In October, I'll begin a new professorship in Transformation Design at the Institut für Designforschung, Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig. I'm looking forward to meeting new colleagues, students, and collaborators for an adventure in the classroom and beyond! In what follows, this is the course description, more info under "Teaching" in the menu on the left: "The transformation towards greater sustainability, global justice and a 'good life' is the central social issue of our time. Design in particular must rise to this challenge and use innovative products, services, and systems to help develop suitable alternatives to seemingly no-alternative development. But, transformation design doesn't just want to offer new solutions to problems. It wants to stimulate social debates and rethink things and circumstances. In other words: Transformation Design consistently understands design from the perspective of human, social, and cultural needs and attempts to make a sustainable contribution to the future viability of society without neglecting the economic framework. The Master's program in Transformation Design at HBK Braunschweig teaches project-based skills to reflect, initiate, and help shape change processes. Questions of sustainability and future viability of society play a central role and are viewed from a design method and theory perspective. At the same time, design itself is being reinvented as processes, connections, and interactions with other disciplines, institutions, and civil society are taken into account in the design process."
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29 September 2023
Starting a professorship at HBK Braunschweig
— Anna-Sophie will be teaching first and second year in the M.A. Transformation Design
M.A. Transformation Design
Institut für Designforschung
Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig -
30 September 2023
Ph.D. Thesis submitted
— and viva completed in March 2024
Today, I successfully submitted my practice-led Ph.D. thesis at Goldsmiths’ Centre for Research Architecture, marking a significant milestone in my academic journey. Entitled "Species of Accumulation and the Necromass of Natural History," it revisits the diverse interventions of my co-founded curatorial research initiative, Reassembling the Natural, which I have been deeply involved with for the past decade. My research investigates natural history collections as critical planetary architectures of coloniality and ecocidal investment—structures that, far from being relics, continue to influence today’s financially-driven schemes of so-called “green” and “sustainability” capitalism.
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This work would not have been possible without the incredible support and inspiration from so many people. My heartfelt thanks go to my supervisor, Susan Schuppli, for her brilliant guidance, and to Ros Gray and Lindsay Bremner for their invaluable insights as thesis examiners. A special acknowledgment is owed to my long-term collaborator and life companion, Etienne Turpin, whose ongoing encouragement and intellectual dialogue have been crucial to this endeavor. Together, we started Reassembling the Natural and the intercalations: paginated exhibition series, which laid the fertile ground for this research.
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This thesis is as much a reflection of the countless encounters with people, landscapes, and nonhuman species around the world as it is a product of theoretical rigor. The generosity and teachings from activists, scientists, curators, and artists—especially those in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Amazonia—have profoundly shaped the ethical, philosophical, and political convictions in my work. For this, I am deeply grateful. -
July 19 2023
K. Verlag receives Deutscher Verlagspreis
— German Publishing Award
K. Verlag has been awarded the 2023 German Publishing Prize! Thank you Claudia Roth, the jury, and the whole team in Bonn for this incredible news!! Our thanks also goes to all of the fantastic people in our orbit: all the amazing artists, authors, editors, and curators, as well as designers, text editors, and translators with whom we have developed publications that aim to make some kind of difference in the world; our distributors and the many faithful colleagues in the field of bookshops and libraries all over the world; and, of course, to our dear readers—so many of you who are following K.’s program actively and who support us with your interest and engagement!
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21–25 September 2022
The New Forest
— Masterclass during Singapore International Photography Festival 2022
“The New Forest” is a five-year collaboration between The Institute of Critical Zoologists (ICZ) and Singapore International Photography Festival, unfolding across a series of masterclasses and culminating in an exhibition or a book. In its second year, the masterclass invites artists to embark on long-term projects reexamining humankind’s relationship with nature, alongside the Founder of ICZ, Robert Zhao, and the invited guest instructor—Anna-Sophie Springer, researcher, editor, and director of K. Verlag. The workshop’s thematic discussions will focus on the “art of noticing” in our daily environments, especially in unconventional places beyond parks, nature reserves, or the zoo. Robert and Anna-Sophie will guide participants to develop a personal project and vision that reconsiders ecology and its possibilities, while also offering critical perspectives on curatorial and editorial methodologies in expanding this work. Some issues that will be investigated include the consequences of the alleged separation between culture and nature, as well as the privileging of humans over nonhuman species. The participants’ projects will be in (but not limited to) lens-based media and is suitable for those interested in nature and its entanglements with history, science, and society.
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22/23 June 2022, 7 pm Seoul / 12 pm Berlin
No Surface Matter: On Publishing as Relay
— double lecture for PLATFORM P in Seoul/Korea
PLATFORM P is a center established by Mapo-gu, one of the 25 autonomous districts in Seoul, in July 2020 with the aim to support small presses and creators in the publishing field. The center has rental spaces for creators and libraries and cultural spaces for the public and supports various experimentations and training programs. Launched last year, the international exchange program is a quarterly event where we invite globally renowned publishing experts, including publishers, editors, and book designers, via ZOOM to meet and form ties with creators in Korea. In our first international exchange program scheduled in June, PLATFORM P has invited Anna-Sophie Springer, to speak about her curatorial-editorial practice. Her two presentations will be introduced and moderated by Seungjoo Lee, publisher of Manilbooks, who recently produced and published the Korean translation of Springer's co-edited book Fantasies of the Library. [The event will be in English with Korean live interpretation.]
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5 June 2022, 16–18h00
This Berlin Murmuration
A celebratory launch of These Birds of Temptation — intercalations 06
co-published by K. Verlag & Haus der Kulturen der Welt
hosted by Zabriskie Buchladen... with performances, readings, music, and other avifaunal excitements composed by contributors to the publication, including Anna-Sophie Springer, Etienne Turpin, David Rothenberg, Barbara Marcel alongside other special guests ...
[the event is free & all are welcome]
Zabriskie Buchladen
für Kunst und Natur
Reichenberger Str. 150
10999 Berlin -
3 June 2022
Goldrausch Fellowship for Women Artists studio visit at K. Verlag
— atelier talk by Anna-Sophie Springer for the current Goldrausch cohort
The Goldrausch project for women artists promotes the careers of outstanding, emerging women artists. The offices and headquarters of this independent professional training and one-year postgraduate programme for female visual artists is just next door to the K. Verlag atelier on the Fahrbereitschaft compound. It was a pleasure to welcome Goldrausch for the second time and meet the 2022 cohort to share some insights of my own personal development and career and talk about publications and curatorial-editorial methodologies.
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15 June 2022
Design Thinking and Research Translation
— Practice Mentor MA Forensic Architecture & Research Architecture Goldsmiths, University of London
How do we build a synthetic editorial-design process that insists on the mutuality of content and form, allowing us to concurrently rethink and reshape contemporary political, ecological, and theoretical ambitions and expectations? In this workshop, Anna-Sophie Springer will share aspects of her collaborative and multidimensional practice as co-founder and publisher of the Berlin-based publishing atelier K. Verlag Since 2011, she has been committed to working with the book as a space of exhibition. During our meeting, we will discuss ways of relaying complex research into publications whose conceptual rigor and experimental design create radical aesthetic and discursive interventions.
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14 June 2022
The Explorers' Legacy
— Practice Mentor, MA Environmental Architecture, Royal College of Art, London
The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, London is one of the oldest and largest institutions of colonial science in the world. During this daylong excursion led and organized by Christina Leigh Geros and Anna-Sophie Springer, students will be introduced to the complex history of the site and its infrastructures. "While," as one panel in the palm house states, "motivations for plant hunters have changed over the years, from collecting status symbols to economic botany to conservation," we will aim to think beyond these proud frameworks and confront the role of logistics, extraction, industrialization, appropriation, denaturalization, and exoticization at play in the constructs of nature-as-commodity and the gaze-as-spectacle that is this garden.
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25 May 2022
Between the Field and the Page – Books as Practice
— Practice Mentor, MA Environmental Architecture, Royal College of Art, London
How do we build a synthetic editorial-design process that insists on the mutuality of content and form, allowing us to concurrently rethink and reshape contemporary political, ecological, and theoretical ambitions and expectations? In this workshop, Anna-Sophie Springer will share aspects of her collaborative and multidimensional practice as co-founder and publisher of the Berlin-based publishing atelier K. Verlag Since 2011, she has been committed to working with the book as a space of exhibition. During our meeting, we will discuss ways of relaying complex research into publications whose conceptual rigor and experimental design create radical aesthetic and discursive interventions.
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3 March 2022, 8 pm Berlin / 1 pm CET
How Long Will This Be Going On?
— lecture in the Relative Time/Little Time Speaker Series convened by Bik Van der Pol and Mosaic, the interdisciplinary journal
Join us for a series of digital lectures via Zoom on what we have called relative time/little time. The lectures concentrate on the different granularity of current time relative to the period beginning in 1989, which marked a decisive acceleration of economy, growth, extraction, globalism, movement, population, transportation, etc., and ending in 2020, when over a few weeks the world came to a halt under the influence of the pandemic that spread as rapidly and widely as people, commodities, and capital once moved. With lectures by Frédéric Neyrat, Erin Manning, Jonas Staal, Dominic Pettman, Paul Huebener, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Andrea Robbins & Max Becher, Arthur Anyaduba, Melanie Braith, Sean Matharoo & Melanie Unrau, as well as Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin.
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February 2022
These Birds of Temptation
— intercalations 6 is hot off the press !
