exchange and communication among plantlife in the forest the “wood wide web”. We humans appear to have logged off this web of connections and have failed to log back on, our communications limited to what is in many ways a form of disassociated anthropocentric intranet.

Older than Tegel, which in 2022 celebrated its 700th year anniversary, Dicke Marie is a remnant of a landscape that is much older still. Its beginnings can be traced back eleven thousand years prior to the founding of the human settlement, to the advent of the geological epoch of the Holocene and the retreat of the glaciers of the last ice age from the glacial spillway now occupied by the city of Berlin. This warming allowed for the emergence of temperate forest cover and the development of the region’s ecosystem as we know it, with its familiar flora and fauna.⁴ Why then do we not celebrate, in conjunction with Tegel’s 700 year human anniversary, this 11,700 year ecological anniversary of oaks and the pines, red squirrels and wild boars?

Cities are a manifestation of such a collective psychological pathology of separation and isolation from nature, argues Emanuele Coccia, whose writings we‘ve been exploring in our urban biosphere reading group sessions (“Common Nature. Beyond the City and the Forest”⁵). Coccia sees the city’s antithesis in the image of the forest (from the Latin foris, ‘external’, ‘outside of’) as a representation of our rejection of the Other. Cities, a manifestation of our enclosures of culture and cultivation, represent a dissociation from nature and therefore reflect a relationship with the other that is characterized by dominance, manipulation, and extraction. Within city-limits we find the city-zens, the urban and the urbane, the polis and political agency. And beyond them are all that is “natural” and “wild”. Coccia likens the exclusion of the forest to that of the refugee camp, which could be read as embracing the immigrants and the stateless, the non-city-zens, the dark other and the poli(s)tially excluded.

Gardener-researcher Giles Clément, whose writings we have also been exploring⁶, finds the founding act of every city, the original nucleus from which cities develop, in the act of enclosure at the basis of gardening. The garden, from the old Germanic gards, “enclosure”, is to Clement the fundamental separation of cultivated and wild that enabled the ‘urban revolution’: a consequence of agriculture enabling the accumulation and long-term conservation food. A more prosaic example of this tendency for othering and enclosure can be found in the tradition of the allotment garden, so common in Tegel. This tradition, which interestingly developed in Germany initially as a countermeasure to urbanisation – a socially important act of commoning, of expanding people’s access to land and nature for a widening spectrum of socio-economic class – exposes a conflicting, innate human drive for enclosure and exclusion. A plot of land, which left untended might lie “fallow”, sprouts a boundary and then a shelter. With this come decisions about the permeability of boundaries: hard or soft – who enters and who is excluded, what species are welcome and which ones are not, whether an excluded entity is allowed as a temporary visitor, is prevented from entering the private boundary of the home, prevented from crossing an external boundary, or even sought out and eliminated far beyond these boundaries, as is the case for “invasive” species. (There is much to be said about such terminology and its application. More on this, later.)

One might say that the city is in a fundamental way an amplification and multiplication of these tendencies. But the geographical boundaries we draw around our gardens and cities are to a large extent an illusion. Cities are in practice extensive, far-reaching systems of cultivation, extraction and disposal – interdependent, multi-species endeavours that involve the removal and exile of other species, while ignoring our own interdependence on these species.

The interconnectedness of human and tree goes very deep and far back to our earliest stages of physical and mental evolution as a species. Coccia reflects on how forests and trees have played a significant role in shaping human anatomy, identity and technology. We perceive our technology, and therefore our contemporary human society, as arising from our relationship to stones and rocks, due to stone tools from the Palaeolithic and Neolithic periods of human advancement being easily preserved and studied. But to Coccia the Homo Sapiens is first and foremost an arboreal primate, shaped by life on trees. Technology, as an extension of our physical abilities and our anatomy, derives therefore from this early relationship. Coccia believes that our desire to reduce every-“thing” to stone and to forget the role of forests in the development of human bodies, culture and technology is a form of pride that allows humans to believe that they are alone in an infinitely appropriated world. For Coccia, relating to our body means to relate to the trees that shaped it – a fascinating proposition to a somatic explorer and avid tree hugger like myself.

