Symposium
Art-Science Collaborations:
Art-science collaborations often claim to be a response to the climate crisis. What is really achieved, what remains unresolved? A HKB symposium examines unseen gaps, exclusions, power relations and friction.
13.10.2026, 1.30pm–7pm and 14.10.2026, 9am–5pm
Gaskessel, Sandrainstrasse 25, 3007 Bern
Art-Science Collaborations:
Gaps, Friction, and Injustice in Knowledge Creation
Art-science collaborations often claim to be a response to the climate crisis. What is really achieved, what remains unresolved? A HKB symposium examines unseen gaps, exclusions, power relations and friction.
13.10.2026, 1.30pm–7pm and 14.10.2026, 9am–5pm
Gaskessel, Sandrainstrasse 25, 3007 Bern
There is a growing surge in collaborations between artists, scientists, and the public that address the climate crisis and ecological sustainability. It has become almost common sense to claim that transdisciplinarity is the only adequate response to the climate crisis, bridging the gap between knowledge and action, and that bringing artists and scientists together will somehow unlock new ways of knowing, sensing, and transforming society.
This symposium invites to critically reflect on lessons from several decades of art-science collaborations in the field of the climate crisis and ecological issues. Rather than highlighting projects as success stories, we focus on the hidden spots of collaborations:
- What is achieved in these art-science collaborations, and what remains unsolved?
- Why do we still see countless artist-in-lab-programmes, yet almost no scientists embedded in artists' studios?
- Who truly benefits from these initiatives, and which target groups are reached?
- Which inequalities are reproduced through funding structures, disciplinary hierarchies, and staying inside the bubble? Whose perspectives are still missing?
- And what about the messy, uncomfortable dimensions of collaboration, such as failure, frictions, emotional labor, contamination?
- How do we confront questions of epistemic injustice?
Through panel discussions and working groups, the event aims to lay the groundwork for nothing less than a(nother) manifesto on art-science collaborations in the context of the climate crisis and ecosocietal change.
Speakers and contributors
Eric Nanchen (HippoCampus, CH), tara lasrado (Curator, Arvae, CH), Sally De Kunst (curator, facilitator & writer, CH), Laura Giudici (Vert le Future, CH), Katharina Schneider-Roos (B Lab, CH), Payal Parekh (Climate Justice Activist & Consultant, CH), Jana Thierfelder (Eawag; ZHdK,CH), Sapna Kumar (UniBE, CH), Juliana Robles de la Pava (HKB, CH), Catarina Fontoura (Falmouth University, UK/PT), Sara Blanco Ramìrez ( UZH & UCR, CH/CR), Karin Fink (HSLU, BAFU, CH), Benjamin Sunarjo (Performance artist and curator, CH), Collective Terravibe (CH), Irene Hediger (AIL ZHdK, CH)
Organisation
Riikka Tauriainen (EcoArtLab, HKB), Johanna Paschen (EcoArtLab HKB/GIUB UniBe), Susan Thieme (mLAB, GIUB, UniBe), Mirko Winkel (mLAB, GIUB, UniBe), Yvonne Schmidt (EcoArtLab, HKB), Thubten Shontshang (EcoArtLab, HKB), Marc-Antoine Vouillamoz (EcoArtLab, HKB)
REGISTRATION:
Attendance is free. If you’d like to register, please email thubten.shontshang@hkb.bfh.ch by September 20.