THE BOOKS MADE IT !!! 📘📖 Paper shortages and general turmoil have delayed this beauty of a book to flutter out into the world. After sending it to print in mid-November 😱it was finally delivered 🕊🕊🕊 When we first began to plan this volume back in 2013, we hadn’t expected that it would become a collection so deeply concerned with extinction. Looking at it now, in 2022, this of course makes utmost sense. The diverse contributions in “These Birds of Temptation” interrogate the role of art and poetry in times of ecological collapse and offer reflections on how birds matter in our making sense of worlds and the earth. Birds, then, are not treated as passive objects but are considered as multi-dimensional beings with inherited and unfolding “life ways,” a concept from environmental philosopher and fellow bird friend, Thom van Dooren.
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5 November 2021
Un-/Learning Archives in the Age of the Sixth Extinction
— The Whole Life Academy: Archives & Imaginaries Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Closed workshop convened by Steve Rowell & Priyanka Basu with individual sessions by scholars, researchers, and curators, Sandra Jasper, Anna-Sophie Springer, and Florian Wüst: It is complex to think of landscapes as and with the concept of archives, as we set out to do when conceiving of the workshop “Un-/Learning Archives in the Age of the Sixth Extinction” for the Whole Life Academy Berlin. We were combining our interests as an art historian working on archival practices of contemporary artists and filmmakers and an artist who deals with landscape and makes use of archival concepts and forms in proposing a workshop on archives as related to overlapping sites of nature/culture, climate change, deep time, and the built environment.
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12 August 2021
Goldrausch Fellowship for Women Artists studio visit at K. Verlag
— atelier talk by Anna-Sophie Springer for the current Goldrausch cohort
The Goldrausch project for women artists promotes the careers of outstanding, emerging women artists. The offices and headquarters of this independent professional training and one-year postgraduate programme for female visual artists is just next door to the K. Verlag atelier on the Fahrbereitschaft compound. It was a pleasure to welcome director Hannah Kruse and the 2021 cohort to share some insights of my own personal development and career and talk about publications and curatorial-editorial methodologies. Don't miss the upcoming group exhibition "Mutual Matters – Goldrausch 2021," 20 November to 5 December 2021 at Fahrbereitschaft, Große Halle, Herzbergstraße 40–43 in 10365 Berlin-Lichtenberg. If you go: drop a line and come say hi at K. as well!
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July 2021
도서관 환상들: Fantasies of the Library – The Korean Edition
— published by Manil Books in Seoul
책을 선택하고 연결하면서 뜻밖의 교류가 일어나고, 무한한 도서학적 상상의 세계가 열린다. 지식의 견고한 조직체로 여겨지는 도서관을 어떻게 새로운 연결·배치가 일어나는 공간으로 재구성할 수 있을지 말한다. 큐레이토리얼 사고와 실천의 핵심이 선택하고 연결 짓는 행위라고 한다면, 도서관은 무한히 탐험 가능한 큐레이토리얼 영역이다. As books are selected and connected, unexpected exchanges occur, and an infinite world of bibliological imagination opens up. This book by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin is about the library as both a form of knowledge organization by categories anda space where new connections and arrangements occur. If the core of curatorial thinking and practice is the act of selecting and connecting, the library is a curatorial realm that can be explored indefinitely.
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July 2021
Publishing as Relay
— an essay-conversation for the book "Art Writing in Crisis" between Anna-Sophie Springer & Caleb Waldorf
This new book includes a long discussion between Anna-Sophie Springer and artist and Triple Canopy co-founder Caleb Waldorf about their respective experiences in small-scale independent publishing. It was created between summer of 2019 and 2020, which means that the experience of the global pandemic changed the perspectives to a certain extent mid-way through. In summer 2021, the effects of the pandemic on publishing as practice can be felt even more strongly because so many bookshops worldwide were closed and cultural production experienced a kind of digital overload—which made book distribution very difficult. So, this new book is timely! The description by the editors reads as follows: "Fires burn around the world. Systemic discrimination persists, precarity is increasing, and the modern democratic project faces challenges from all sides. Art writing helps us to understand art which in turn helps us to understand such crises. But art writing itself is in crisis. Newspapers and magazines offer fewer channels than ever for independent art criticism, persistent institutional biases exclude the positions of many, and a proliferation of platforms presents opportunities and challenges in equal measure. This volume presents contributions from a broad range of authors who address the social and political dimensions of art and art writing in the contemporary context, and the ways in which new writing and publishing practices promote critical engagement among readerships as never before." With contributions by: Contributions by Taylor Renee Aldridge & Jessica Lynne, Kalia Brooks Nelson, Maddee Clark, Justin Clemens, Ben Eltham, Fayen d’Evie & Lizzie Boon, Dan Fox, Maria Fusco, Sarah Gory, Boris Groys, Paul James & Brad Haylock, Flavin Judd, Sara Kaaman, Jessica Gysel & Katja Mater, Bella Li & Justin Clemens, Freek Lomme, Rachel Marsden, Nikos Papastergiadis & Hou Hanru, Megan Patty, Barry Schwabsky, Anna-Sophie Springer & Caleb Waldorf, and Astrid Vorstermans.
Art Writing in Crisis
Brad Haylock & Megan Patty (eds.)
Sternberg Press, 2021 -
12 April 2021
Planetary Imaginaries in Print
— MFA seminar lecture at ZHDK on invitation by Knowbotiq Research
On invitation of Profs. Yvonne Wilhelm and Christian Huebler, Anna-Sophie Springer will share some recent projects by K. Verlag that convey the publishing atelier's research approach and conceptual methodologies with regards to ecological thinking and resistant publishing cultures.
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18 July 2020
Interconnection and Multidimensionality
— a conversation by Vida Rucli with Anna-Sophie Springer in Robida 7 "Forests"
This year began with a seemingly never-ending pandemic lockdown, but I was also blessed with the ongoing correspondence with Vida Rucli, a founding editor of the magazine Robida. We exchanged a lot of thoughts about forests and exhibition making as she asked many questions about my collaborative work, especially with regards to producing the "intercalations" series and the exhibition cycle "Disappearing Legacies: The World as Forest." The new publication of the collective that Vida is a part of grew to 336 pages and contains pieces by dozens of contributors; they are published in their respective languages. Below you can access a pdf of our conversation. Enjoy!
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18 January 2021
Is' mir Regal
— a lovely portrait of my publishing atelier K. Verlag in today's Tagesspiegel by Robert Klages
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14 January 2021
Co-opting Natural History
— an online lecture about "Reassembling the Natural" organized by fieldstations.net
In this invitation by the German Architecture Center DAZ in Berlin, we will look back at previous projects of the “Reassembling the Natural” cycle and share some considerations motivating our current research; here, we are interested in how the relationship between organisms proposes alternative approaches to depicting natural history. Instead of beginning from the assumption that the speciated organism is the basic unit of evolution, what if we consider nested ecologies of life as symbiotic kin that challenge ideas of competition and fitness? Following our readings of Lynn Margulis, Ed Young, Scott Gilbert, and David Quammen, among others, we ask, how can novel spatial strategies and interventions in the standard display technologies of the Natural History Museum contribute to de-naturalizing its presentation of human supremacy?
Curated and moderated by Lidia Gasperoni, Matthias Böttger, and Christophe Barlieb of fieldstations.net. The association promotes research about the Anthropocene – the new geological age in which human activity has become one of the most dominant influences upon the transformational processes of the earth.
The event, in cooperation with the Department of Architectural Theory at the Institute for Architecture at the TU Berlin, is part of the DAZ series “We need to talk!”.
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7 January 2021
Club Donna
— invited guest lecture at Peter Behrens School of Art, Hochschule Düsseldorf
Club Donna is about a renewed relationship with land, matter, "nature" and localities against the backdrop of the new climate condition. Participants and organizers (Sophie Dars & Carlo Menon, Accattone magazine) explore the work of contemporary artists, photographers, architects, botanists and landscape designers. At the same time, in practice, they borrow from them the tools to investigate our own environment—built and unbuilt, domestic and public, imaginary and actual. Looking forward to being today's guest!
Peter Behrens School of Arts
Fachbereiche Architektur und Design
Hochschule Düsseldorf
University of Applied Sciences -
17 December 2020
Earthseeds #4
— Joining curator Maria McLintock in a conversation with students from the MA Environmental Architecture, moderated by Mingxin Li, Yutong Wu, and Christina Leigh Geros
Spanning three days, "Earthseeds" is an online exhibition and event series celebrating the work of the cohorts graduating the MA City Design and MA Environmental Architecture at the RCA's School of Architecture. Led by the student community from both graduating cohorts, "Earthseeds" features talks, conversations, performances and group discussions, focusing on issues of care, the environment, technology, climate, and social justice. The title, "Earthseed," is in reference to Octavia Butler’s book "Parable of the Sower." To sow, to care, to adapt, to persist in the face of adversity and to change: a story that speaks to the uniqueness of this year and to our students’ capacity for adaptation and creativity even in the most difficult circumstances.
MA Environmental Architecture
School of Architecture
Royal College of Art London -
15 December 2020
The UnNatural History Museum: Unbuilding the Museum Typology
— invitation for Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin as guest critics at the AA, London
After months of not being able to travel and/or visit the institutions where a lot of our exhibition-led research takes place I look forward to engage with the cohort of students led by tutors Lily Jencks & Jessica Reynolds. In collective and individual projects, the studio class has been exploring the role of the natural history museum in the context of current ecological emergencies. Due to the pandemic constraints, which have prevented the students to be together in London, each one instead engaged with a museum that is local to them in their home country. After identifying a specific local ecological and/or curatorial problem each designed a proposal for an intervention that rethinks the museum's structure, role, and purpose. I look forward to learning about their ideas and strategies, and to contribute to their reflections via experiences gathered through "Reassembling the Natural"!