There is much that can be learned from the physicality of trees that bares relevance to how we humans interact with the world. Observing trees closely on our biosphere explorations, I was struck by the way in which trees appear to grow in negotiation. The journey of a root, a tree trunk or a branch is not a straight line from A to B but a spiralling and forking one that flows and navigates its environment in relation to the ground, surrounding plants, living creatures, the weather and available sunlight. And while there is a good deal of repetition of structures in this organic growth, these are iterations that are similar but not identical, each one uniquely shaped in response to the conditions in which it is formed. This results in tremendous variety of permutations and richness of form, consistency, colour and shade. Our constructions in comparison are linear, straight-edged and repetitive, with minimal alterations and limited diversity. Even our most radical architectures offer a very limited application of organic principals. When considering that diversity is a central element in the resilience of ecological systems one wonders if there is something we might learn from trees that could enhance the resilience of our own artificial ones.

Walking through the streets of Tegel in autumn, with piles of fallen leaves crunching underfoot, one can imagine the trees that line its sidewalks attempting to compost the city, mulching the roads and parked cars under a thick carpet of decaying foliage, breaking down the pavement with their roots. I find it somehow comforting that as much as we might strive to build lasting constructions, our edifices are sure to be broken up and consumed by trees in the long run.

In contrast to organic processes, our cycles of consumption and disposal are out of whack. Our creations are everlasting where they should be transient and short-lived where they should last: A “disposable” plastic cup may last for a day, while the plastic it is composed of remains for an eternity. Contrast the way in which a tree draws nourishment from its immediate surroundings, from the earth and air, and disposing any byproducts in situ, with the way a human might source their nourishment from another continent and dispose of their waste in the middle of a distant ocean. On the streets of Tegel we find a concise representation of this in the form of Amazon parcel delivery hubs on one side of the cycle, right next to used clothing collection containers on the other. And next to those we have foliage disposal containers, our attempt to subordinate the trees’ metabolic cycle to our own.

The question of how to reorient our collective perspective is an urgent one. If (according to Anna Tsing, whose writings we’ve also been exploring⁷) plants could only develop on land once fungi produced soil by digesting rocks, what is the cultural equivalent of such fungal action, that will allow us to move away from our stone-age-based technologies, to dissolve our rock-solid perception of the world to reintegrate the forests and to regrow our affinity to other beings, our rhyzomic interrelations?

On our biosphere explorations we visited a local meadow orchard on the outskirts of Tegel, an example of human cooperation with, and cooption of nature. Meadow Orchards (Alernately also Orchard meadows) are traditionally a collection of fruit trees in an area of permanent grassland, generally comprising a mixture of apple, pear, cherry and plum trees – sometimes also walnut trees – of different ages. Meadow orchards expanded in the vicinity of and in conjunction with European cities, peaking in the mid-1900s but steadily declining since then. Recently though, there has been a renewed appreciation of meadow orchards for their environmental value⁸. Appropriately managed, they provide habitat for many species of birds, insects, and other animals. Species diversity is so high, that they have even been referred to as the rain forest of Europe. Such diversity, essential for the long term survival of both flora and fauna, is in part reliant on cultural biodiversity, namely the practices and knowledge developed by the societies that create and maintain it.

The forest-garden, a tree of life at its centre, is fundamental to the myth-making of the agrarian societies that have birthed our own – perhaps an imagining of a more natural human existence that isn’t at loggerheads with the forest (pun intended). The English word “paradise” is etymologically linked, through Latin and Greek, to the Hebrew “pardes” for orchard, itself from the Persian “pairidaeza” for an enclosed garden. Still, it is a dualistic perspective that confines an ideal of balance within the perimeter of the walled forest-garden, and expels all that is dark, transgressive and unacceptable beyond its walls into the “real” forest, uncultured and wild. (For more about the forest-garden idea and practice, and a nuanced view of the complex topic of a return to Eden, back-to-nature approach to environmentalism, see here)

A profound interconnectedness of humans and trees invites a re-visioning of the future shape and function of the city as a place where wild and cultivated are in an ongoing conversation: where structures grow and dissolve organically, with circular, localised cycles of creation and dissolution and meandering journeys that negotiate their environment. Such complex agglomerations, made up of multiple, intertwined interactions are much less planned than emergent. Jane Bennet proposes⁹ Deleuze and Guattari’s term assemblage for such living, throbbing confederations that are able to function despite the persistent presence of energies that confound them from within. J.K. Gibson-Graham posit¹⁰ such assemblages, as experimentations with new practices of living and being together and the ingredients of a new world shaping movement, that allows us (that is, all the human/nonhuman participants in the becoming world) to organise, be organised and “thrive in porously bounded spaces in which there is some degree of interconnection, a distinctively diverse economy and ecologies, multiple path-dependent trajectories of transformation, and inherited forms of rule”. Could a city be such an assemblage? And if so what models should we adopt that will manifest this?

