Natureculture Lab, a global think tank


January 27-29, 2025 | Institute of Materiality in Art and Culture | HKB Bern Academy of the Arts

We are calling for participation in this Lab from individuals from the Global South, especially those who belong to underrepresented groups and are in the early phases of their careers (e.g., PhD candidates or recent postdocs). See below for the description and specifics of the call.


This international workshop aims to bring together in a hybrid format experts and practitioners of conservation in two domains: on the one hand, art and cultural heritage conservation; and on the other hand, nature conservation. Except for singular activities, these two communities have rarely if at all communicated. This is highly remarkable especially considering recent developments both in art conservation and nature conservation. In both domains the “things”, “items”, “objects” or “sites” conservators and conservationists care for are increasingly recognized as natureculture hybrids. While art conservation, especially in its earlier guise of restoration, primarily considered artworks as the outcome of human—and especially the artist’s—intentions, the field of art conservation has increasingly recognized that the materials of artworks undergo unintentional, and sometimes unexpected, changes and are subject to loss and decay well outside human control. At the other end, while inspired by ideas of pristine wilderness, nature conservation in its earliest instances was primarily geared towards the establishment of national parks and nature reserves fortified against human intervention, conservationists have come to value humans as inherent to the ecosystems they care for. Given that the “things” and “sites” for which (art) conservators and (nature) conservationists hold responsibility are interplays of human and non-human agencies and thus nature-culture hybrids, both fields and communities consider ontologically similar objects, and should exchange views.

The workshop will explore questions such as, How should conservation practices in both nature and art be redefined in light of the inevitable and sometimes desirable changes to the material make-up of objects, landscapes and environments? How can new conservation theories that embrace change and transformation, particularly those emerging from contemporary art, inform and reshape traditional conservation approaches that prioritize permanence and stability? Who gets to decide where and how conservation occurs, considering the historical silencing and displacement of human voices in both ecological restoration and cultural heritage conservation? How can the field of conservation expand beyond top-down expert models to embrace decolonizing community engagement, thereby raising questions about the future role of experts?

The current global challenges of the climate, environmental and, in parts of the globe, humanitarian crisis create a strong urgency to intensify the exchange between the fields of art and nature conservation. To cope with these challenges, nature and culture heritage conservation requires alternative ontologies and distinct epistemologies. Ontologically, both fields require approaches that can deal with change and the dynamics accelerated by the climate crisis. Epistemologically, both fields need to develop more inclusive models of decision-making, in their turn, questioning the role of experts in conservation. This workshop will bring these two communities together not because we are under the assumption that one field has the solutions to the problems the other field is confronted with, but because both fields confront similar problems. Rather than transferring ready-made solutions from the domain of art and culture to nature, or vice versa, and simply having one community learn from the other, the workshop will offer a platform for both communities to learn together and progress facing the global challenges mentioned above. 

The confirmed contributors for this workshop are Lotte Arndt, Jackob Badcock, Marjolijn Bol, Josephine Ellis, Noémie Étienne, Sven Dupré, Rodney Harrison, Hanna B. Hölling, Laura J. Martin, Maeva Pimo, Christian Rosset, Friederike Schäfer, Anna Schäffler, Peter Schneemann, Yvonne Schmidt and Glenn Wharton.

We also invite applications from individuals in the Global South, particularly those from underrepresented groups and at early career stages (PhD candidates or early postdocs), to participate in our workshop. Participants may contribute by delivering a short presentation and/or joining discussion groups focused on the aforementioned themes. A subsidy of CHF 1,000 is available to support travel and accommodation for four in-person participants. The workshop and application process will be conducted in English.

Please apply by November 3, 2024, by submitting the following: 1. A motivation letter (maximum 2 pages) detailing your interest in participating in the workshop and a brief research statement explaining how the workshop would benefit your current research 2. A CV (maximum 5 pages), including a list of publications.

Natureculture Lab has been organized by Hanna B. Hölling (HKB Bern Academy of the Arts) and Sven Dupré (Utrecht University/University van Amsterdam) with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation Scientific Exchanges Grant, the Bern University of Applied Science Network Grant and the Institute Materiality in Art and Culture at HKB Bern Academy of the Arts.

Access the full call for participation here.

Research Festival and Exhibition “Conserving Performance: Performing Conservation”

This is a first glimpse into the schedule for a long-awaited research festival and exhibition, “Conserving Performance: Performing Conservation,” which is currently in its final planning phase by the members of the project Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge. The events, which also mark the conclusion of the research project, will take place in venues across Switzerland from September 14 to September 29, 2024.

Please save the dates and join us this fall at Tanzhaus Zürich, ADC Genève, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Muséee cantonal des Beaux-Arts Lausanne/PLATEFORME 10, Dampfzentrale Bern and HKB Bern.

With speakers: Sara Wookey, Megan Metcalf, Peter Pleyer, Catja Loepfe, Declan Whitaker, Florence Jung, Simona Ciuccio, Cori Olighouse, Thomas Plischke, Eszter Salamon, Rachel Mader, Eszter Salamon, Saša Asentić, Nina Mühlemann, Rebecca Gordon, Sabine Gebhardt Fink, Muda Mathis, Andrea Saemann, Dorothea Rust, Chris Regn, Gisela Hochuli, Tabea Lurk, Julia Asperska, Joanna Leśnierowska, Andrej Mirčev, Emilie Magnin and Hanna Hölling. 

Follow this link for a preliminary schedule.

