Planetary Public Stack Research Residencies
On 8th March 2023, Space Lab at Waag organised a transdisciplinary workshop with experts from different disciplines and artists to map out the following three questions: how do technologies impact the way imagine environmental and planetary interests, concerns, and injustices? What are their recommendations for those involved in the production of these environmental imaginaries? What are the first needed concrete actions so that planetary imaginaries can become more inclusive also for the creative and civil sectors?
MushMap is a residency project that challenges the planetary mapping-environing technologies. It was a research project by a group of artists and researchers including Margherita Soldati, Florian Geerken, Wanda Von Bremen, Bálint Csanád Katona, and Chris Julien. They questioned what the surface, line, and borders in maps fail to capture, speculating on how to map biodiversity and its borders. As a planetary matter of care, they wondered how we can collaborate with other species to hold liveable spaces for more-than-human and human. They question the limitations of maps, the rigidity of the defining lines of maps, and why ecotones: the transitions of two biological communities such as the in-between space of a park and urban space are not represented in maps. What would maps look like from the point of view of living organisms such as fungi and underground root systems? Biodiversity, how are the species using the environment, who is making the map? Whose agencies are represented on the maps? What if it’s from the perspective of living organisms like fungi? Does the political border in the middle of a desert make sense?