To explore these questions, we might look beyond traditional approaches to urban planning and design, and consider the city as a dynamic and constantly evolving entity that is shaped by the interactions between its human and natural elements. This requires a shift in mindset from viewing the city as a fixed, static entity to seeing it as a complex and ever-changing network of relationships and connections. By embracing this perspective, we can begin to envision a new type of city that is more attuned to the needs of its human and other-than-human inhabitants, and that is able to adapt and thrive in the face of ongoing change. Such a city would be a place where the wild and the cultivated are in constant dialogue, and where the structures and systems that make up the city are able to grow and evolve organically, in response to the needs of all its inhabitants.

Bibliography

Theresa Frommen and Timothy Moss: Pasts and Presents of Urban Socio-Hydrogeology: Groundwater Levels in Berlin, 1870–2020 – MDPI (2021)
Rod Giblett: Cities and Wetlands: The Return of the Repressed in Nature and Culture (2016)
Suzanne Simard: Finding the Mother Tree (2021)
Marco Mina: The Return of the Forest: how trees reconquered the European continent after the last Ice Age – Forest Monitor (2017)
Emanuele Coccia: Common Nature. Beyond the City and the Forest – Nella selva | Wildness: «Vesper» No. 3 Autunno-inverno (Fall-Winter 2020)
Gilles Clement: La Sagesse du Jardinier (2004)
Anna Tsing: The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins(2015)
Michal Forejt and Ralf-Uwe Syrbe: The current status of orchard meadows in Central Europe: Multi-source area estimation in Saxony (Germany) and the Czech Republic (2019)
Jane Benett: Vibrant Matter – A Political Ecology of Things (2010)
J.K. Gibson-Graham: A Feminist Project of Belnging to the Anthropocene (2014)

Common Views are currently exploring these questions and more in the Berlin district of Tegel, Reinickendorf. This current phase of the Biosphere Berlin project is a first step towards a longer, multi-year project in Berlin. Our next public activities will take place in January and February 2023. To find out more and stay informed, check out our blog and news sections.

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Biosphere Berlin – A Creative Exploration – Dec 4th | Biosphäre Berlin – Eine kreative Erkundung – 4. Dez

Dan Farberoff — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 18:51:19 +0000

See English version

Eine kreative Erkundung der Urbanen Biosphäre

Sonntag, den 4. Dez. von 11-15h (Treffpunkt 10.45h, am Tor des Strandbads Tegeler See)

Inspiriert von der Tradition der “Jane’s Walks”, veranstaltet Common Views im Rahmen des Projekts Biosphäre Berlin, öffentliche Spaziergänge entlang der Wälder, Seen und der bebauten Umgebung des Berliner Stadtteils Tegel.

Am Sonntag, den 4.12. treffen wir uns am Tor des Strandbads Tegeler See, von wo aus wir entlang des Tegeler Sees wandern bis zum Ruder-Club 1886 am Tegeler Ufer. Die Tour wird von den Künstlern und Forschern des Projekts unter Beteiligung von Einheimischen und Experten geleitet und bietet eine gemeinsame, kreative Erkundung der komplexen Systeme, die die urbane Biosphäre ausmachen, um Einsichten und Perspektiven zu sammeln: Wo endet die Stadt und wo beginnt die Natur? Wie können Natur und Stadt in Harmonie existieren? Wie können wir die ökologische und soziale Widerstandsfähigkeit angesichts der dramatischen ökologischen Herausforderungen, mit denen unsere Gemeinden konfrontiert sind, stärken und welche Rolle spielen dabei Vielfalt und Integration?

Die Gruppe wird geleitet von:

🌾Dr. Katja Arzt, Professorin an der Hochschule für nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde (HNEE), die ein Gespräch über die Interaktion in der Gemeinschaft und die Bedeutung positiver Emotionen in Verbindung mit der Natur führen wird

🦔 Künstlerin und Choreografin Ka Rustler untersucht die Verbindung von Körper und Natur

🪲Forscherin Sina Ribak, die eine Untersuchung der Grenzen und Schwellen zwischen den menschlichen und nicht-menschlichen Bewohnern des Viertels leiten wird

🌻Der Künstler David Behar Perahia wird untersuchen, wie tiergestütztes Design Solidarität mit anderen Arten schaffen kann

🌿Künstler Dan Farberoff, der das Konzept der posthumanen Gemeingüter vorstellen wird

Das Gespräch wird sowohl auf Englisch als auch auf Deutsch geführt.