My new essay “Notation and Eternity” published in Nam June Paik: I Expose the Music, by Spector Books

My essay titled “Notation and Eternity in Symphonie No. 5 and Liberation Sonata for Fish” has been recently published in the exquisite new catalog, Nam June Paik: I Expose the Music, by Spector Books. This catalog serves as a companion piece to the exhibition of the same name, currently being showcased at the Museum Ostwall at the Dortmunder U in Germany. The exhibition highlights the pioneering work of video artist Nam June Paik, emphasizing live moments and musical aspects that defined his artistic journey. The exhibit is curated by Rudolf Frieling from SFMOMA, in close partnership with the Museum Ostwall.

In this essay, I aim to analyze the concept of eternity in Nam June Paik’s Symphonie Nr. 5 and Liberation Sonata for Fish, by exploring their formal and conceptual layers. Paik’s scores offer insights into the numerous possibilities for their interpretation, based on his objectual and textual instructions. Moreover, the materiality of the scores’ form is highlighted as a complex assemblage of constantly evolving matter. Through this analysis, the scores’ material condition presents an ontology of openness and indeterminacy, while also portraying a material-bound aesthetic of decay that may suggest finitude or closure. Throughout this essay, I will explore these themes and offer insights into Paik’s artistic vision.

You can download my essay here in English and here in German

The catalog is available for purchase at Spector Books here.

Open Access Publication Grant for the anthology on performance conservation!

How many books can I read? - The Statesman

We are delighted to announce that our forthcoming anthology, Performance: The Ethics and Politics of Conservation and Care, has been granted funds by the Swiss National Foundation to cover the Open Access processing fees. Published by Routledge, the book will be available in hardback, paperback, and e-book formats this summer. For a sneak peek, check out some key details and a brief summary of the book.

Performance: The Ethics and the Politics of Conservation and Care

This book focuses on performance and performance-based artworks as seen through the lens of conservation, which has long been overlooked in the larger theoretical debates about whether and how performance remains.

Unraveling the complexities involved in the conservation of performance, Performance: The Ethics and the Politics of Conservation and Care (vol. 1) brings this new understanding to bear in examining performance as an object of study, experience, acquisition, and care. In so doing, it presents both theoretical frameworks and functional paradigms for thinking about—and enacting—the conservation of performance. Further, while the conservation of performance is undertheorized, performance is nevertheless increasingly entering the art market and the museum, meaning that there is an urgent need for discourse on how to care for these works long-term. In recent years, a few pioneering conservators, curators, and scholars have begun to create frameworks for the long-term care of performance. This volume presents, explicates, and contextualizes their work so that a larger discourse can commence. It will thus serve the needs of conservation students and professors, for whom literature on this subject is sorely needed.

This interdisciplinary book thus implements a novel rethinking of performance that will challenge and revitalize its conception in many fields, such as art history, theater, performance studies, heritage studies, and anthropology.

With chapter contributions by Pip Laurenson, Rebecca Schneider with Hanna Hölling, Gabriella Giannachi, Helia Marcal, Shadreck Chirikure, Iona Goldi-Scott, Brian Castriota with Claire Welsh, Farris Wabeh, Kelli Morgan, Kongo Astronauts (Eléonore Hellio and Michel Ekeba), Dread Scott, Karolina Wilczyńska, Megan Cori Olinghouse with Megan Metcalf, Erin Brannigan and Louise Lawson, Cauleen Smith and Jacob Badcock.

Editors: Hanna B. Hölling, Jules Pelta Feldman and Emilie Magnin

The book has emerged from the collaborative research project, Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge, situated at the Bern University of Applied Sciences – Academy of the Arts and supported by the Swiss National Fund.

Book Presentation: Object-Event-Performance

Wednesday, February 22, 2023, 5 p.m. CET / 11 a.m. EST

The SNSF research project Performance: Conservation, Materiality, Knowledge, in collaboration with the SNSF research project Activating Fluxus, is pleased to host a public presentation of the book titled  Object-Event-Performance: Art, Materiality, and Continuity Since the 1960s (2022; ed. by Hanna B. Hölling). The event will take place within the Research Wednesday seminar series.

Much of the artwork that rose to prominence in the second half of the twentieth century took on novel forms—such as installation, performance, event, video, film, earthwork, and intermedia works with interactive and networked components—that pose a new set of questions about what art actually is, both physically and conceptually. For conservators, this raises an existential challenge when considering what elements of these artworks can and should be preserved.   This event features a book that revisits the traditional notions of conservation and museum collecting that developed over the centuries to suit a conception of art as static, fixed, and permanent objects. Conservators and museum professionals increasingly struggle with issues of conservation for works created from the mid-twentieth to the twenty-first century that are unstable over time. As participants in conservation, the contributors to this volume—often non-conservators—form a community of practice that share common interests.

Speakers include: Hannah B Higgins, Gregory Zinman, Andrea Gyorody and Megan Metcalf. Moderator: Jules Pelta Feldman.

The book asks what it means to conserve artworks that fundamentally address and embody the notion of change and, through this questioning, guide us to reevaluate the meaning of art, of objects, and of materiality itself.  Object-Event-Performance considers a selection of post-1960s artworks that have all been chosen for their instability, changeability, performance elements, and processes that pose questions about their relationship to conservation practices. With chapters by Hannah B Higgins, Hanna B. Hölling, Gregory Zinman, Andrea Gyorody, Alison D’Amato, Megan Metcalf, Rebecca Uchill, Susanne Neubauer, Beryl Graham and Johannes Hedinger, this book aims to become a welcome resource on contemporary conservation for art historians, scholars of performance, dance, theater and museum studies, curators, and conservators.

The book has been published by Bard Graduate Center, within the series Cultural Histories of the Material World (series editor: Peter Miller) and is available from the University of Chicago Press (PDF and cloth).