PhD | Art Materializing Time and (Dis)Entangling Nature-Cultures: Shifting Ecological Perceptions of the Present Past and Possible Futures

PhD-Candidate: Monique Peperkamp | University of Amsterdam | Supervisors: Christa-Maria Lerm Hayes, Miriam van Rijsingen, Peter Sonderen.

This doctoral research considers theory and art in response to the unfolding ecological catastrophes which demonstrate that social injustice and environmental degradation are inextricably intertwined. Whereas hegemonic networks create path dependencies that narrow perception and the sense of possibilities, art enables shortcuts that challenge and sideline the power of an apparently disinterested and naturalized technologization by evoking embodied knowledge. Crucially, such knowing is not opposed to, but instead interconnected with awareness of processes on different scales. Critical new and historical materialist approaches help to understand how art (dis)entangles nature and culture materializing (in) time and values otherness by differentiating temporalities. Artist Melanie Bonajo, art biennale Manifesta 9 and artists such as Lara Almarcegui, Jonas Staal, Debra Solomon and De Onkruidenier practice possibilities to resist the ongoing destructive cultural default mode and create alternatives that profoundly shift our relations to nature and, thereby, to ourselves as individuals and collectives.