SAVE THE DATE: Symposium | EcoArtLab | Gaskessel Bern

!SAVE THE DATE!

13 & 14 October 2026
at Gaskessel Bern

How do transdisciplinary art-science collaborations in the context of ecological transformations deliver on their promise for change and success, or are structural problems being perpetuated and reproduced?
As the SNSF research project ‘EcoArtLab: Relational Encounters between the Arts and Climate Research’ draws to a close, we are organising a gathering of artists, researchers and practitioners to look back on the learnings together and work towards a manifesto.

Stay tuned

SYMPOSIUM:
1.-3. Oktober 2026 Universitaet fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien


Kunst_Klima_Forschung: Wandel gestalten
Mit Impulsvortrag und Respondenz von Yvonne Schmidt Anmeldung bis zum 15.092026
die Teilnahme ist kostenlos


Das Symposium fragt nach der Bedeutung von Kunst, Artistic Research, Arts based Research und deren Einbindung in transformative Forschung.

Ziel ist eine mdw-interne und universitätsübergreifende Vernetzung zum Aufbau von Forschungsprojekten an der Schnittstelle von Kunst und Wissenschaft.




Do, 1. Oktober 2026 | 17:15
Impulsvorträge: Kunst_Klima_Forschung
Sam Goldscheider, Harmonic Progression, Verbier Festival
Yvonne Schmidt, EcoArtLab, Hochschule der Künste Bern
Harald Heinrichs, Institut für Nachhaltigkeitssteuerung, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg

Fr, 2. Oktober 2026 | 14:00
Impulsvorträge: Transformative Forschung Reinhard Steurer, Institut für Wald-, Umwelt- und Ressourcenpolitik/ BOKU Wien
Ulli Vilsmaier, Responsive Research Collective sowie Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Lisa Bohunovsky, Zentrum für Globalen Wandel & Nachhaltigkeit/ BOKU Wien
Respondenzen Yvonne Schmidt und Stephanie Schroedter, Artistic Research Center (ARC)

Weitere Infos und Programmpunkte: HIER 

Intervention: NOAH Friends of The Earth Denmark – Institute of Eternal Utopias | EcoArtLab

«Shaping Utopias:
Methods and Practices in Art, Activism and Climate Research»

Wednesday, 22 April 2026
17:00 – 19:00 Auditorium
Bern Academy of the Arts
Fellerstrasse 11 
3018 Bern

Interviews of the Dreamers – Reflections on the Transdisciplinary EcoArtLab Collaboration

How do artists, activists, and researchers collaborate through different practices to create utopias? The Institute of Eternal Utopias will take you on a twisted lecture that blends academic reflection with performative and embodied modes of presentation. Sharing an alchemical transformation on how we could look at the world, it will introduce you to their work, or will it unfold as a dream?

This event will elaborate on the motivations, frames, and actions of the
Institute for Eternal Utopias. It will also reflect on the participatory action research process led by PhD researcher Johanna Paschen and share initial insights from multiple perspectives. The presentation will evolve into an open discussion, inviting collective reflection and dialogue.

Twisted Lecture Performance by NOAH

Reflection on the participatory action research process and sharing initial insights from multiple perspectives

Open Discussion Round

Apéro

The SNSF-funded research project Relational Encounters between the Arts and Climate Research examined the collaborative working process between artists, activists, and researchers. Through participatory action research, the research focused on practices and forms of methodological integration within transdisciplinary collaboration with the artists and activists as co-researchers.

The Institute of Eternal Utopias is a space where artists and activists meet to process, digest, perform and reflect on utopias. It takes its roots in the Danish environmental organisation NOAH (part of the Friends of the Earth network) and employs artivism as a method and tool to share visions and embody the change it seeks in the world. Combining ecofeminist approaches with the praxis of ecological care, the initiative originated to gather people’s dreams and bring them to the European Union, transforming our relationship to politics by ‘wearing the costume of power’ as we would like it to be: soft, flowery, supportive and in solidarity. The Institute aims to be a sense-based, meditative and collaborative laboratory for inspiration, dreams, hope, togetherness, and cultivating tasty and sensory alternatives.

Conference: ART–SCIENCE CONFERENCE 4 – 5 May, organized by Eawag and Zurich University of the Arts | Riikka Tauriainen | Yvonne Schmidt

«Beyond Communication»
art–science collaborations for science, policy and society

Yvonne Schmidt and Riikka Tauriainen will be contributing to the ART–SCIENCE CONFERENCE 4 – 5 May, organized by Eawag and Zurich University of the Arts.

The conference brings together practitioners in the field of art and science collaboration along with students and policy makers. The goal of the conference, together with exhibitions and screenings, are threefold: first, to give these collaborations a platform and make them visible; second, to create a space for exchange around the guiding questions of (i) where the motivation to engage in such work originates, (ii) what these collaborations facilitate, and (iii) what the main challenges are; and third, to offer discussion on how to work across disciplines, particularly in art-science contexts, and how to engage at science-policy interfaces.


Unfolding Waterscapes (2025) by Riikka Tauriainen & Marta Musso
4 May, 18:30, Kino Toni


Response : Critical Perspecitves on Art-Science Collaborations
With Yvonne Schmidt
5 May, 16 :00

See the full programm HERE.

Publication: GEO: Geography and Environment | Johanna Paschen

«Transdisciplinary Art and Climate Science Collaborations: Framework Conditions Creating Epistemic Injustices»
Johanna Paschen

We are excited to share another publication!
Johanna’s article was published in Geo: Geography and Environment.

Transdisciplinary art-science collaborations addressing the climate crisis aim to co-create knowledge by integrating diverse perspectives and knowledge types to tackle complex sustainability challenges. Despite growing institutional and funding support, little research has been done on how framework conditions shape such collaborations. This study examines how framework conditions of transdisciplinary art-science collaborations influence collaborative dynamics of knowledge integration and contribute to epistemic injustice. Framework conditions refer to circumstances, thus structural and situational factors shaping collaboration, which can enable or constrain it. Epistemic injustice involves knowledge-related injustices, including the exclusion or silencing of knowers. Applying semi-structured interviews and the transdisciplinary storywall method, six Switzerland-based transdisciplinary art-science collaborations addressing climate, ecological or sustainability issues were analysed. The exploratory thematic analysis identified the six key framework conditions of temporality, financing, location, internationality, partnering and outcome, which elicit circumstances creating epistemic injustice. Applying four epistemic injustice dimensions to categorise collaborators' experiences on conditions further, the findings show that these conditions most frequently contribute to participatory and procedural, followed by distributive and then recognition epistemic injustices. Early phases of collaboration were found to be particularly influential in shaping unjust processes. This study suggests the need for greater awareness of injustice among scientists, practitioners and artists and calls for structural adjustments by those shaping or initiating such collaborations. It offers practical recommendations to reduce epistemic injustices and strive for more inclusive and pluralistic knowledge integration and co-creation in art-science contexts, as well as across broader transdisciplinary sustainability efforts to address the climate crisis.

Read the full article HERE.