The UnNatural History Museum: Unbuilding the Museum Typology, a year-long experimental studio led by tutors Lily Jencks & Jessica Reynolds at the Architectural Association 2020–21
"The UnNatural History Museum: Unbuilding the Museum Typology," a year-long experimental studio led by tutors Lily Jencks & Jessica Reynolds at the Architectural Association 2020–21
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14 October 2020
Love with Obstacles (Amor Rojo)
— a virtual book talk
To mark the release of Dora García’s publication, "Love with Obstacles (Amor Rojo)," the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Massachusetts is hosting a virtual book launch and conversation exploring the rich legacy of Alexandra Kollantai. Kollontai (St. Petersburg, 1872–Moscow, 1952) was an October revolutionary, social activist, feminist, and intellectual who was a key agitator for the sexual and social emancipation of women. Moderated by Senior Curator-at-Large Ruth Estévez, Dora García will be joined by Rina Ortiz (a Mexican scholar of Kollontai and contributing writer to the book) and Anna-Sophie Springer (the books editor and director of its publisher, K. Verlag), and by Shoniqua Roach (Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies & Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Brandeis University). Tune in for a lively discussion on Kollantai’s contributions towards protecting women’s rights, the importance of fiction and private correspondence in the construction of political thought, and how Kollantai’s ideas on radical social change continue to inspire and mobilize a new generation of feminist thinkers and activists. The conversation will be hosted online via Zoom Webinar. Please RSVP to receive login credentials!
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2–4 October 2020
K. Verlag Open Studio
— with "silvopasture works" videoart screening & K. Verlag book table
After 2.5 years of a council ban to host public events at our studio compound, Fahrbereitschaft, our landlord finally got this permission again. To celebrate this good news the ASSET studio and K. Verlag publishing aterlier is participating in the Open Studios. Come by and peruse the K. Verlag book table or watch a re-run of my recently curated video program "silvopasture works" (see below) on Friday, 2 Oct, 6–9 pm. Hope to see you on Friday to kick off the days of the Open House weekend!
Open House weekend
@ FAHRBEREITSCHAFT
Herzbergstr. 40–43
10365 Berlin -
8 September – 4 October 2020
Musa × paradisiaca L. by Martina Pozzan
— photographic display at The Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga
In Fall 2020, the exhibition "Naturecolony" (curated by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin) was planned to take place at The Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto Mississauga. A new instantiation of our "Reassembling the Natural" project, this interdisciplinary exhibition was focusing on histories of colonial transactions in the Western hemisphere and had been in the works for two years—when it was abruptly called off in May due to the extended campus closures during the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic. Luckily, one position—by Martina Pozzan—which was already produced to be displayed in the outdoor area of the university campus, emerged as a solo installation. With her research project "Musa × paradisiaca L." Pozzan explores the messy space between natural and artificial dimensions of botanical collecting. In vitro propagation methods, seed banks, and both cryogenic and living collections operate at the intersection of technoscientific research and the market-driven commodification of life itself. The photographic series displayed focuses on techniques of biological multiplication in the service of capital accumulation.
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26–27 May 2020
Hortus Politicus
— a Master's seminar and public talk in the "Ways of World-Making" lecture series at Design Academy Eindhoven
This session with the MA students from DAE was originally going to happen in-person in February. It was my first professional engagement which got rerouted into an online seminar due to the Sars-COV-2 pandemic. Within the new circumstances of physical distancing and the highlighted perversities of supply chain capitalism, my talk "Herbarium Politicum" felt more timely than expected: with a virus currently reminding us of biological connectedness and shared (albeit asymmetrical) vulnerabilities, many urbanites not reliant on subsistence agriculture have recently taken up planting vegetables and/or gardening—whether as a welcome pastime while sheltered at home or as more conscious method towards a decelerated awareness for life's becoming. The role of gardens as spaces of care and survival (i.e. for political prisoners or the enslaved) suddenly took on an uncanny, quotidian resonance—albeit their singular and incomparable histories steeped in systemic violence and inequality. I want to thank Tim Roerig for the kind invitation and perfect organization as well as all attendants for their participation and feedback.
MA Program Contextual Design & Social Design
Design Academy Eindhoven
NL-5611 AZ Eindhoven -
18 May 2020
Deutscher Verlagspreis 2020
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K. Verlag is one of this year's recipients of the Deutscher Verlagspreis 2020 (German Publishing Prize) by the Federal Ministry of Culture. We are most grateful for this fantastic recognition. This is the best. Congratulations to all the other bookmakers, too!
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5 February 2020, 7 pm
Herbarium Politicum
— a talk by Anna-Sophie Springer on the occasion of Uriel Orlow's exhibition at Kunsthalle Mainz
Uriel Orlow’s moving exhibition “Conversing with Leaves” at Kunsthalle Mainz gathers four of his major installations from the last years into one institution. In his recent work “Theatrum Botanicum” (2015–18), Uriel tells the story of the garden planted by Nelson Mandela and his fellow inmates in Robben Island Prison, South Africa. My presentation “Herbarium Politicum” connects these lifelines with the letters and herbarium sheets of Rosa Luxemburg—for whom pressing flowers and plants into neat albums was a means for staying grounded and connected to the world during her years as political prisoner. Expanding from Uriel’s meticulous practice, I will also introduce a series of related projects by other artists and activists—many times both—whose work with seeds, gardens, and forests is inherently political—and often literally a question of life and death. Via the insights of writers such as Robin Wall-Kimmerer, Banu Subramaniam, and Sophie Chao we will reflect on the importance of reciprocity, kinship, belonging, and care—in order to understand even better what is so radical about “plant love” in the face of insect decline, uncontrollable forest fires, and decades-old agrarian anxieties. [Photo: “Squirrel's Revenge” (2017), Uriel Orlow. © Uriel Orlow & VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019]
Kunsthalle Mainz
Am Zollhafen 3-5
D-55118 Mainz -
15 December 2019, 5–7 pm
Hanna Mattes, "The Lunar System" out now with K. Verlag
— readings from "The Lunar System," and sounds from outer space, with Hanna Mattes and Anna-Sophie Springer
What could be better than concluding the year with a new publication embracing Love and Cosmic Forces? If you are in Berlin, please join me and my fantastic friend Hanna Mattes on Sunday for the release of "The Lunar System"—her new book of poetry and photography—featuring images taken during a total solar eclipse as well as from sites in Chile’s Atacama Desert. We'll have some snacks and drinks there and just look forward to spending some time in this beautiful place together. Hope you can make it!
Zabriskie Buchladen
Manteuffelstr. 73
10999 Berlin -
26 November 2019
"Best Book Design" award for K. Verlag
— Ontario Association of Art Galleries selects "The Work of Wind: Land" (2018)
The K. publication "The Work of Wind: Land,” co-edited last year by Chrisine Shaw & Etienne Turpin—and designed in collaboration with Katharina Tauer—has won this year’s “Best Book Design Award” in the Canadian OAAG competition of the Ontario Association of Art Galleries!
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The publication is part of the curatorial initiative The WORK OF WIND: AIR, LAND, SEA, developed in 2018–21 by Christine Shaw, Director/Curator of the Blackwood Gallery at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Continuing K.’s curatorial approach to publishing by inviting the reader-as-exhibition-viewer to navigate a broad multidisciplinary field of inquiry and experimentation, the book aims to foster a deeper public awareness of the complex entanglements of ecologies of excess, environmental legacies of colonialism, the financialization of weather, contemporary catastrophism, politics of sustainability, climate justice, and hopeful resilience.
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Huge congratulations to everyone! I am especially proud because this is the second national design award K. Verlag has received this year together with designer Katharina Tauer! -
19 October – 15 November 2019
Nina Canell, Robin Wakins, and Anna-Sophie Springer with K. Verlag
— exhibition at Progetto, Lecce, Italia
During our collaborative residency hosted by Progetto in Lecce, Nina, Robin, and Anna-Sophie shared five-hundred hours together exploring the town and the surrounding Salento region. This experience culminates in the launch of the "Vegetable Teratology Colouring Book," by Nina Canell & Robin Watkins, and published by K. Verlag. We are presenting this publication in a two-fold launch: a veggie market stand and an exhibition. The first intervention takes place on the evening of the organic farmer's market at Le Maniffature Knos, a local cultural center; at Progetto itself, the "Vegetable Teratology Colouring Book" is the centerpiece of a shelf structure set up from found materials holding our material archive gathered throughout the residency and a selection of publications from K. Verlag's program.
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In the light-flooded rooms of the palazzo housing Progetto, this multifarious structure created by Anna-Sophie Springer and Robin Watkins is merely one part of the exhibition opening on 19 October. In other rooms of the space we present a series of sculptural assemblages by Nina Canell. These were made on-site with found objects and primary materials such as clay and stone. Often using location-specific conditions, Nina's installations respond to heat or moisture, calling for presence to replace form in sculpture. In the context of our joint residency—focusing on the deviation and contour of things as they come together or fall apart—Nina's assemblages echo themes raised by the "Vegetable Teratology Colouring Book" as they also emphasize material agency and sculptural process.
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With extra special thanks to Jamie Sneider (Progetto), Enrico Tramecere (Terraje Ceramiche), and Cesare Papaleo.Progetto
Via Idomeneo, 72
Lecce, Italy -
6–27 October 2019
Collaborative residency with Nina Canell & Robin Watkins at Progetto in Lecce (Salento, Southern Italy)
For much of this year, I've been daydreaming about an "escape" to Southern Italy at the end of summer and was planning to go to Matera in Basilicata to see Armin Linke's exhibition. Such joy then when Nina Canell and Robin Watkins invited me to embark on a joint artist residency at Progetto in Lecce (Puglia). We spent three weeks meeting and talking to local artisans, organic agriculturists, and food activists—as well as exploring the many fantastic beaches and our endless indulgence in food and wine. At the end our time there, we launched a new publication, the "Vegetable Teratology Colouring Book," co-edited by Robin & Nina and published by K. Verlag.
