Symbiotic Lab reimagines relationships between humans and the more-than-human world. Through art, design, research, technology, and participation, we create experiences that transform how people sense, understand and care for the living systems they are part of. We believe art can function as a bridge, making invisible ecological processes tangible, creating emotional connection, and opening spaces for new cultural imaginaries. Our work explores how rivers, landscapes, animals plants and other living entities can be understood not as passive resources, but as active participants with agency, memory, and intrinsic value. We see Symbiotic Lab as an evolving ecosystem of collaborators, thinkers, makers, and caretakers. If our vision resonates with you, we warmly invite you to connect, collaborate, and co-create new possibilities together.
Our Services
Design
We develop immersive spatial experiences, installations, objects, and visual systems that translate complex ecological and cultural narratives into tangible and emotionally engaging forms. Our design approach combines artistic research, material experimentation, technology, and storytelling to create meaningful connections between people and their environments.
Curation
We curate exhibitions, public programmes, and interdisciplinary gatherings that bring together artists, scientists, activists, and communities around urgent ecological and societal questions. Through thoughtful dramaturgy and collaborative formats, we create spaces for dialogue, participation, and new collective imaginaries.
Strategy
We support institutions, cultural initiatives, and mission-driven organisations in developing visionary concepts, narratives, and long-term ecological strategies. By combining systems thinking, artistic methodologies, and cultural research, we help shape projects that are both critically grounded and publicly impactful.
Our Projects
Co
Confluence 2026
Berlin
Rights of Nature
2026
The Confluence of European Water Bodies is a growing alliance of rivers, lakes, seas, lagoons, glaciers, and water communities working toward the legal, cultural, and political recognition of water bodies as living entities with rights.
From 3–6 September 2026, the fourth edition of the Confluence flows to Berlin, where artists, researchers, activists, legal practitioners, and water stewards from across Europe gather along the River Spree to explore new forms of ecological stewardship, multispecies democracy, and the Rights of Nature through workshops, performances, assemblies, rituals, and collective action.
From 3–6 September 2026, the fourth edition of the Confluence flows to Berlin, where artists, researchers, activists, legal practitioners, and water stewards from across Europe gather along the River Spree to explore new forms of ecological stewardship, multispecies democracy, and the Rights of Nature through workshops, performances, assemblies, rituals, and collective action.
Rs
Rechte der Spree
Berlin
Rights of Nature
2025
We are the Spree, the Spree is us, it is time that the Spree receives rights of its own.
As a lifeline for the capital and large parts of Brandenburg, it serves simultaneously as a source of drinking water, a transport route, a cultural landmark, and a space for recreation.
Yet the river ecosystem is increasingly under pressure from chemical legacies of Lusatian lignite mining, microplastics, overuse, and ever more frequent periods of low water levels.
Our approach therefore goes beyond conventional water protection programmes: we seek to recognise the Spree as a legal subject in its own right, with legally anchored rights to exist, regenerate, and be represented in court.
As a lifeline for the capital and large parts of Brandenburg, it serves simultaneously as a source of drinking water, a transport route, a cultural landmark, and a space for recreation.
Yet the river ecosystem is increasingly under pressure from chemical legacies of Lusatian lignite mining, microplastics, overuse, and ever more frequent periods of low water levels.
Our approach therefore goes beyond conventional water protection programmes: we seek to recognise the Spree as a legal subject in its own right, with legally anchored rights to exist, regenerate, and be represented in court.
Ir
Irideszenz
Berlin, Rosegarden
Exhibition
2025
Inspired by a fascination with the dragonfly, IRIDESCENCE unfolds as a poetic interplay of light, structure, and perception. Using Sparxell’s photonic material, the work reveals how microscopic structures refract light and generate shimmering colours. Through live microscopy, viewers are invited into these fragile patterns and hidden worlds. In doing so, the sculpture bridges art and science, encouraging reflection on the relationship between nature, water, and life.
Hu
SpreeBerlin BOJE
Berlin, HU FORUM
Exhibition
2025
On Water – Humboldt Forum From October 2025, the Spree buoy developed by Jakob Kukula in collaboration with the TU (Alexander Mohr) will be part of the exhibition On Water. WaterKnowledge in Berlin. Measuring water quality and visualising data, it raises the question of whether a river should hold rights – merging technology, ecology, and design.