Bitte warme, wetterfeste Kleidung und etwas zu Essen für zwischendurch mitbringen. Es wird eine Mittagspause und die Möglichkeit geben, heiße Getränke und Snacks zu kaufen.

Wir freuen uns auf Sie!

Treffpunkt:
Tor des Strandbads Tegeler See
Nächste Bushaltestelle: Spechtstr. – Linie 222

The Urban Biosphere – A Creative Exploration

Sunday, 4th Dec, 11:00-15:00 (Meet at 10:45 at the gate of Strandbad Tegeler See)

As part of our Biosphere Berlin project, Common Views are holding public walks along the forests, lakes and built environment of Berlin’s Tegel neighbourhood, inspired by the “Jane`s Walks” tradition.

On Sunday 4th Dec we are meeting at the gate of Strandbad Tegeler See, from where we will walk along the lake to Ruder-Club 1886 on the Tegel waterfront. The tour will be led by the project’s artists and researchers, with the participation of locals and experts, offering a shared, creative exploration of the complex systems comprising the urban biosphere, in order to collect and harvest insights and new perspectives: Where does the city end and nature begin? How can nature and city exist in harmony? How can we bolster ecological and social resilience in the face of the dramatic environmental challenges facing our communities and what role do diversity and inclusion play in this?

The group will be led by:

🌾Dr. Katja Arzt, professor at the University of Sustainable Development Eberswalde (HNEE), who will lead a conversation on community interaction and the importance of positive emotion in connection with nature

🦔 Artist and choreographer Ka Rustler explores the connection of body and nature

🪲Researcher Sina Ribak who will lead an investigation of the boundaries and thresholds between the neighbourhood’s human and non-human inhabitants

🌻Artist David Behar Perahia who will explore how animal aided design can create solidarity with other species

🌿Artist Dan Farberoff who will introduce the concept of a post-human Commons

The conversation will be both in English & in German.

Bring warm, all-weather clothing, some food to snack on. There will be a lunch break and an opportunity to purchase hot drinks and snacks.

Looking forward to seeing you!

Meeting point:
Entrance of Strandbad Tegeler See
Nearest bus stop: Spechtstr. – Linie 222

Das Projekt ist Teil der Initiative DRAUSSENSTADT, gefördert vom Berliner Projektfonds Urbane Praxis sowie von der Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa.

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Biosphere Berlin – A Public Walk – Nov 27th | Biosphäre Berlin – Ein Spaziergang – 27. Nov

Dan Farberoff — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 17:51:49 +0000

See English version

Ein Spaziergang zur Erkundung der urbanen Biosphäre

Sonntag, den 27.Nov. von 11-15h (Treffpunkt 10.45h, Aussichtsturm Flughafensee)

Am Sonntag, den 27.11. treffen wir uns am Tegeler Flughafensee, von wo aus wir entlang der Stadt-Wald-Grenze wandern und mit der Fähre zur Insel Reiswerder im Tegeler See übersetzen. Die Tour wird von den Künstlern und Forschern des Projekts unter Beteiligung von Einheimischen und Experten geleitet und bietet eine Erkundung der miteinander verbundenen Beziehung von Mensch, Natur und unserer gemeinsamen Zukunft in der städtischen Umgebung.

Die Biologin Dr. Svenja Steinfelder stellt uns Biber der Insel Reiswerder vor und spricht über die Interaktion zwischen Waschbären, Wildschweinen und Menschen auf der Insel sowie über Fragen der Abfallwirtschaft und des Landschaftsschutzes der Insel.

Das Gespräch wird sowohl auf Englisch als auch auf Deutsch geführt.

Bitte warme, wetterfeste Kleidung und etwas zu Essen für zwischendurch mitbringen sowie 3€ und eine ffp2-Maske für die Fähre nach Reiswerder. Es gibt Tee, Kaffee und eine Mittagspause mit heißer Suppe.

Wir freuen uns auf Sie!

Treffpunkt:
Aussichtsplattform, Strand am Flughafensee
Nächstgelegene Bushaltestelle: Sterkrader Str. – Linien X33 & 133
Nächstgelegene U-Bahn: U6 Holzhauser Str.