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18–19 September 2019
A FOREST (BOOK) FOR THE WORLD
— a two-day seminar with MA students at Institut Kunst Basel
While forest fires have been raging in Amazonia, Indonesia, the Arctic, and many other regions worldwide, my two-day seminar will focus on the archetypal role of plants for life on earth. We will discuss the concept of the Forest philosophically and biologically as a concept for multiplicity, diversity, and reciprocity. Unpacking the meaning of the "Anthropocene" as a species concept with limited ability to capture the capitalist-extractivist dynamics that have produced the current ecological crisis, we will explore alternative terminologies centering specifically on human-plant relations—including the "Plantationocene" as suggested by Donna Haraway, Jason Moore, and Anna Tsing, and the "Planthroposcene" as suggested by Natasha Myers and colleagues. Throughout the seminar, we will counterpoint our theoretical work with examinations of curatorial, editorial, artistic, and writerly methodologies dealing with our subject matter in a manner of lived, ethico-aesthetic practices. Thank you to Margrit Ritzmann for the wonderful invitation! (The photo shows a pack of Birch Leaf Tea I brought back from Finland the week before and which we were drinking together throughout the seminar.)
Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz
Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst
Institut Kunst
Freilager-Platz 1
CH-4023 Basel
institut-kunst.ch -
12–15 September 2019
K. Verlag at Editions Showroom of art berlin art fair
This September, K. Verlag is among the 12 invited publishers presenting their work in the Salon of the art berlin in the building of the former Tempelhof airport.
art berlin
at former airport Tempelhof
Hangars 5+6 -
9–13 September 2019
"Rehearsing Hospitalities" in Helsinki
— invitation by Frame Contemporary Art Finland
Within the curatorial field, the question of hospitality is so crucial. How lovely to receive an invitation to travel to Finland (for the first time) and be a guest of "Rehearsing Hospitalities" put together by the team around Jussi Koitela and Yvonne Billimore at Frame Contemporary Art Finland. Excited to join them for a dense week of events and looking forward to meeting new and old friends!
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6 September 2019
K. Verlag awarded for one of the "25 Most Beautiful Books Made in Germany"
— with "On Reconciliation / Über Versöhnung," ed. Dora García
This winter, it was for the first time that I submitted a book to Stiftung Buchkunst Frankfurt's annual competition for the “25 Most Beautiful Books” made in Germany: "On Reconciliation / Über Versöhnung," edited by Dora Garcia, on the love relationship and intellectual friendship of Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. In June, the jury selected this book as one of these 25, and today I will celebrate together with other publishers, designers, authors, et al. at the Museum for Applied Arts in Frankfurt! Really looking forward to being there—and congrats also, especially, to these three wonderful collaborations: Dora García, Etienne Turpin, and Katharina Tauer!
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August 219
Compensatory Postures: Natural History, Necroaesthetics, and Humiliation
— essay co-authored with Etienne Turpin in "Theater, Garden, Bestiary: A Materialist History of Exhibitions," edited by Tristan Garcia & Vincent Normand
In this new co-authored essay, Etienne and I revisit our curatorial methodology of “Reassembling the Natural” by focusing on our fieldwork and collection research about the coloniality of ornithological science, especially regarding the tropical birds of paradise. The text was commissioned by Tristan Garcia & Vincent Normand for their edited publication “Theater, Garden, Bestiary: A Materialist History of Exhibitions.” The book follows the academic workshop series at ECAL Lausanne, where we first presented aspects of our work presented in the essay back in April 2016. The book also includes texts by Etienne Chambaud, Elitze Dulguerova, Anselm Franke, Tristan Garcia, Fabien Giraud & Raphael Siboni, Dorothea von Hantelmann, Yuk Hui, Pierre Huyghe, Jeremy Lecomte, Stéphane Lojkine, Sami Khatib, Rafael Mandressi, Vincent Normand, Peter Osborne, Filipa Ramos, Juliane Rebentisch, Joao Ribas, Pamela Rosenkranz, Lucy Steeds, Olivier Surel, Kim West, and Charles Wolfe. Published by Sternberg Press in August 2019.
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19–25 May 2019
The Transient Witness
— a workshop conceived and convened for The Whole Life Academy (HKW)
Together with Etienne Turpin and artist Assaf Gruber, I am hosting a workshop stream during the workshop week "The Whole Life" organized by the Haus der Kulturen Berlin to take place in various art institutions in Dresden. Our workshop "The Transient Witness" starts with observations around the relocation of Edigio Marzona's extensive collection from his private home in Berlin-Charlottenburg to a purpose-built museum in the capital of Saxony. As part of the program, we will have the chance to visit the Grünes Gewölbe, the Porcelain Collection, and the Mathematics & Physics Salon of the SKD. We look forward to an inspiring week, especially meeting our international participants (Arnika Ahldag, Eva Bentcheva, Gulzat Egemberdieva, Anna Harezlak, Luidmila Kirsanova, and Ayman Nahle) and all of the other people taking part in this gathering!
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14 March 2019
Des-Habitat by Paulo Tavares
— new K. Verlag publication in English and Portuguese editions
I am proud to publish Paulo Tavares's contribution to the exhibition "Bauhaus imaginista": "Des-Habitat" is Paulo's graphic-textual intervention into Lina Bo Bardi's magazine "Habitat." The project mobilizes a series of design strategies central also to "Habitat" itself, such as re-appropriation, collage, and displacement. By focusing on the context from which materials were originally taken Paulo shows how, by virtue of its modern visual language, "Habitat" functioned as a framing device to conceal its own coloniality—a suspenseful media history in light of suppression, complicity, and decolonization. The publication was first presented at "Bauhaus imaginista" in São Paulo (2018) and will be launched at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin on 14 March 2019. Texts include an essay by Paulo Tavares and a preface by curator Marion von Osten.
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5 – 8 March 2019
Radical terrestrial
— a week-long Theoriewoche seminar at Institut Kunst, FHNW Basel
In early March, I'll be returning once again to the BFA students of the Art Institute in Basel. Last time, some in my group found they had learnt quite enough now about the eco crisis... which means that this time I am going to try to focus and bridge more thoroughly the political economic dimension of nature and the ways in which climate breakdown currently drives contemporary politics. On the reading list: Naomi Klein, Bruno Latour, Geoff Mann, and Alexis Shotwell. Looking forward!
Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz
Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst
Institut Kunst
Freilager-Platz 1
CH-4023 Basel -
9–13 January 2019
Prototype for a Museum of Man
— a workshop for the (Un)-Learning Place: The New Alphabet School, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin
The seminar “The New Education: Denaturalizing the Cultural Pedagogy of Museum Technologies” explores the traditional belief in human exceptionalism as one of the foundational principles of museum traditions. The goal of this week-long event, conceived by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin with Andreas Döpke for The New Alphabet School at Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, is a collaborative research process for participants to better create and better understand a global-yet-partial taxonomy of the technologies of human exceptionalism in museological culture past and present. The group’s findings will be presented under the title “An Incomplete Museum of Anthroposupremacism” during the Opening Days of the Haus der Kulturen’s new two year cycle “The New Alphabet.” The curriculum event “(Un-)Learning Place” is curated by Boris Buden and Olga von Schubert; it brings convenes 80 international participants in a week-long workshop series led by eight Berlin-based collectives from the scenes of art, culture, and activism with the aim to develop transdisciplinary, decolonial, and anti-hegemonic strategies in relation to data-based knowledge, translation, archives, and embodied infrastructures.
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11 December 2018
Atelier lecture at the École de Recherche Graphique, Brussels
— class visit to "Pratiques artistiques et complexité scientifique"
Looking forward to my invitation to the interdisciplinary MA studio class by Giampiero Caiti and Kobe Matthys. I will speak for about two hours about the methodologies and research questions driving the exhibition cycle "Disappearing Legacies: The World as Forest," which is finally coming to a close this upcoming Friday, 14 Dec in Halle/Saale. All welcome, I think, but event starts at 9 AM!
9h00–12h00
ERG – École de Recherche Graphique
Rue du Page 87
1050 Bruxelles
Belgium -
23 November 2018
On Networks & Colliding Voices – On Air with Tomás Saraceno
— a one-day discursive event at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris
On invitation Studio Tomás Saraceno, Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin have prepared the one-day discursive event “On Networks & Colliding Voices” with a keynote by Bruno Latour, and talks and performances by d’bi.young anitafrika, Albert-László Barabási, Fernando Ferroni, Vincenzo Napolano, Lisa Randall, Bronislaw Szerszinski, and Estelle Zhong Mengual. The event is moderated by Anna-Sophie & Etienne together with Tomás Saraceno on the occasion of the artist’s current exhibition “ON AIR” at Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
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12 November 2018
ECOLOGY: Sessions on Territory, Urbanism and the Anthropocene
— invited lecture at ETH Zurich, Design and Architecture Faculty
"Session on Territory" is a series of public debates on the political economy of architecture and territory. Focusing on how the epoch of the Anthropocene reframes our conceptions of the urban and shapes new ecologies, the seminar’s objective is to unravel contemporary forces at work in the formation of the built and natural environment, and, as importantly to spur debates that challenge the status quo. Every intervention by a guest speaker is followed by a panel discussion with invited respondents. In my session, I will discuss a series of recent research and projects including the exhibition "Disappearing Legacies: The World as Forest." The event will be moderated by Dubravka Seculic. Thank you to Marc Angelil for the kind invitation.