Tuesday, October 13
1.30pm
Arrival
2pm
Welcome
2.15pm
Perspectives from the EcoArtLab
3.30pm
Break
4pm
Podium:
Learnings from Arts-Science-Collaborations
Learnings from Arts-Science-Collaborations
with Monica Bello (Platform Dalí, ES) Eric Nanchen (HippoCampus, CH) tara lasrado (Curator, Arvae, CH), Irene Hediger (AIL ZHdK, CH)
Moderator: Yvonne Schmidt
5.45pm
Apéro
Wednesday, October 14
9.15am
Arrival & Registration
9.30am
Warm up Workshop:
Get to know each other
with Sally De Kunst
with Sally De Kunst
10.30am
Break
10.45am
3 Parallel Working Groups:
From Knowledge to Practice:
Towards a Manifesto
Ways of Working
with Laura Giudici (Vert le Future, CH) & Katharina Schneider-Roos (B Lab, CH)
Ways of Working
with Laura Giudici (Vert le Future, CH) & Katharina Schneider-Roos (B Lab, CH)
This working group explores the conditions needed to establish equitable and balanced art-science collaborations, with a focus on developing a shared language, vision and expectations. It also examines funding models that can support effective, reciprocal and sustainable partnerships across disciplines. The group sheds light on lacking structural cooperations and the importance of care in successful collaborations.
Climate Justice Activism and Epistemic (In)Justice
with Payal Parekh (Climate Justice Activist & Consultant, CH)
The focus of the working group will be on the role of activism in relation to epistemic (in)justice and research in transdisciplinary art and science collaborations. That includes questions about the roles of artists, scientists, and activists in social movements. Many research findings carry significant implications for how individuals should live and how societies should act. However, substantial gaps remain between these insights and lived reality, as illustrated by the insufficient response to the current environmental crisis. Thus far, the efforts of governments to curb the climate crisis have been far short of what is needed. Neither scientists, artists, nor social movements have been able to shift the needle on climate policy. In this working group, we will explore why this may be the case and brainstorm innovative ideas at the intersection of art, science and activism to change this dynamic.
Navigating Friction:
Working across epistemological, methodological and cultural differences
with Jana Thierfelder (Eawag; ZHdK,CH)
Working across epistemological, methodological and cultural differences
with Jana Thierfelder (Eawag; ZHdK,CH)
The working group explores art–science collaboration as a space of productive friction, where epistemological, methodological, and disciplinary cultures meet to expand—but also unsettle—knowledge. It examines how working across different ways of knowing, research practices, and institutional contexts requires negotiation, trust, and mutual learning. The group brings into focus the often unspoken dimensions of collaboration, including emotional labour, asymmetries, and the risks involved in working across disciplines with different values, institutional cultures, languages, geographies, and temporalities. It asks how such encounters reshape not only what can be known, but also how responsibility, vulnerability, and authorship are negotiated and shared.
Access: Discussions and practical work at tables, both in plenary sessions and in small groups. Held in english (whispertranslation into german possible). Max. 20 participants.
Access: Discussions and practical work at tables, both in plenary sessions and in small groups. Held in english (whispertranslation into german possible). Max. 20 participants.
12.30pm
Lunch
1.30pm
3 Parallel Working Groups:
From Knowledge to Practice: Towards a Manifesto
Ways of Acting and Communicating
with Laura Giudici (Vert le Future, CH) & Katharina Schneider-Roos (B Lab, CH)
Ways of Acting and Communicating
with Laura Giudici (Vert le Future, CH) & Katharina Schneider-Roos (B Lab, CH)
Knowledge becomes usable when it is structured and linked to action. What bridging formats can strengthen cross-sector learning about the methods employed in art-science projects, and help to translate them into repeatable practices? This working group examines the infrastructures needed to turn knowledge into concrete action, adapt art-science methods to different contexts and ensure that the right stakeholders are involved, with the benefits distributed equally, to enable a systemic approach.
Epistemic (In)Justice in the Production of Climate Change Knowledge
with Sapna Kumar (UniBE, CH) & Juliana Robles de la Pava (HKB, CH)
with Sapna Kumar (UniBE, CH) & Juliana Robles de la Pava (HKB, CH)
The working group reflects on the role of feminist philosophy of science from an intersectional perspective, as well as the role of Indigenous epistemologies, in transdisciplinary collaborations between art and climate science. Diverse strands of feminist thought and non-hegemonic philosophies are concerned with identifying and addressing epistemic injustices, that is, harms related to the production, assessment, and distribution of knowledge, as well as its sensorial dimension.
