Rethinking Nature

Rethinking Nature brings together artistic research and critical thinking responding to issues related to political ecology in different contexts in order to transform conceptions of nature bequeathed by Europe’s Enlightenment paradigms in parallel to its imperial expansion. The project involves artists, theorists and activists with heterogeneous profiles and practices, coming from different geographical areas, invited to develop dialogues between critical speculation and artistic experimentation. In continuity with the Cosmopolis platform conceived by Kathryn Weir, the project's methodology focuses on contemporary interdisciplinary practices based on research and collaboration. Through this book, building on an exhibition at the Madre museum and a series of events, workshops, meetings, as well as commissions of new works, Rethinking Nature is an ongoing process acting to reconceptualise relationships between the human and the more than human.

The acceleration of global warming, the rising of the seas, mass extinctions of species, widespread weather anomalies, flows and seepages of toxicity impossible to contain: these unfolding predicaments cannot be separated from the modern European paradigm that conceives of nature – including much of humanity – as a reserve of resources to be freely exploited for profit. Such economics of extraction have a long history that is in- tertwined with the history of European imperialism and colonialism. The consequences have been devastating: the suppression of Indigenous and other non-capitalist cultures and knowledge systems, and the vast environmental desolation caused by the pursuit of limitless growth. Today, the destructive effects of capitalism’s unwavering focus on profit and growth are more widely recognised, as the impunity with which it has de- stroyed worlds and spread toxicity and pollution in its wake is resulting in the collapse of ecosystems and escalating climatic disruption.

Contemporary artistic research-based practices are contributing in different contexts to cultural and political processes centring on ecology that may help to rethink conceptions of nature and transform the paradigms bequeathed by Europe’s Enlightenment sciences in parallel to its imperial expansion.