16h00–18h00
ONA Focushalle e7
Neunbrunnenstr. 50
CH-8050 Zürich (Oerlikon) -
31 October – 1 November 2018
Species of Exchange: Dickering for Emperor Birds and Macho Ferns
— invited contribution to the panel "More-Than-Human Imperial Legacies in the Capitalocene" at Max-Planck-Institut Göttingen
"Scientific expeditions were crucial to projects of colonial expansion and contributed to accruing imperial prestige. The aspiration to dominate nature was intrinsic to imperial demonstrations of power that, as evidence of their superiority, sought to conquer and tame far away landscapes inhabited by exoticized humans and non-humans. The impressive amount of ethnographic objects, plants and animals collected—or rather, amassed and appropriated—over the centuries built the foundation for natural history museums as well as botanical gardens and zoos across Europe. This panel sets to explore how imperial ecological legacies and narratives reverberate in the Capitalocene. Moving beyond imperial (hi)stories that centre on the human experience, we find it crucial to contextualize imperial trajectories in environmental destruction and violence by extending our attention to the increasingly precarious livelihoods of nonhuman actors. The panel stimulates debate on how 'nature' remembers and provides us with rich archives that may enlighten our understanding of how institutions, practices, and ethics that originated under imperialism (e.g. natural history museums, forest management, hunting rights, and animal diplomacy) still figure today." Very excited to spend two days at this workshop at MPI Göttingen organized by Annika Kirbis and colleagues and contribute with a short presentation based on exhibition-related research; more info on program and other participants below.
Empires of Memory Research Group
Max Planck Institute for the Study of Ethnic and Religious Diversity
Göttingen, Germany -
19 October 2018
Disappearing Legacies: The World as Forest
— opening of the third part at the Natural History Collections of Martin Luther University, Halle/Saale
The third iteration of the exhibition is approaching fast! Save the date for the opening of Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald [Disappearing Legacies: The World as Forest] in the Natural History Collections of Martin Luther University in Halle/Saale, which will be installed throughout the entire building—that is normally not open to the public in this way. With artworks by Maria Thereza Alves, Ari Bayuaji, Bik Van der Pol, Ursula Biemann, Shannon Lee Castleman/Migrant Ecologies, Revital Cohen & Tuur van Balen, Mark Dion, Radjawali Irendra / Akademi Drone Indonesia, Armin Linke with Giulia Bruno and Giuseppe Ielasi, Barbara Marcel, Julian Oliver & Crystelle Vu, PetaBencana.id, SHIMURAbros, Paulo Tavares / autonoma, Robert Zhao Renhui / The Institute of Critical Zoologists
19h00
Zentralmagazin Naturwissenschaftlicher Sammlungen
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle/Wittenberg
Domplatz 4
D-06108 Halle/Saale -
16 September 2018
The Work of Wind: Land
— K. Verlag book launch
As part of a dense program of the contemporary arts festival "The Work of Wind: Air, Land, Sea," organized by The Blackwood Gallery at University of Toronto/Mississauga, we are launching the first volume in the attendant three-volume book series with a conversation on “this land of forces.” The event is hosted by editors Christine Shaw, Anna-Sophie Springer, and Etienne Turpin. Seven contributors will speak about their work in the book: performance scholar Allen Weiss on the history of art as an itinerant, speculative exhibition; artist duo Pejvak on the border work of Armenian political economic realities; artist Tania Willard on Indigenous land practices born out of a lived connection to the land; and activist Tom Keefer and lawyer Adrienne Telford with D.T. Cochrane on Indigenous solidarity work and the struggle for justice.
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"The Work of Wind: Land." With contributions by Rouzbeh Akhbari & Felix Kalmenson, d’bi.young anitafrika, Amy Balkin, Jesse Birch, D.T. Cochrane, Revital Cohen & Tuur Van Balen, Anna Feigenbaum, Macarena Gómez-Barris, Ilana Halperin, Tom Keefer, Barbara Marcel, Mimi Onuoha, Tomás Saraceno, Christine Shaw, Juliana Spahr, Adrienne Telford, Etienne Turpin, Allen S. Weiss, Tania Willard, and Eva Wilson. Design by Katharina Tauer.
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Edited by Christine Shaw & Etienne Turpin
English
336 pages
18.5 x 24 cm
62 Color images
Hardcover, thread-bound
ISBN 978-3-9818635-8-1
28.00 EurosThe event takes place at:
Petro Canada Park
555 Southdown Rd.
Mississauga, ON
Canada -
June 2018
Exhibition as a Philosophical Problem
— essay by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin in Graz Architecture Magazine, 2018
How to present and disseminate [...] knowledge as a way of co-producing it? Exhibition is thus a philosophical problem that travels along with the thematic or conceptual research we do; what, when, and how to exhibit a given set of concerns or ways of working, of various epistemological trajectories or commitments, of intersecting or interfering versions of a given narrative? All of this provokes a persistent rhythm that drives and animates research; not that we only work through exhibition, of course we make books and workshops and lectures too. And, because of that, we are able to be quite precise about the composition of elements of a given work, although there is never an a priori formula for which aspect of research goes into which format of dissemination. We approach exhibitions, like any other philosophical problem, as a way of interfacing with what we don’t yet know how to present, but that we nevertheless feel requires a form for exposition.
Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin, “Exhibition as a Philosophical Problem” GAM. Graz Architecture Magazine “14 Exhibiting Matters,” (Graz, June 2018), 117–8.
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April 2018
Prop Art
— Harald Szeemann and the Warenhaus Gebrüder Loeb AG, Bern; an essay by Anna-Sophie Springer
“One of the most important features of contemporary art making is its being public [Öffentlichsein],” wrote the curator Harald Szeemann in 1969 in a short essay about an exhibition he had organized for the display windows of the department store Warenhaus Gebrüder Loeb AG in Bern, Switzerland. Beginning in the 1950s, Szeemann (1933–2005) spent five decades developing large-scale, highly theatrical group exhibitions whose themes were often based on extensive research. [...] This essay focuses on Szeemann’s work through an unusual set of engagements involving a refashioning of the role of the department store and its window. His long-standing but sparsely addressed relationship with the department store Warenhaus Gebrüder Loeb AG, Bern, Switzerland serves as a prism through which to discuss the idiosyncratic function of spectacle in Szeemann’s seminal thematic exhibitions—first by discussing two group exhibitions staged in the store’s display windows, and then by examining the complex role of an installation Szeemann custom-ordered from Loeb AG’s props workshop when preparing his famous "Bachelor Machines" exhibition. Since 1938, the store’s director, Victor Loeb (1910–1974), an art collector and board member of Kunsthalle Bern, had been an important patron during Szeemann’s progressive years at the institution (1961–69). Their mutual encounter is reflected in the inclusion of artworks by the contemporary avant-garde in Loeb’s collection, whose purchases Szeemann often encouraged. Besides curating two exhibitions in the windows of Loeb’s department store in 1969 and 1971, an even more interesting connection exists to Szeemann’s unique role as commissioning designer of individual pieces. In 1975, Szeemann used the workshops of the Gebrüder Loeb AG to order the fabrication of a three-dimensional rendering of the execution machine from Kafka’s "Penal Colony" for his touring exhibition "Junggesellenmaschinen" [Bachelor Machines]. Fabricated by the facilities that normally built the props for commercial retail displays, this "non-original" artwork makes tangible the tension between art, theatricality, and creative authorship so crucial to Szeemann’s pathbreaking curatorial oeuvre. While the two display window exhibitions serve as case studies for Szeemann’s broad approach to possible exhibition spaces and experimental understanding of the public role of art, the discussion of the so-called "Harrow" in the second part of the essay uniquely illustrates the intricacies and development of his curatorial methodology as an intellectual project.
Display Architecture: Department Stores and Modern Retail
A. Lasc, M. Petty, and P. Lara-Betancourt (eds.)
London: Routledge, 2018, pp. 155–66. -
26 March 2018
On the Sociality of Birds – Reflections on Ontological Edge Effects
— announcing Anna Tsing evening lecture on the occasion of Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald
During the final week of the exhibition, we have the privilege to host Anna Tsing for an evening lecture inside "The World as Forest" in Hamburg! Inspired by her recent travels to the Raja Ampat islands of West Papua in Indonesia, Prof. Tsing has proposed to share new reflections animated by the birdwatching she did together with foreign ornithologists and locals in "the land of the birds of paradise" as Wallace described the area. In the abstract of her talk she asks, "How might quite different kinds of people appreciate birds? And in what ways do birds appreciate (or refuse the attentions of) people?" Responding to anthropologists' worries whether studying nonhuman socialities might fall in line with Western imperial mindsets, she rejoins that "to ignore nonhumans as social beings blithely ignores Anthropocene destruction, which haunts our species too." Thus exploring "overlapping—but non-identical—forms of curiosity" and various economies at play in these birdwatching constellations, Anna Tsing will discuss the potential of "new forms of collaboration across the humanities, arts, and natural sciences: collaborations we may need to survive the Anthropocene." She suggests that "[t]o recognize the dance of more-than-human sociality requires attention both to varied agendas people have with birds and to those birds have with people." Coincidentally, in February we also just returned from a trip to these islands, with many (very) early morning hikes to special spots under special trees in thick forests. Anna Tsing's lecture "The Sociality of Birds: Reflections on Ontological Edge Effects" promises to be a memorable evening and no doubt a highlight of this first iteration of the exhibition before we will take it to Berlin (opening 26 April). [Photo: Red birds-of-paradise, Waigeo Island, Indonesia. By Yulia Bereshpolova, December 2017.]
