Saturday, December 13, 2025, 11am–3.30pm
Lindenstraße 35, 10969 Berlin
In English langauge
Participation free of charge
Limited capacities
Please register at veranstaltung.at.neueauftraggeber.de
Workshop Content
Ecology of Care offers a critical framework for responding to the interlocking ecological and social crises of the Anthropocene—the age shaped by human impact. The starting point is a vital shift in perspective: recognizing that the long-standing focus on the human subject has fuelled the exploitation and destruction of nature. Drawing from posthumanism and new materialism, the Ecology of Care argues that plants, animals, and other materialities are not just resources but actors with their own agency. This concept redefines care, moving it beyond individual or medical contexts to a systemic, ethical, and political attitude. It is rooted in the etymological meaning of ‘curating’ (from the Latin curare, meaning ‘to care for’ or ‘to nurture’). In essence, the Ecology of Care compels us to ask: How do we develop new ways of thinking and acting that integrate care for the social world with care for the natural world?
Our speakers will illustrate how the Ecology of Care is an active, grounded practice—a form of feminist resistance and a repository of essential community knowledge. They connect architectural, urban, and artistic practice to the crucial, often invisible, labours of care performed predominantly by women. We may gain an understanding of how to Reimagine Cultural Labor: See ‘curating’ and creative practice as an active labour of nurturing and sustaining relationships, rather than just managing objects or exhibitions.
Input 1: Sonja Leboš: Place Care from a Feminist Perspective – Case Studies from Croatia
The presentation is focusing on strategies of an artist whose tactics are deeply rooted in feminist theory and practice. It will showcase two works of art by Adriana Fridrih Lekić: The Quiet Mass and From 5 to 95. The Quiet Mass is a work that is ‘not only about the city but explicitly in the city’ (Rosalyn Deutsche) and counteracts against the extreme religious movement of men who passive-aggressively pray for their dominance over women every first Saturday in a month in all larger cities in Croatia. From 5 to 95 is a video-collection of conversation with girls and women who present one year in their lives from the age of five to the age of ninety-five. The presentation will frame this work theoretically in a way to create links to territorial planning that takes into consideration the needs of female citizens, pointing to the theories and practices that advocate gender equality, intersectionality, participation, and conceptions of place as essentially open and hybrid, contested and provisional (Doreen Massey).
Sonja Leboš, Ph.D., cultural anthropologist, expert in cultural tourism, and art educator, defended her doctoral thesis under the title City on Film, Film in the City: Zagreb 1941–1991, cultural-anthropological perspective in November 2022. She also studied set design and architecture in Prague and Zagreb. Her activities are in the domain of cultural and urban studies, education and production in culture and art, visual and urban anthropology, and discourse analysis, while her artistic, curatorial, and scientific work tends to merge the liminal fields of narrative urbanism and visual arts, design, theory and practice of performativity, film, and new media. Sonja Leboš is Founder of the Association for Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Research.
Input 2: Hannah Mevis: Tethys, today I washed my eyes in the riverbed! – Field Report on a project in Asturias/Spain
Hannah Mevis will share insights into her experience of working alongside women of Asturias, show the shape her research has taken and address the role of water as a fluid partner when it comes to understanding shared knowledge and community. In spring 2025 Hannah was an artist in residence at LABoral in Gijón, Spain – working on the project Tethys, today I washed my eyes in the riverbed! Here, she is researching the history of the lavaderos, which were communal wash houses and places of exchange for women. With an interest in the original meaning of gossip (i.e. knowledge shared with a trusted other), she collected oral testimonies sharing the experience of life in Asturias in the 1960s–1970s under Franco's Spain and their perspectives on the present day. While it is not yet clear what form this material will take in the work of the artist (e.g. docu-fiction, installation, song …), it will undoubtedly address the interconnectedness of community, housework, femme knowledge and the relentless labour of care.
Hannah Mevis is an artist and mediator of citizen-commissioned art. Through a multidisciplinary approach, she explores the perception of the human body and the social structures it embodies. She works conceptually, taking a particular interest in provoking spectators' physical experiences beyond the visual, such as feeling, tasting, wearing and moving, by triggering the senses and inviting shared experiences. After graduating from the HBKsaar (2017), she completed the postgraduate studio programme at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent, Belgium (2018–19).
Programme
11am
Welcome: Susanne Burmester, Chairwoman of Gesellschaft für Kunst und Mediation im Bürgerauftrag e. V. (Association for Citizen-Commissioned Art and Mediation)
11.30am
Keynote/Lecture and Discussion: Sonja Leboš, Place Care from a Feminist Perspective – Case Studies from Croatia
12.30pm
Lunch Break
1.30pm
Field Report and Discussion: Hannah Mevis, Tethys, today I washed my eyes in the riverbed! – Field Report on the artist’s project in Asturias/Spain
2.30pm
Coffee Break
3pm
Art Living Lab to Repair the Land: Alicia Ruiz Muńoz, Concomitentes (Spain), Introduction of the European Project in conversation with the mediators Susanne Burmester, Sonja Leboš and Alfredo Escapa Presa
Around 3.30pm
End
Participation
The capacities for participation are limited. Please register by December, 7th at veranstaltung.at.neueauftraggeber.de.
The event will be held in English. Participation is possible only in person. Participation is free of charge.
Organisers
Kunstverein Rügen e. V. and Circus Eins Projekte
Partners
Gesellschaft für Kunst und Mediation im Bürgerauftrag e. V., Die Gesellschaft der Neuen Auftraggeber – GNA gGmbH, Concomitentes (Spain)
This event is part of Art Living Lab to Repair the Land. The project is not just about fixing what’s broken, but about rethinking, reclaiming, and reimagining damaged territories. It deploys three projects on damaged territories: Energy Aftermath in Barruelo de Santullán (Spain), Agriculture Aftermath in Wietstock (Germany), and Electricity Aftermath in Šibenik (Croatia). The project is co-funded by the European Union’s Creative Europe programme, coordinated by Concomitentes (Spain) and developed together with Association for Interdisciplinary & Intercultural Research (Croatia), Kunstverein Rügen e. V. (Germany) and RIA Foundation (Spain).
The project has received funding from the European Union’s Creative Europe programme under grant agreement No 101173701. Co-funded by Daniel and Nina Carasso foundation (Spain), Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Kultur, Bundes- und Europaangelegenheiten Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (Germany), and Ministry for Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, City of Zagreb - Office for Culture and Civil Society (Croatia).
Further Information: artlivinglab.eu