In this session, we will focus on epistemic (in)justices in the production of climate knowledge and knowledge of territories that emerge within global scientific institutions and research-related contexts. We will also explore how a transdisciplinary encounter between art, philosophy, and science has the potential to address climate-related epistemic injustices and different forms of oppression, contributing to a more just and less harmful context for the production and enactment of climate knowledge.
In this session, we will focus on epistemic (in)justices in the production of climate knowledge and knowledge of territories that emerge within global scientific institutions and research-related contexts. We will also explore how a transdisciplinary encounter between art, philosophy, and science has the potential to address climate-related epistemic injustices and different forms of oppression, contributing to a more just and less harmful context for the production and enactment of climate knowledge.
Navigating Friction:
When Knowledge meets Uncertainty
with Catarina Fontoura (Falmouth University, UK)
When Knowledge meets Uncertainty
with Catarina Fontoura (Falmouth University, UK)
A working group exploring art–science collaboration as a space where knowledge is not only expanded but unsettled. What happens when different ways of knowing, making and working encounter one another — and when methods, assumptions and certainties no longer quite hold?
Through discussion and practical exercises, the working group brings attention to the often-unspoken dimensions of collaboration: the emotional labour of working across difference, the asymmetries of knowledge and power, and the risks involved in building trust across disciplines with different languages, values and timelines.
Rather than seeking to resolve these frictions, the working groupconsiders them as productive spaces for negotiation and learning. It asks how encounters between art and science might reshape not only what can be known, but also how responsibility, vulnerability and authorship are shared.
Access: Movement-based activities. Discussions and practical work at tables, both in plenary sessions and in small groups. Held in english (whispertranslation into german possible). Max. 20 participants.
Through discussion and practical exercises, the working group brings attention to the often-unspoken dimensions of collaboration: the emotional labour of working across difference, the asymmetries of knowledge and power, and the risks involved in building trust across disciplines with different languages, values and timelines.
Rather than seeking to resolve these frictions, the working groupconsiders them as productive spaces for negotiation and learning. It asks how encounters between art and science might reshape not only what can be known, but also how responsibility, vulnerability and authorship are shared.
Access: Movement-based activities. Discussions and practical work at tables, both in plenary sessions and in small groups. Held in english (whispertranslation into german possible). Max. 20 participants.
3pm
Break
3.15pm
Input: Participant Observers interventions
with Sara Blanco Ramìrez, Karin Fink, Benjamin Sunarjo
3.45pm
Wrap-Up Workshop : Creating the Manifesto
with Sally De Kunst
5.30pm
End of the Symposium
ongoing
Installations:
Dialogue of two Mothers from Tomasee to Sunderbans
Collective Terravibe, 2024
As a complementary element to the installation a spart of the exhibition and themed trail ‘Stories of departure and arrival’ at the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum 2024, the video was created during the residency ‘Dialogue as a means of understanding and empathy’ organised by the EcoArt Lab (HKB) in collaboration with the Ballenberg Museum, Helvetas and the mLAB at the Institute of Geography, University of Bern.
As a complementary element to the installation a spart of the exhibition and themed trail ‘Stories of departure and arrival’ at the Ballenberg Open-Air Museum 2024, the video was created during the residency ‘Dialogue as a means of understanding and empathy’ organised by the EcoArt Lab (HKB) in collaboration with the Ballenberg Museum, Helvetas and the mLAB at the Institute of Geography, University of Bern.
Soils, the base of life on land, are literally and metaphorically the common ground our lives and communities are built upon. Expanding on their work with soils as a hyper-local, stable medium, they play with water and rivers as a global, flowing element to draw attention to in/visible connections between the mountains and the sea, beginnings and endings, Switzerland and India. By getting personal through a mixed method comparative study between the Tomasee in Switzerland and the Gangetic Delta in India, their intention is to bring forward dialogue as a tool of empathy, change, resistance and action in highly complex, intangible contexts.