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The event will be held in English with simultaneous German translation.
Doors of the exhibition open at 17h00.
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19h00–21h00
Zoologisches Museum Hamburg
Centrum für Naturkunde (CeNak)
Bundesstrasse 52
20146 Hamburg -
23 March 2018
Under Construction: Natural History Futures
— a keynote by Anna-Sophie Springer at Timespan Scotland's "Practicing Deep Time" symposium
Practicing Deep Time is a two-day event focusing on Deep Time in arts and heritage: a one-day multi-disciplinary symposium based at the arts organization Timespan in Helmsdale, Northern Scotland, followed by a “field day,” exploring Deep Time concepts across East Sutherland and Caithness. On Friday, Timespan will host a day of talks and workshops. Here, Anna-Sophie Springer will present a keynote drawing on recent work that aims to create sustained conversations about the future of “natural history” through exhibition-led enquiry bringing together natural history collections and contemporary art. A cross-disciplinary roundtable will consider particular issues associated with the communication and interpretation of Deep Time subjects by asking: What methods can we employ to overcome the perceived unknowability of distant pasts and futures? Other presenters include Gavin McGregor, Nashin Mahtani, and Sam Nightingale; the event program also includes a screening of the film Trace Evidence (2016) by Susan Schuppli.
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3 March 2018
Fantasies of the Library: A Bibliophilic Ecology of Mind
— keynote lecture at the 21st Leeds Contemporary Artists' Book Fair
Each edition of the annual Leeds artists book fair takes place under the motto of a specific theme. In 2018, this overarching theme is "The Library." The curatorial program accompanying the book fair at the Tetley Gallery includes exhibitions by Madiha Aijaz and Mahbub Jokhio as well as a new iteration of Nick Thurston's publishing studio "The House that Heals the Soul." Moreover, I was invited to give the keynote lecture on Saturday evening by drawing upon my work in Fantasies of the Library (MIT Press, 2016). Echoing the visual essay "Reading Rooms Reading Machines," I wrote a new performance lecture leading through a selection of “library fantasies” from the real world we'd do well dreaming with in 2018.
03 03 2018, 18h00
21st Leeds Contemporary Artists' Book Fair
The Tetley
Hunslet Road
Leeds, LS10 1JQ -
01 February 2018
Françoise Vergès: Politics of Forgetfulness
— keynote moderated by Anna-Sophie Springer for Transmediale Festival Berlin
“In discussions of technological progress, what are the affected territories, populations and workforces that tend to be forgotten? The embrace of Western Promethean thinking and the belief that “Man” can invent a solution to any problem always seem to leave certain questions unanswered. When different ongoing forms of exploitation—of both humans and resources—are not addressed, dehistoricization and universalism emerge and conceal racialized politics and economic interests. To discuss the long-standing interconnection of colonialism, racism, and capitalism, Françoise Vergès suggests the reading of a different history, that of the “racial capitalocene,” which can challenge Western approaches of knowing. In her keynote at transmediale 2018, Vergès will examine old and new forms of dispossession and colonization, reconnecting past, present, and future. Turning to intersectional, anti-capitalist, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist methodologies, she will highlight the need for a new politics of the possible—and a politics of lives that matter.”
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Françoise Vergès’s lecture “Politics of Forgetfulness” will take place in the Auditorium of Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, on 1 February 2018 at 18h00. It will be moderated by Anna-Sophie Springer and accompanied by German live translationHKW – Haus der Kulturen der Welt
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
D-10557 Berlin -
01 December 2017
Touching Nature
— a presentation on the occasion of Tejal Shah's exhibition Unbecoming at Kunsthaus Hamburg
On Friday evening, Anna-Sophie will head from CeNak to Kunsthaus Hamburg where she was invited to respond to Tejal Shah’s current solo exhibition Unbecoming by. If you are free and nearby it would be great to see you there at 19h00!
KUNSTHAUS HAMBURG
Klosterwall 15
20095 Hamburg -
9 November 2017
Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald
Opening at the Zoological Museum of CeNak, University of Hamburg
It’s been 160 years since Alfred Russel Wallace understood the principles of species evolution in the course of his travels through Amazonia and the Malay Archipelago. From 10 November 2017 to 29 March 2018, the exhibition Verschwindende Vermächtnisse: Die Welt als Wald confronts the destructions of these tropical ecosystems in the context of the Anthropocene and mass extinction. A hybrid between thematic exhibition and art exhibition, this intervention in the Zoological Museum Hamburg at Centrum für Naturkunde (CeNak), University of Hamburg, Verschwindende Vermächtnisse presents 13 contemporary works of art—including 8 new commissions—alongside a selection of rare zoological and botanical objects. We’re pleased to announce the names of the participating artists with whom it was a great honor and pleasure to work over the past year!
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Maria Thereza Alves
Ursula Biemann
Bik Van der Pol
Shannon Lee Castleman
Revital Cohen & Tuur van Balen
Mark Dion
Radjawali Irendra / Akademi Drone Indonesia
Armin Linke with Giulia Bruno and Giuseppe Ielasi
Barbara Marcel
Julian Oliver & Crystelle Vu
Robert Zhao Renhui / The Institute of Critical Zoologists
SHIMURAbros
autonoma / Paulo Tavares
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Bundesstr. 52
20146 Hamburg -
20–22 November 2017
AHA! Festival 2017 "Autonomy"
— invitation to discuss Reassembling the Natural at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg
With an invitation by anthropologist David Chandler, Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin will both be speaking at the AHA! Festival 2017 entitled “Autonomy”
AHA! Festival 2017 "Autonomy"
Chalmers Conference Centre
Chalmersplatsen 1, Göteborg
Second floor of the Kårhuset near RunAn
SE-41258 Göteborg -
18 September 2017
"ON COEXISTENCE"
— essay in Faraway, So Close, the book accompanying the 25th Ljubljana Biennial of Design (BIO 25)
The book, published by MAO and Motto Books, works to explore ways of changing the goals of design culture. By presenting the seven investigative episodes developed within BIO 25 and their interchange with both local archives and broader paradigms, the project aims to turn away from the urgent need to solve problems, and instead open up new frontiers for observation and experimentation. It seeks to consider our inhabited and habitable world for what it is and what it is becoming, and not simply what we think it should, ideally, be.
Edited by Angela Rui, Maja Vardjan and Cvetka Požar, with contributions by Nabil Ahmed, Andrea Branzi, Tony Côme, Brendan Cormier, matali crasset, Domitilla Dardi, Odo Fioravanti, Didier Fiúza Faustino, Studio Formafantasma, Thomas Geisler, Rory Hyde, Alexandra Midal, mischer’traxler studio, Dimitrij Mlekuž, Point Supreme Architects, Emanuele Quinz, Renata Salecl, Anna-Sophie Springer, Studio Folder, James Westcott, Elia Zenghelis and many others, as well as an extensive photo documentary essay of the episodes by Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti.
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15-17 September 2017
Open Studio during Berlin Art Week
Come say hi at the new studio on the FAHRBEREITSCHAFT compound in Lichtenberg! Etienne Turpin, Wolfgang Hückel, Katharina Tauer and I will be there working and happy to have a chat about our various projects happening at the moment!
FAHRBEREITSCHAFT – Werkstatt 4
[in Brandlhuber’s “bar building”]
Herzbergstr. 40–43, 10365 BerlinFri, 15/09, 19h00–21h00
Sat & Sun, 16–17/09, 12h00–18h00 -
7-20 July 2017
Vdrome Interview with Beatriz Santiago Muñoz
Set in a former US Navy base in Puerto Rico, Ojos para mis Enemigos [Eyes for my enemies] by Beatriz Santiago Muñoz observes how multiple introduced and indigenous species—plants and crops, but also animals, humans and not—share this terrain and together constitute a new space, offering poetic as well as very concrete scenarios of the anthropocene, its devastation but also modes of recuperation. Vdrome asked me to do a short interview with Beatriz to introduce the work. Have a read/look!
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13 July 2017
Landscape and Memory
— a review of The Word for World is Still Forest by Jason Groves
Perfectly timed for our book launch-walk in Berlin’s Tiergarten last night—which was so magical thanks to Sandra Bartoli kindly guiding us to some of the oldest trees—Jason Groves also composed a beautiful reading of intercalations 4 which he published on the Feedback Blog of Open Humanities Press. A scholar of German literature, Jason contributed some excerpts by Walter Benjamin and Franz Hessel about the Tiergarten and even the Amazon on Horseback sculpture where we departed from.
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13 July 2017, 19h00
take the books outside
—a launch walk for intercalations 3 & 4 in the Tiergarten
Please join me and Etienne for a guided tour of the various natures of the Tiergarten—including its oldest trees—with Berlin-based architect Sandra Bartoli. During the tour, visitors will also encounter special guests Richard Pell, director of the Center for Postnatural History; Jason Groves, co-editor of the open access blog Feedback; and, Katharina Tauer, designer of the intercalations: paginated exhibition series. Dress for a walk in the park!
13 July 2017
19h00 (tour begins at 19h15, please arrive on time)
Floraplatz
Tiergarten -
26–27 June 2017
Contesting the Necroaesthetics of the Anthropocene
—invited presentation of Reassembling the Natural at the conference Art/Nature: Contemporary Art in Natural History Museums and Collections, Berlin Museum für Naturkunde
This international conference by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes pilot project, Art/Nature: Artistic Interventions at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin convenes a series of presentations and panel discussions to reflect on the collaboration between protagonists from the worlds of contemporary art and natural history museums. The conference addresses the expectations, potentials, values, and possible limitations of such interactions and interventions from the perspective of curators, artists, and researchers. Together with Etienne Turpin, I will present our Reassembling the Natural project in the closing session “Difficult Legacies” on 27 June. Other conference speakers include Tal Adler, Claude d’Anthenaise, Bergit Arends, Ariane Berthoin Antal, Yara Castanheira, Tony Clark, Michael John Gorman, Gaby Hartel, Petra Lange-Berndt, Janet Laurence, Susanne Schmitt, Thomas Schnalke, Barbara Stauffer, Frank Steinheimer, Ulrike Stottrop, D’Arcy Wilson, and Laurie Young.
