International Visitors Programme
On 20 September T.J. Demos and Anne van Leeuwen joined in an informal conversation on urgent matters regarding ecology, how to include more-than-human knowledge, the role of arts and humanities when it comes to environmental questions and how what kind of society might instigate change in Het Nieuwe Instituut. Demos visited the Netherlands through the International Visitors Programme of Het Nieuwe Instituut.
T.J. Demos is an award-winning writer on contemporary art, global politics, and ecology. He is the author of numerous books, including Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today (Sternberg Press, 2017). He's the founder and director of the Center for Creative Ecologies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His current research addresses the questions: what comes after the end of the world? and how can we cultivate futures of social justice within capitalist ruins?
Anne van Leeuwen studied art history, cultural analysis and biology; she is a board member of the North Sea Embassy. Here, together with scientists, artists and policy makers, she researches and builds on the representation of relations between people and non-humans in and around the North Sea.