Through an intergenerational dialogue between Dutt & Herrmann, both in their 30s, and their mothers, both in their 60s, we add in women’s perspectives through time. They explore the connections between women and nature in the socio-cultural context of their homes, highlighting the importance of honoring a spectrum of perspectives and learning from our elders.
Waterscape Imaginaries
Riikka Tauriainen & Marta Musso, Centre d’art Pasquart, 2025
Waterscape Imaginaries emerged from a collaboration between the visual artist Riikka Tauriainen and the marine biologist and illustrator Marta Musso as part of the Pro Helvetia Synergies project Plankton Ecosystems within the EcoArtLab. Both focus on plankton and aquatic ecosystems in their research and practice.
This two-part film paints a multi-layered picture of life underwater:
The first chapter of the film presents aquatic environments from a non-human perspective – diving into river currents, drifting amongst swarms of jellyfish and sinking into microscopic worlds. Viewers are invited to imagine water as a living, dynamic medium that exists beyond human perception. This imagined perspective opens up a space for new forms of understanding and empathy towards ecological processes.
Waterscape Imaginaries emerged from a collaboration between the visual artist Riikka Tauriainen and the marine biologist and illustrator Marta Musso as part of the Pro Helvetia Synergies project Plankton Ecosystems within the EcoArtLab. Both focus on plankton and aquatic ecosystems in their research and practice.
This two-part film paints a multi-layered picture of life underwater:
The first chapter of the film presents aquatic environments from a non-human perspective – diving into river currents, drifting amongst swarms of jellyfish and sinking into microscopic worlds. Viewers are invited to imagine water as a living, dynamic medium that exists beyond human perception. This imagined perspective opens up a space for new forms of understanding and empathy towards ecological processes.
The second chapter is devoted to the collaborative creative process between the scientist and the artist. It returns to the same water sites from the first chapter and takes the audience on a journey from the glaciers high in the mountains down to the coasts. In doing so, it highlights the social dimensions of field research, dialogue and joint exploration.
Together, the two chapters offer a multi-layered reflection on water as a medium of transmission, memory and archiving. Water emerges as an active participant, shaping, storing and circulating the traces of ecological, geological and social processes. Through this dual perspective, Waterscape Imaginaries invites the audience to reflect on how knowledge is formed and shared across disciplines and scales.
Accessibility
We aim to make our symposium accessible to as many people as possible. We therefore endeavour to take various needs into account. We realise that not all needs can be fully covered. If you have any questions or concerns or need support, please contact us by sending a message to thubten.shontshang@hkb.bfh.ch
How to get there:
The symposium will take place at Gaskessel Bern, 400 metres from the bus station Monbijoubrücke. Travelling by public transport from Bern railway station, take the B19 or T9 to the station Sulgenau. From there it is a 700 meter walk, or change on to B28 for one further station. There is an elveator to reach Sandrainstrasse down from the bridge.
The symposium will take place at Gaskessel Bern, 400 metres from the bus station Monbijoubrücke. Travelling by public transport from Bern railway station, take the B19 or T9 to the station Sulgenau. From there it is a 700 meter walk, or change on to B28 for one further station. There is an elveator to reach Sandrainstrasse down from the bridge.
Adress:
Gaskessel Bern, Sandrainstrasse 25, 3007 Bern
Access to the building:
The entire venue is wheelchair accessible. Transport partner: www.betax.ch
Parking: There are no visitor parking spaces directly on site. Closest public parking space is Parkplatz Marzili.
Gaskessel Bern, Sandrainstrasse 25, 3007 Bern
Access to the building:
The entire venue is wheelchair accessible. Transport partner: www.betax.ch
Parking: There are no visitor parking spaces directly on site. Closest public parking space is Parkplatz Marzili.