Museum für Naturkunde Berlin
Chausseehof / Leibniz Association
Chausseestraße 111
D-10115 Berlin -
22–24 June 2017
Postcards from the Anthropocene
—chairing Session 5 on June 23rd
As I am accompanying Etienne for his keynote lecture at this symposium, I feel quite flattered to have been asked to participate a little, too, by chairing a session in the morning of the second day. Presentations are by Marianna Tsionki, Alexandra Halkias, and Mark Peter Wright and deal with rare earths, toxicity, biopolitics, and infrastructure—apparently from a curatorial perspective. Excited to meet these speakers and look forward to other keynotes by Nigel Clark, Mark Dorrian, Jussi Parikka, Joanna Zylinska as well as my Ph.D. supervisor Susan Schuppli.
University of Edinburgh
School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture
Edinburgh, Scotland -
16 June 2017
Reverse Hallucinations in the Archipelago
intercalations 03
Following the earlier fourth (!) volume, the third volume of the intercalations: paginated exhibitions series has also arrived from the printer! Reflecting and refracting on the role of colonial science in the tropics, Reverse Hallucinations in the Archipelago gathers contributions by Akademi Drone Indonesia, George Beccaloni, Iwank Celenk, Lucy Davis, Fred Langford Edwards, Christina Leigh Geros, Matthias Glaubrecht, Geraldine Juárez, Radjawali Irendra, James Russell, Mark von Schlegell, SLAVE PIANOS, Anna-Sophie Springer, Zenzi Suhadi, Paulo Tavares, Rachel Thompson, Etienne Turpin, and Satrio Wicaksono, with design by Katharina Tauer. intercalations is co-published by K. Verlag and Haus der Kulturen der Welt and was made possible by the Schering Stiftung.
With contributions by Akademi Drone Indonesia, George Beccaloni, Iwank Celenk, Lucy Davis, Fred Langford Edwards, Christina Leigh Geros, Matthias Glaubrecht, Geraldine Juárez, Radjawali Irendra, James Russell, Mark von Schlegell, SLAVE PIANOS, Anna-Sophie Springer, Zenzi Suhadi, Paulo Tavares, Rachel Thompson, Etienne Turpin, and Satrio Wicaksono.
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24 May 2017
Graham Grant Awarded to Reassembling the Natural
With a current rate of extinction estimated at over one hundred species per day, the anthropogenic extermination of non-human forms-of-life on Earth is rightly a cause of serious alarm. Such a rate of extinction is made even more troubling when one considers that with the disappearance of each species, the planet not only loses one of its constituent actors, but also greatly diminishes the processes of planetary evolution, as the potential for species’ adaptability rapidly decreases with each and every loss. Following several years of commissioned field work in the global biodiversity hotspots of Nusantara and Amazonia, as well as extensive archival research in major natural history collections, this edited volume weaves together voices and narratives, from science and documentary, to philosophy and poetry, to ask how the concept of “nature” might be meaningfully reassembled against the backdrop of mass extinction.
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18 May 2017
ON MAKING RESEARCH PUBLIC
—invited guest lecture in the Ph.D. Seminar at EnsadLAb / Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts décoratifs, Paris
This year's Ph.D. seminar at the Ecole nationale supérieure des Arts décoratifs, Paris, is focused on strategies of “publication.” Here, the main guiding questions are how to make research (in art and design) public? And how can media such as the book, the library, and the exhibition be mobilized as research tools in this process? As guest lecturer in the seminar, I was invited to respond to these questions based on some of my recent projects including Fantasies of the Library, intercalations, and Reassembling the Natural.
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9 May 2017
Speed-Reading Science Fictions
—some remarks on intercalations 3 & 4
As a last-minute addition to the speaker's list of the symposium “On Nature, Race, and Gender: The Politics of the Contemporary Debates around Art, Culture, and Research,” I will present a speed-reading through the third and fourth volumes of intercalations. Looking forward to contribute among other presentations by Chus Martinez, Filipa Ramos, Tejal Shah, Trevor Paglen, Ingo Niermann, and Natascha Sadr Haghighian.
Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz
Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst
Institut Kunst
Freilager-Platz 1
CH-4023 Basel -
04 April 2017
Fantasies of the Library
—reviewed by Jussi Parikka in Leonardo On-Line
[Excerpt] "Fantasies of the Library is a useful book in adding to the recent art and library projects some well–articulated thoughts. It resonates with the writing done recently by such scholars as Shannon Mattern and offers a particularly artistic take on similar concerns. This comes out well in [Springer's] visual essay 'Reading Rooms Reading Machines' that moves from contemporary arts of the book and its forms of organisation to the situations where it is staged and visible, addressable and usable; from practices and technologies of reading to the imaginaries, the forms and materials of organisation knowledge that are the entry point to contemporary discussions of data and organisation. Indeed, as Springer puts it, this all reveals how the book is to be considered 'a situation and a practice,' just like the library itself."
Parikka, Jussi (2018) Review of Fantasies of the Library. Leonardo, 51 (1), 89-90. (doi:10.1162/LEON_r_01561).
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28 – 31 March 2017
The World as Forest
—a week-long Theoriewoche seminar with Anna-Sophie Springer
Using the new intercalations publication, The Word for World is Still Forest, as a starting point, my second seminar at Institut Kunst in Basel will combine readings and discussions with excursions behind the scenes of the city's Tropenhaus of the Botanical Gardens, the Museum der Kulturen, and the Natural History Museum. Traversing through the archives of institutions that collect natural and cultural material—books, artworks, artifacts, and scientific specimens—we will reflect on how these institutions organize what is considered knowledge and explore strategies and practices with which we can activate and connect these spaces in ways in which they are not normally viewed by dominant, colonial cultures. The seminar is an introduction to applied critical thinking with a focus on more-than-human entanglements and ecological urgencies of our times.
Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz
Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst
Institut Kunst
Freilager-Platz 1
CH-4023 Basel
Abstract
institut-kunst.ch -
25 March 2017
"Volumen: Bände – Räume. Das Buch als Ausstellung"
—reprint of the German translation of my 2012-essay "Volumes: The Book as Exhibition"
in the publication "it's a book..." accompanying the Leipzig Independent Publishing Fair 2017 organized by Peter Cornicius, Anne Dietzsch, Michael Dikta, Markus Dreßen, Albrecht Gäbel, and Jenny Schreiter. With my thanks to Inga Seidler.
It's a Books, It's a Fair,
It's a Room Built to Share
Independent Publishing Fair
Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst
Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig
Wächterstraße 11
04107 Leipzig -
20 February 2017
intercalations 03 & 04
—forthcoming volumes in paginated exhibition series
In 2017, HKW und K. Verlag continue their collaboration within this six-part publication series with two volumes: "Reverse Hallucinations in the Archipelago" reflects on the changing role of colonial natural history collections in the current ecological crisis; "The Word for World Is Still Forest" is an homage to the forest as a turbulent, interconnected, multinature. The series is made possible by the Schering Stiftung.
Contributors include Sandra Bartoli, George Beccaloni, Kevin Beiler, Shannon Castleman, Iwank Celenk, Lucy Davis, Matthias Glaubrecht, Dan Handel, Katie Holten, Radjawali Irendra, Geraldine Juarez, Eduardo Kohn, Silvan Linden, Abel Rodriguez, James Russel, Mark von Schlegell & Slave Pianos, Suzanne Simard, Anna-Sophie Springer, Zenzi Suhadi, Paulo Tavares, Rachel Thompson, Etienne Turpin, and Satrio Wicaksono.
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23 January 2017
"To Look Around Rather Than Ahead: On the PRESENT FUTURE IN THE ART OF TAMÁS KASZÁS AND ANIKÓ LORÁNT"
—essay by Anna-Sophie Springer
in Exercises in Autonomy, ed. Joanna Sokolowska. Lodz: Muzeum Sztuki w Łodzi, 2017. 164–78 (Polish & English).
Museum exhibition catalog for Tamás Kaszás & Anikó Loránt with texts by Maya & Reuben Fowkes, Naomi Oreskes & Erik M. Conway, Mark von Schlegell, Joanna Sokolowska, Marek Styczynski.
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18 January 2017
INDEX FINGERS
A lovely little review of Fantasties of the Library (MIT Press, 2016), edited by Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin, by Gill Partington in the Times Literary Supplement, 18 January 2017: 33.
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17 – 18 November 2016
Curating Environmental Imaginaries
—a Roundtable at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission organized by Dehlia Hannah, Cynthia Selin, and Angela Pereira
as part of the workshop "A Year without a Winter: Fictions and Policy." Considering how creative interventions can unlock new ways of thinking about our relationship to the environment and our political agency within it, the workshop interrogates new narratives of climate and climate change emerging in the context of the arts and transdisciplinary scholarship. As an invited speaker in the Roundtable "Curating Environmental Imaginaries," I will introduce some of the core concerns and strategies of "Reassembling the Natural." Also presenting at this Roundtable are Ken Eklund, Jacob Lillemose, and Carolina Sobecka.
