CONFERENCE ABSTRACT | REGISTRATION | PROGRAMME | SPEAKERS AND ABSTRACTS | IMAGES | RECORDINGS
DOING ECOLOGY OTHERWISE
Pathways for Art and Transdisciplinary Collaboration in Ecosocial Change
International Conference hosted by the Centre for Art and Ecology, Goldsmiths, University of London
11-12 September 2026
PROGRAMME
Pathways for Art and Transdisciplinary Collaboration in Ecosocial Change
International Conference hosted by the Centre for Art and Ecology, Goldsmiths, University of London
11-12 September 2026
PROGRAMME
Doing Ecology Otherwise addresses the imaginative, sensory, material and embodied capacities of art to address urgent ecological challenges. Drawing on essential insights from Natasha Myers and Lola Olufemi on the potentiality of imagining and acting ‘otherwise’, the conference explores how art can hold space for new understandings, practices, relations and structures of feeling that may be marginalized in mainstream scientific and environmental action.
How do contemporary art and artistic research function as what Matthew Fuller calls a ‘meta-discipline’ for transdisciplinary collaboration? What kinds of rituals, practices and inquiries might be needed to understand and process long histories and memories of environmental and social harm? How can artists and their collaborators navigate the overlapping temporalities of ecological grief? How can artistic research build more-than-human networks of solidarity and connection? How can ecology, policymaking and archiving (disciplines, institutions and practices that emerged in the context of imperialism), be re-oriented through creative collaboration to struggles for eco-social justice? What decolonial, feminist and queer methodologies are emerging through art-led transdisciplinary collaboration? From fungi forays, material experimentation and singing composts to embodied memory-work, agropoetics and queer bestiaries, the conference brings together artists, curators, ecologists, soil scientists, researchers and policymakers in transdisciplinary dialogue to engage in the vital work of doing ecology otherwise.
Organized and hosted by the Centre for Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths, University of London, in conversation with the British Ecological Society (UK), Celadon Center for Arts and Ecologies (Cyprus), Contemporary Art Archipelago (Finland) and Kafkárna Center for Arts and Ecology UMPRUM (Czech Republic), the conference is a gathering of academic and creative presentations, workshops and performances to present artistic research unfolding across multiple sites across the world.
How do contemporary art and artistic research function as what Matthew Fuller calls a ‘meta-discipline’ for transdisciplinary collaboration? What kinds of rituals, practices and inquiries might be needed to understand and process long histories and memories of environmental and social harm? How can artists and their collaborators navigate the overlapping temporalities of ecological grief? How can artistic research build more-than-human networks of solidarity and connection? How can ecology, policymaking and archiving (disciplines, institutions and practices that emerged in the context of imperialism), be re-oriented through creative collaboration to struggles for eco-social justice? What decolonial, feminist and queer methodologies are emerging through art-led transdisciplinary collaboration? From fungi forays, material experimentation and singing composts to embodied memory-work, agropoetics and queer bestiaries, the conference brings together artists, curators, ecologists, soil scientists, researchers and policymakers in transdisciplinary dialogue to engage in the vital work of doing ecology otherwise.
Organized and hosted by the Centre for Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths, University of London, in conversation with the British Ecological Society (UK), Celadon Center for Arts and Ecologies (Cyprus), Contemporary Art Archipelago (Finland) and Kafkárna Center for Arts and Ecology UMPRUM (Czech Republic), the conference is a gathering of academic and creative presentations, workshops and performances to present artistic research unfolding across multiple sites across the world.