STUDIO BONN. Discourse in the Bundeskunsthalle

Global Nerve Systems
HOW WORLD WIDE DISASTERS ARE INTERCONNECTED

Thursday, 20 October, 7 p.m.
live in the Forum

with
Zita Sebesvari, Deputy Director of the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University, Bonn
Pali Palavathanan, co-founder and Creative Director of the branding and digital agency TEMPLO, London
Grace Ndiritu, artist, London
Chair: Kolja Reichert

What does the elephant migration in southern China have to do with the famine in Madagascar? How are the forest fires in Europe connected with the floods in Lagos?

Zita Sebesvari, a climate researcher based in Bonn, describes how, as a result of climate change, one catastrophe triggers another – and which screws need to be turned to alleviate them. Sebesvari is lead author of the annual ‘Interconnected Disaster Risks’ report of the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University in Bonn (UNU-EHS). The report is being picked up by media around the world, not least of all because of its unusual design by the London-based agency TEMPLO. Together with Sebesvari, TEMPLO’s Creative Director and Pali Palavathanan explains how the challenges of climate change can be presented in a way that makes solutions visible. Sebesvari and Palavathanan share their global view with the artist Grace Ndiritu, who incorporates diverse Indigenous economies and knowledge systems into her work. ‘Museums are dying’, argues Ndiritu, who seeks to heal the relationship with the planet through shamanistic performances.

‘How World Wide Disasters Are Interconnected’ is the start of the new STUDIO BONN series ‘GLOBAL NERVE SYSTEMS’. Here, scientists, artists, and public officials discuss which senses we need to sharpen and which new narratives and world views are necessary in order to face coming disasters.

The renowned environmental researcher Zita Sebesvari is Deputy Director of the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University in Bonn and one of the three main authors of the ‘Interconnected Disaster Risks’ report. More

Pali Palavathanan co-founded TEMPLO together with Anoushka Rodda in 2013. The London-based branding and digital agency is committed to their ethos  ‘Creativity for Change’. In addition to the United Nations, TEMPLO’s clients include Greenpeace, Migrant Help, and Amnesty International. More

The work of Grace Ndiritu is represented in numerous collections. Her installation, ‘The Twin Tapestries’, is on view in the exhibition ‘YOYI! Care, Repair, Heal’ at the Gropius Bau in Berlin through 15 January 2023. Her second book, ‘Being Together: A Manual for Living’, was published in September 2022. More

For more on this topic, see also the Studio Bonn think tank ‘Contracts for Earth’ on the crisis of climate diplomacy and the benefits of Indigenous technologies.

The talk will be in English. A video with subtitles will be available at a later date at studiobonn.io.

A cooperation with the United Nations University.

Abb. © UNU-EHS, 2022

HOW TO COPE WITH FEAR?

With:
Zoë Ruge, Last Generation
Rebecca Nestor, Climate Psychologist
Lu Yang, Artist

Live in the Forum
€ 10 / € 5 (discounted) in our Online Shop

Fewer flights, less meat: Everyone knows the practical advice on how to mitigate climate change. But is the survival of the planet a purely technical problem – once solved, back to business as usual? Or do we first need to learn to really look the catastrophe in the eye and talk about what it is doing to us? The climate psychologist Rebecca Nestor describes how feelings of fear and shame paralyse not only people but entire organisations. The activist Zoë Ruge blocks motorways with the Last Generation to force a change in consciousness and politics. And the artist Lu Yang combines near-death experiences with Buddhist dance in flaming video installations, questioning man’s place in a thoroughly technologized universe. The second talk in the new STUDIO BONN series GLOBAL NERVE SYSTEMS is all about fear and how living with it makes us curious and capable of taking action again.

The psychologist Rebecca Nestor advises organisations and individuals on the challenges posed by climate change. Watch a conversation between her and the artist Grace Ndiritu, who was a guest at GLOBAL NERVE SYSTEMS in October 2022. Rebecca Nestor will come from Oxford (by train). 

Zoë Ruge (born 1999 in Berlin) has been involved with the Last Generation since January 2022. She has participated in numerous street blockades, gives lectures, and provides legal assistance to imprisoned or accused activists. She also appears in Volker Lösch’s theatre production Recht auf Jugend (Right to Youth) at the Theater Bonn (next performance on 16 April). Zoë Ruge is currently majoring in Cultural Studies and History at the University of Freiburg. 

In the videos and games of Lu Yang (born 1984 in Shanghai), technoid monsters and gods dance to loud music in front of seas of flames and temple flags. A self-experienced plane crash was the focus of his video installation Doku the Self, which was shown in the award-winning exhibition for the ‘Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year’ in the Palais Populaire in Berlin in 2022. The Kunsthalle Basel is hosting the solo exhibition LuYang. Vibratory Field (until 21 May). Lu Yang’s work is part of the exhibition curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Worldbuilding. Gaming and Art in the Digital Age, at the Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf (until 10 December). In 2022, the Bundeskunsthalle presented Lu Yang’s work Electromagnetic Brainology in the exhibition The Brain in Art & Science. Lu Yang will participate online from Tokyo.