Have we met?
In line with this year's UABB main theme 'Urban Cosmologies', 'Have we met?' promotes new ways of understanding our planet as a shared space for plants, microbes, humans, and other animals. The exhibition was developed as the official Dutch contribution to the 23rd Triennale Milano and opened in July of 2022. Both condensed and expanded, 'Have we met?' will be shown at Shenzhen's Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture from 25 November to 25 February 2023.
9 December 2022 12:00 - 12 March 2023 12:00
The view that the earth exists solely for human exploitation must be radically rethought to confront today's environmental crises. Have we met? therefore explores what attitudes, organisational tools and technologies are necessary to recalibrate the relationship between humans and non-humans.
An urban block in Rotterdam, a regenerative farm in the Netherlands' rural east, and an abandoned North Sea oil rig, and the very site of this exhibition here in Shenzhen: these four ecologically diverse sites help to explore the possibilities for interspecies relationships. Nature studies traditionally rely on quantitative data, but could they be adapted to give a better insight into how humans and non-humans might learn to share space and collaborate? The whole world is, in one way or another, touched by human policies and tools, so perhaps it is time to investigate where they take place and how they could foster multispecies cohabitation. Have we met? presents a range of possible collaborative tools developed by practitioners across art and design, agriculture, and data- and marine sciences.
About Shenzhen's 2022 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture
With the theme of "Urban Cosmologies," the 9th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) focuses on the sustainable, green and ecological development of cities for the "dual carbon" goal, and looks into the urban strategies that respond to the global climate change. Cities, as the main habitat of human beings, are also the main site for achieving the "dual carbon" goal, meaning carbon peaking and carbon neutrality. Influenced by environmental, climate, and ecological changes, cities are evolving to offer various possibilities. The development and application of new technologies will contribute to shaping a new vision that is more ecologically green, safe, resilient, sustainable, and better integrated with nature for future.
About Zoöp
Have we met? builds on the Zoöp organisation model collaboratively developed at Het Nieuwe Instituut, who is practicing this model since 22 April 2022. A Zoöp commits to making the interests of non-human life part of its organisational decisionmaking, with a Speaker for the Living representing the voices and interests of non-human life to help create a more ecologically regenerative organisation. A Zoöp follows an annual cycle of learning to become a symbiotic body in the ecosystems in which it participates.