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
«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.
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.
17.00 – 17.30
Twisted Lecture Performance by NOAH
17.30 – 18.00
Reflection on the participatory action research process and sharing initial insights from multiple perspectives
18.00 – 18.30
Open Discussion Round
18.30 – 19.00
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.
Speaker:
Emmeline Werner, Mads Kjærgaard Lange & Annika Nilsson, activists and artists, NOAH Friends of the Earth Denmark; Asger Hougaard, external lecturer, University of Copenhagen
Moderation:
Johanna Paschen,researcher, EcoArtLab, Univeristy of Bern & Bern Academy of the Arts (HKB)
Host:
EcoArtLab, Institute Practices & Theories in the Arts (HKB)
Access:
Wheelchair access. For more details or questions, please contact thubten.shontshang@hkb.bfh.ch. Talk will be in English.