A Walk Exploring the Urban Biosphere

Sunday, 27th Nov, 11:00-15:00 (Meet at 10:45)

On Sunday 27th Nov we are meeting by Tegel’s Flughafensee, from where we will walk along the boundary between city and forest and take the ferry to Reiswerder island on the Tegeler See. The tour will be led by the project’s artists and researchers, with the participation of locals and experts, offering an exploration of the interconnected relationship of humans and nature and our shared future in the urban environment.

Biologist Dr Svenja Steinfelder will introduce us to beavers of Reiswerder island and talk about the interaction between raccoons, wild boars and people on the island, as well as issues of waste management and the island’s protected landscape.

The conversation will be both in English & in German.

Bring warm, all-weather clothing, some food to snack on and 3€ and an FFP2 mask for the ferry ride to Reiswerder. There will be a lunch break with hot drinks and soup.

Looking forward to seeing you!

Meeting point:
Aussichtsplattform, Strand am Flughafensee
Nearest bus stop: Sterkrader Str. – Lines X33 & 133
Nearest U-Bahn: U6 Holzhauser Str.

Das Projekt ist Teil der Initiative DRAUSSENSTADT, gefördert vom Berliner Projektfonds Urbane Praxis sowie von der Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa.

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Cities and the Anthropocene

Dan Farberoff — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 12:55:26 +0000

“In popular culture cities are portrayed as terrible dystopias as often as they are shown as places of liberation and excitement. Sentiment swings back and forth. Cities were once seen as environmental disaster zones; now it is recognized that they are much more efficient users of fossil fuels than the suburbs or the rural lands beyond. Either way, it is clear that cities distil the ambiguities of our feelings about the Anthropocene.

Cities are the most visible signs of the power of the Anthropocene to transform our planet. Night photographs of the Earth taken from satellites show brilliant dots, strings and flashes of light clustered together. An imaginary alien approaching close enough would be in no doubt that the Earth not only bears life but also that life is advanced enough to be ready for the next stage of evolution.”
James Lovelock, Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence, 2019

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aquamediale Exhibition at Eisenhammer

Dan Farberoff — Sun, 31 Jan 2021 19:11:59 +0000

aquamediale Exhibition at Eisenhammer

David & Dan present artwork from their project Common Views: Sourcing Water at the exhibition launch of the Eisenhammer arts center in Schlepzig, Spreewald, site of the aquamediale festival – together with 9 other artists who will be creating artwork for the festival.

Curated by Harald Larisch.
With the presence of the Minister for Science, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg Dr. Manja Schüle, and Stephan Loge of the Dahme-Spreewald District Administration.

The 14th aquamediale site-specific arts festival will take place between 5th June and 18th September 2021. This year’s festival theme is “Hand Werk Kunst”, inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, inviting artists to engage with the local crafts tradition of Spreewald. The artwork presented by David & Dan will form a part of the overall project Common Views: Gemeinsame Sichtweisen, taking place in the biosphere reserves of Spreewald and Schorfheide-Chorin in the German state of Brandenburg.

kuenstlerhaus-eisenhammer.de

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Art & Nature Session at HNEE

Dan Farberoff — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 12:19:41 +0000

Art & Nature Session at HNEE

David & Dan presented the Common Views project to researchers and students at the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE) and artists of the UM Festival. The session is part of a series by Katja Arzt of HNEE and Ilona Kálnoky of UM Festival, with David & Dan of the Common Views project, aiming to bring together artists and scientists researching biosphere and biosphere reserves for a cross-disciplinary dialogue. View a recording of the session below:

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Art.Desert.City Conference

Dan Farberoff — Wed, 30 Dec 2020 15:09:05 +0000

Art.Desert.City Conference at ACAC

David & Dan presented the Common Views project at the Art.Desert.City conference, hosted by the Arad Contemporary Arts Center (ACAC) and organized by Dr. Irit Carmon Popper together with the center’s curator Leah Abir. The artists participated in a panel on “Art, Environment and Society”, moderated by Dr. Popper, who was curator of their project “Common Views: Sourcing Water”, which took place in the Arad area during 2019-20. Also in the panel were artists Yael Vishnitzki-Levi and Stanisław Welbel, Hadas Tzur, PhD student at the Laboratory of Contemporary Urban Design of the Tel Aviv University and Dr. Nir Barak of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University.

View a recording of the panel below (Hebrew):

For additional recordings and information about the other panels, see the full conference program below (ACAC website, Hebrew):

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