European Commission
Joint Research Centre
Via E. Fermi 2749
I-21027 Ispra -
8 – 11 November 2016
SHAPESHIFTING FACT & FICTION
—a week's workshop with Anna-Sophie Springer
where we will critically interrogate books, exhibitions, archives, and collections, attending to how they record and disseminate knowledge, experimenting along the way with traversals, shape-shifting, fact and fiction.
Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz
Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst
Institut Kunst
Freilager-Platz 1
CH-4023 Basel -
15 – 24 September 2016
Lab Verde
—a research trip and workshop on art, nature, and science in the Amazon, Brazil
that explores contemporary environmental issues of Amazonia as well as its role for the planet's ecological balance with interlocutors from the arts, humanities, biology, ecology, and natural sciences. My journey to Manaus (as well as thereafter to Sao Paulo) is generously funded by a Goethe-Institut Research Travel Grant for Curators.
With 18 selected participants: Turenko Beça, Blanca Botero, Adriá Juliá, Daniel Kukla, Barbara Marcel, Emmy Mikelson, Marcelo Moscheta, Guto Nóbrega, Thiago Rocha Pitta, Simone Fontana Reis, Tina Ribarits, Anna-Sophie Springer, Stahl Stensile, Gustavo Torrezan, Kyle Tryhorn, Markus von Platen, Pedro Vaz, and Rihards Vitols.
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8 August 2016
“Anxious Instantiations”
—essay by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin
in response to Isabell Lorey & David Lyon’s “Anxious to Secure” keynote session at transmediale 2016 for the “Anxious to Organize” blog
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19 July 2016
"Necroaesthetics: Denaturalising the Collection"
—essay by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin
L'internationals Online, No. 3 "Ecologising Museums," July 2016.
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4 July 2016
"Vestiges of 125,660 Specimens of Natural History"
—photo essay by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin
Stedelijk Studies, No. 04 "Between the Immersive and the Discursive: Curating Research in 21st-Century Art Museums," July 2016.
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14 May 2016, 18h00
Libraries : Exhibitions : Libraries
—a lecture by Anna-Sophie Springer
as part of the series "Library Residencies"
g39 gallery
Cardiff, UK -
30 April – 18 June 2016
A Taxonomy of Palm Oil
—an installation by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin
as part of the exhibition "Emergent Ecologies: NYC Edition"
curated by Eben Kirksey and othersKilroy Metal Ceiling
283 Greene Ave
Brooklyn, USA -
April 2016
"Reading Fantasies & Other Fantasies of Reading"
—Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin in conversation with Daisy Nam
Carpenter Center for Visual Art,
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA, USA -
22 April 2016, 10h00
NECROAESTHETICS —Life and Death of Natural History
—a lecture & workshop by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin
as part of the curatorial lab "Theater, Garden, Bestiary: A Materialist History of Exhibitions" organized by Vincent Normand & Tristan Garcia
ECAL
Lausanne
Switzerland -
6 April 2016, 18h00
A Palimpsest of Species and Spaces: Curating the Anthropocene
—a lecture by Anna-Sophie Springer
as part of the Art, Culture, and Technology program's Spring 2016 Lecture Series, "Agencies & Urgencies"
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
act cube
Wiesner Bldg (E15-001)
Lower Level
20 Ames Street
Cambridge, MA, USA -
"Inter Folia Aves: Reading Bird Books as Curatorial-Editorial Constellations"
—essay by Anna-Sophie Springer
in Publishing as Artistic Practice, edited by A. Gilbert. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2016. 134–52.
Anthology with texts by Hannes Bajohr, Paul Benzon, K. Antranik Cassem, Bernhard Cella, Annette Gilbert, Hanna Kuusela, Antoine Lefebvre, Matt Longabucco, Alessandro Ludovico, Lucas W. Melkane, Anne Moeglin-Delcroix, Aurélie Noury, Valentina Parisi, Michalis Pichler, Anna-Sophie Springer, Alexander Starre, Nick Thurston, Rachel Valinsky, Eva Weinmayr, and Vadim Zakharov.
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"Filtering the Anthropocene: A Visual Montage as Proxy"
—essay by Anna-Sophie Springer reflecting on the Anthropocene Curriculum 2014, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Excerpt: "A question we asked was: How can we highlight the visual component as one more voice and available apparatus in the collaborative and multiple process of writing-reading-making our (or any) presentation? The slide sequence, therefore, was composed while listening to other group members as they spent around one hour preparing their contributions based on pseudo-researching and collating found scientific information. Operating as two methodologically compositional poles, the recited (but in this instantiation, here, henceforth scripted) and the visual articulations of our presentation aimed to open up a conceptual field of tension: a transversal space for creative reflection, association, wonder, confusion, and debate—literally, a filter to both enhance and question the processes of knowledge production and their mediation."
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29 February – 31 March 2016
A TAXONOMY OF PALM OIL
—an installation by Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin
as part of the exhibition "Emergent Ecologies"
curated by Eben Kirksey and othersPrinceton University
Butler College
Princeton, USA -
21 January 2016, 17h00
Few Straight Lines in A Forest: A Ligneous Constellation
—a lecture by Anna-Sophie Springer
in response to Dr Paulo Tavares in the Visual Culture Department's 10th-anniversary lecture series, "Permissions: The Way We Work Now"
Stuart Hall Lecture Theatre
Goldsmiths
London, UK -
12 CONTRIBUTORS, 5 PUBLICATIONS, 5 YEARS
Eva Weinmayr recommends FANTASIES OF THE LIBRARY:
"I went over this book again and again: It’s such a rich read about the power of the library, in history or contemporary, institutionalized, private or revolutionary (for example Occupy, Gezi Park). This book makes clear that the library’s power lies not only in being a container of knowledge, but in the experiences and connections it creates amongst its users. Drawing on intriguing examples, the authors discuss the implications of spatial arrangements, the politics of collecting and cataloging, as well as accessibility. Most of all, it brings back to mind a revolutionary function of the library today: “it turns marketable goods into public goods.”
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02 July 2015
Little Birds / Little Machines
—a workshop for the 2015 SYNAPSE International Curators' Network of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin in collaboration with Sylke Frahnert & Frank Steinheimer
As part of the 2015 gathering of the SYNAPSE International Curators' Network of the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, together with Etienne Turpin I organized the workshop Little Birds / Little Machines, which included a visit to the Ornithological collection of the Museum für Naturkunde for a presentation by ornithologists Sylke Frahnert and Frank Steinheimer on elements of the collection for further development in the annals of minor ornithology (forthcoming in intercalations 06—These Birds of Temptation).
Ornithological Collection
Berlin Museum für Naturkunde
Invalidenstraße 43
10115 Berlin -
March – August 2015
Blogging for the SYNAPSE International Curator's Network
—a writing commission on more-than-human themes in resonance with the HKW's APE CULTURE exhibition
A SYNAPSE member since 2013, I am very excited that the Haus der Kulturen der Welt has invited me to produce a series of blog texts in the months surrounding the upcoming exhibition APE CULTURE and the 2015 SYNAPSE workshop in July.
Some posts are going to be longer, some shorter, but all of them are going to address the more-than-human relationships of life. I will also usually include aspects of art or curatorial practice as well as trying to bring in themes from the sciences and humanities. The first post is a short essay inspired by my recent visit to Jakarta where in early March we also launched the "intercalations: paginated exhibition" series. This essay was originally intended as an introduction to a different post, an interview with the ethnographer Eben Kirksey who founded the Multispecies Salon. But as my writing became longer I decided to split it off and make two separate posts, the little essay “A Cat is a Lion in a Jungle of Small Bushes,” and then, for next week, “Art as Multispecies Entanglements?” the conversation with Eben. I do believe that both pieces have mutual resonance. But, please see for yourself!
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August 2015
The Library as Idea and Space
— contribution in ABOUT TREES by Katie Holten
When we found out that we were both working on books "about trees," Katie Holten and I decided that we must trade pieces: She published an excerpted chapter from Fantasies of the Library in her amazing anthology About Trees while I included her Tree font in The Word for World is Still Forest.
About Trees, Katie Holten (ed.). Berlin: Broken Dimanche Press, 2015 & 2016.
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Summer 2013
Colonizing the Exhibition Space
— an interview with Willem de Rooij by Anna-Sophie Springer
“Colonizing the Exhibition Space,” in Fillip, No. 18, Summer 2013: 34–40.
Springer – I am interested in the relationship between books and exhibitions, and particularly where the book becomes a site in which artistic, editorial, and curatorial practice coalesce. In which ways do the book and gallery, as platforms, grant you distinctive spaces for presenting your work?
de Rooij – All works are different and all books are different. But making a book feels like making a work to me. When Jeroen de Rijke, our good friend Christopher Williams, and myself were invited to show simultaneously at Secession in Vienna in 2005 we decided—instead of making two separate shows—to create a “group show” of two positions. Mathias Poledna designed two catalogues, one for each of us, which looked the same on the outside and different on the inside. These books are intrinsically linked to the concept of the show.
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August 2013
The Museum as Archipelago
— essay in Scapegoat Journal "Excess"
An older essay on fluid cartographies that I still enjoy very much and which ends with these words:
If the curator acts as a cartographer, then mapping becomes her technique, and the map can be understood as the product of her work. This would not be limited to floorplans, didactics, or curatorial statements; such a method is inclusive of the curatorial practice as a mode of knowledge production. In other words, the curator as cartographer establishes an attitude to wards the world that partakes in making the world. Like a voyage through interminably moving islands, curatorial practice, to be effective as a navigational practice, would necessarily become vulnerable to physical contact, improbable exchange, and collaborative experimentation; such vulnerabilities would undoubtedly lead the curator far from the safety of the illusory horizons of representation, which is all the better for her construction of fictions, both real and imagined.