Jiří Zemánek: Architecture and urbanism in symbiosis with natural systems

Richard Buckminster Fuller, Biodome, Montreal 1967 / today Museum of the Biosphere

“It is time to move from simply mitigating the negatives to optimizing the positives.” – Sarah Ichioka and Michael Pawlyn This is the text of a lecture that the author gave at the ninth seminar of the PILGRIM Traveling University of Nature “From the Anthropocene to the Symbiocene or Paths to a Life-Supporting Civilization” in Toulcov dvůr in Prague Hostivař on Friday, August 16, 2024. Introduction: Fuller, Register and Wines Introduction to this…

Jiří Zemánek: From the Anthropocene to the Symbiocene

Restoration of the Cheonggyecheon stream in downtown Seoul (repro photo)

“In times of bleakness, it is useful to revive our ability to imagine a better future.” Adrian J. Ivakhiv This is the text of a lecture that the author gave on August 16 of this year at the seminar “From the Anthropocene to the Symbiocene or Paths to a Life-Supporting Civilization” (Toulcův dvůr, Prague Hostivař, August 12-18, 2024). It discusses the birth of the idea of the Symbiocene (ecological civilization) and presents two…

Jiří Zemánek: Where there is life, there are rights... or From the Anthropocene to the Symbiocene

From the BARK performance by the international art group Acting for Climate (forest near Oslo, Norway 2021).

“A new wave of change is flowing through the zeitgeist, bringing with it a desire for action, for fundamental change, and for humanity to be reintegrated into the community of Earth.” Cormac Cullinan This is an abbreviated text of a lecture on the rights of nature at the eighth seminar of the Pilgrim Anima Animalia and the Rights of Nature Association’s Traveling University of Nature in Horní Maršov, given on August 10, 2023. The steeply rising crisis…

Freya Mathews: Let animals and nature do more of the work

Freya Mathews' lecture at a seminar at DOTEK in Horní Maršov (photo: J. Zemánek)

As part of this year's eighth seminar of the Traveling University of Nature "Anima Animalia and the Rights of Nature" (DOTEK in Horní Maršov), on Thursday, August 11, leading Australian eco-philosopher Freya Mathews gave an online lecture "Let Animals and Nature Do More Work", in which she summarized some of the conclusions of her latest book The Dao of Civilization (Tao Civilizace, 2023). In it, she reflected on the...

Luděk Čertík: I listen, I bow

Morning listening and recording from Bratislava's Vtáčnik hill

Most of us listen to music at least sometimes, rarely – like in confession – do we listen to each other. The listening I want to talk about here, listening to the world, goes beyond the framework of human culture, interpersonal relationships. When I talk about listening to the world, I mean not only all the pleasant and unpleasant sounds produced by human activities (on a scale from an opera aria to a deafening…