LAND: on climate, ownership and coexistence

During the coming six months, ArtEZ studium generale will be cooperating with Mister Motley online art magazine and, taking the subject of land as a starting point, we will launch a debate with students, artists and thinkers on climate breakdown, ownership, territory and colonialism.

“You can only truly see the things that do not belong to you, the things that you are being denied, the things that are long gone.”

Never has the temperature in the Arctic region been as high as it was last summer. Every year, wildfires are getting larger, hurricane seasons are getting more severe, grasslands in the Eastern Netherlands are getting drier. Scientists warn of the imminent collapse of our civilization, but how can we speak of a civilization, if we are unable to do something about climate breakdown, if we are even allowing it to become worse?

Significantly, this climate breakdown can be said to originate in the West and its colonial past. From the 16th century, countries and regions around the world were claimed and divided up by Western Europeans, power and money being the main motives. This attitude of superiority could be seen not only in the appropriation of land, but also in the treatment of everything living on that land. Due to the influence of science, the world was approached from an increasingly objective perspective, with all the attendant consequences. At the same time, many original inhabitants of colonized regions had and still have a completely different relationship with nature. To many of them, land is not just the soil you walk on, it is a living thing, harbouring memories.

Now that it is becoming increasingly obvious that the capitalist system and those in power are not taking responsibility for the effects of climate breakdown, we have to look beyond the dominant Western perspective to explore the relationship between land, nature and ownership. And we must recognize that humans are a component of the world, instead of the other way round. “After all, nothing in nature is privately owned. As it belongs to all of us, since it belongs to nobody?”

During the coming six months, ArtEZ studium generale will be cooperating with Mister Motley online art magazine and, taking the subject of land as a starting point, we will launch a debate with students, artists and thinkers on climate breakdown, ownership, territory and colonialism. We will be discussing the following questions. Can we understand how we have ended up in the present precarious situation? What does ‘ownership’ mean for our relationship with each other and with the land? What role does language play as a reflection of the way we treat each other, nature and the earth? Can art and imagination help us imagine other worlds? Together we hope to develop new insights and actions to preserve our planet.

You can expect a programme of films, lectures, essays, and more. Everything is to be found online on our websites. We start the academic year on Wednesday 16 September by publishing an essay by writer Fiep van Bodegom on the concept of ownership in relation to land. Stay up to date by checking out our newsletter every month for all activities, so that you can take part in this programme right through the autumn. Parts of the programme will be in Dutch and other parts will be in English.

Both quotations in this text are from the essay on ownership and land entitled ‘Unfathomable’, written by Fiep van Bodegom for ArtEZ studium generale and Mr Motley online art magazine.

More about our programme LAND >