IF Lab 2023/24 kicks off at Ji.hlava IDFF

The kick-off session of the IF Lab brought together nine artists and/or researchers with backgrounds varying from environmental geography and ocean research to machine learning.

While exploring common research interests, they took part in workshop activities aimed at discovering novel and transformative ways to share and synthesize knowledge and took part in a discussion program focused on how water can guide us in the search for solutions to pressing environmental problems through its ability to connect the human dimension of existence with other forms of life.

Left to right: Michał Dawid, Curator and artistic researcher (PL), Weronika Zalewska, Transmedia artist and researcher (PL), Michal Mitro, Artist and researcher (SK/CZ), Mirjami Lantto, Cultural and environmental geographer (FI), Mae Lubetkin, Ocean researcher & transdisciplinary artist (FR/US), Isabel Val Sánchez, Artist (SP), Kosmas Dinh, Artist (DE), Vít Růžička, AI and machine learning researcher and artist (CZ), Anthea Oestreicher, Designer and artistic researcher (DE).

Workshop with tutors

The workshop activities designed by Barbora Kleinhamplová and Lenka Hámošová made it possible for participants to step out of professional roles and explore innovative avenues for navigating challenging topics by harnessing critical thinking, enlivening the senses, and nurturing imagination. Playful, shared sensory exercises were complemented by discussion blocks centered on critical and systemic thinking, which were designed to steer away from cartesian paradigms of knowledge creation and group work leading toward the creation of three interdisciplinary groups.

Talk and discussion on contemporary investigative art

By focusing on a number of existing art projects, the talk by Jurij Krpan developed possible interpretations of life that exists in symbiosis or singularity between the human-animal, technology and plants.

Roundtables

The roundtables provided an opportunity to further reflect on the opportunities and challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration through the sharing of guest experiences or stories as a tool for communicating scientific knowledge in a way that can be understood by the general public. Marine biologist Patricia Garrote Esquete shared her observations on what to do and what not to do when developing collaborative projects in science and art. Icelandic writer Andri Snaer Magnason talked about creating comprehensible narratives linked to scientific knowledge about the climate crisis. And philosopher and vice dean for science and research at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts, Alice Koubová, shared her experience from a process of developing an extensive collaboration on the resilience of society and sharing its results through a variety of outcomes that span from performative lecture to book and film.

Expert lectures and Q&As

The series of lectures offered space for deeper reflection on a range of topics at the intersection of environmentalism, our relating to bodies of water, and the human relationship with the more-than-human world.

Watch recordings of the lectures below.

Mining the Bottom

Marine biologist Patricia Esquete takes us on a guided tour of the seabed and its fascinating biodiversity and discusses the threat posed to these ecosystems by deep-sea mining with environmentalist Jan Freidinger and journalist Štěpán Sedláček.

On Time and Water

Writer and documentary filmmaker Andri Snær Magnason talks with journalist Jonáš Zbořil about how to communicate the unprecedented events caused by climate change through water and what stories to tell in this transformative period in a programme called On Time and Water.

Hydrosex!

The hydrofeminist art duo cyber_nymphs – WetMeWild (Justyna Górowska) and Underwater_activist (Ewelina Jarosz) – present the hydrosexual movement in art and talk with curator Zuzana Štefková about their work and their intimate relationship with water.

We Who Are the Grass of the Universe…

In a conversation with art critic Klara Peloušková philosopher Lukáš Likavčan reflects on the relationship between environmentalism and our perception of the universe and the planet. (Recording available in Czech only.)

It's a Process

Theoretical physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker presents her thesis on life as a process and talks about what forms life can take and where it can be found in a conversation with publicist Lenka Vrtišková Nejezchlebová.