Wasteland Festival: Postnatural WastescapesWasteland Festival: Postnatural Wastescapes

Waste is more than an accidental or residual part of urban life. How and what we throw away partly forms the urban landscape in which we live and work. We see the architecture of waste all around us: incinerators on the outskirts of cities are disguised as ‘normal’ buildings, and former landfills are transformed into city parks. Such waste sites, often hidden or camouflaged, reflect the wider infrastructure through which civilisation expands itself, excluding humans and non-humans, and extracting resources from the living environment. Curious about this hidden world? Come to Postnatural Wastescapes at the Nieuwe Instituut on 10 July.

• 19:00 Admission
• 19:30 – 21:00 Programme
• 21:00 – 22:00 Drinks at the bar

The research evening is organised by collective.wasteland as part of the Wasteland Festival: Out of Sight. For more information about the festival, see the festival’s website or Instagram.

Architect and researcher Carolien Schippers (C-A-S, Rotterdam) will talk about her research project at Arcam, Amsterdam’s centre for architecture, on the wastescapes of Amsterdam. She has created a city guide to places where waste is processed or hidden. Her research shows how waste systems are often made invisible, making it more difficult to talk about a sustainable future.

Her talk will feature excerpts from the film STRATA INGOGNITA, by GRANDEZA STUDIO and LOCUMENT. It was commissioned by the Venice Biennale (Spanish Pavilion FOODSCAPES, 2023) and the IABR Nature of Hope2024.

In his lecture, artist and researcher Yuri Tuma (Institute for Postnatural Studies in Madrid) argues that the romanticised image of nature as a neutral framework or backdrop for human action is no longer tenable. Instead, we need to develop a broader and more complex view of the living environment. Yuri explores the notion of Nature as one of the major inventions of modernity, an outdated concept. He focuses on alternative, contemporary perspectives on issues of the living environment and ecology, hoping to contribute to healthier relationships between humans, non-humans, matter and technology. Yuri invites participants to consider how dialogue and experimentation can be incorporated into a research approach that goes beyond academia.

The Institute for Postnatural Studies, founded in 2020, is a platform for critical thinking. It brings together artists and researchers concerned with the global ecological crisis. Through experimentation and knowledge-sharing, the institute conducts long-term research on ecology, coexistence, politics and territories. This research takes the form of seminars, exhibitions and residencies where art and science come together.

collective.wasteland (Katya Borisova, Yannik Güldner, Leon Lapa Pereira, Erik Peters and Anne Vera Veen) is an art collective focused on research and collaborative experiments to find solutions to the waste crisis. Research projects and public programmes such as the Wasteland Festival stimulate the collaboration between art, activism, industry and science.

In 2023, collective.wasteland organised the festival Wasteland: Streams of Waste in The Hague. It consisted of an exhibition, workshops, lectures, films and activities in public space. Visitors were invited to think about the journey waste takes, and what this means for people, animals and places.

This summer, the festival comes to Rotterdam with Wasteland: Out of Sight, a month-long programme throughout the city with exhibitions, a summer school, guided tours, lectures, dinners and a festive opening and closing. The aim is to make people aware of the hidden places and systems where waste is processed.