Aw
A Wing that was a Hand
Köln
Artwork
2025
Taking flight, feeling the wind through feathers, seeing with closed eyelids, and perceiving the smallest details: birds possess radically different sensory systems and anatomies from humans — and from one another. Their long histories of domestication, as well as their mythological and symbolic meanings, make them a compelling model through which to explore more-than-human perception.In this project, Pascal Marcel Dreier and Paula Maya Strunden combine their artistic methods involving mixed reality, motion capture, body tracking, animation, and game design. Together, they are developing a new XR installation that approaches the perspectives of falcons and other animal forms of perception through artistic research and immersive experience.Curated and accompanied by Leoni Fischer, the project is being realised within the framework of the Medienkunstfellows 2025 programme and is based at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM) during the development phase. Throughout the fellowship, a workshop and a public conversation will take place at the KHM’s Multispecies Studio.
Vv
Veden Vire - Phase I
Finnland, Berlin, Monom
Performance and Installation
2025
Veden Vire is an electro-acoustic composition, installation, and performance by Jasmine Alakari and Jakob Kukula that understands water as a sonic co-creator. Inspired by Karelian-Finnish mythology, ecological research, and hydrofeminist theory, the work merges field recordings from endangered landscapes, live data from North Karelia, and the kantele with immersive light and spatial sound.
Co
Wir sind die Spree
Berlin
Constellation
2025
The Constellation for the Spree gathered artists, lawyers, activists, and citizens to explore the perspectives of the river and its more-than-human co-inhabitants. Using the constellation method, a space of resonance was created to reflect on the rights of the river, human responsibility, and new ways of living in balance with nature.
Oc
What if the Ocean Were a City?
Berlin
Video Live Stream
2025
The video project accompanying Rasa Weber’s underwater sculpture explores the hidden life of the Spree beneath its surface. Through a custom-built live-streaming module, developed by Jakob Kukula and Alexander Mohr, the sculpture is connected directly to the river, transmitting real-time underwater footage.
Gs
Guiding Spirits
Elbe
Sculpture, Doumentary
2024
Guiding Spirits is a research-based art project exploring the Elbe River’s myths and ecosystems from Dresden to Hamburg. Through a four-day journey, Symbiotic Lab collected stories of human and non-human life, resulting in a hybrid creature folding screen, an audio piece, and a journey-marked flag. The project reflects on interdependence, resilience, and the hidden connections within the river’s ecosystem.
Ds
Diplomatic Suitcase
Europe
Travelling Exhibition
2024
The Diplomatic Suitcase is a traveling exhibition piece symbolizing the collective voices of European water bodies. It holds artifacts contributed by grassroots communities, representing seas, rivers, lakes, and lagoons across Europe. These items embody the spirit of care, activism, and the urgent call to protect our interconnected water ecosystems.
Rw
Sensing the River
Berlin
RiverWalk
2024
Rc
Between Roots & Crowns
Cottbus, Branitz
Park Interventions
2024
Three site-specific interventions form a tour through the eastern part of Branitz Park. These focus on various aspects that present Branitz and its Tree University as a laboratory for the future. Topics include trees in a changing climate, the park ecosystem, the preservation of the garden monument and the pioneering role of the Branitz University of Trees in this area.
Wr
Wild River Prelude
Zurich
Performance
2024
Live Performance Installation at Toni Areal Orgel Saal in Zürich for the School of Commons program and at the AKM Istanbul for the Digital Art Festival in Istanbul.
Europe’s pristine river sounds, manipulated in real-time by Pietro Dossena with a modular synthesizer, creates a unique sonic landscape. Audience interaction, guided by a gyroscopic sensor, allows personalized spatial manipulation. The installation raises awareness for river conservation, blending natural and electronic sounds, accompanied by visual art from Jakob Kukula and live acoustic music interactions.
Curators: Jasmine Alakari & Ric Acciarino
Supported by the School of Commons
Europe’s pristine river sounds, manipulated in real-time by Pietro Dossena with a modular synthesizer, creates a unique sonic landscape. Audience interaction, guided by a gyroscopic sensor, allows personalized spatial manipulation. The installation raises awareness for river conservation, blending natural and electronic sounds, accompanied by visual art from Jakob Kukula and live acoustic music interactions.
Curators: Jasmine Alakari & Ric Acciarino
Supported by the School of Commons
Ww
WeWater
Berlin
Exhibition
2023
WeWater brings together perspectives from design, art and science around the theme of water at Berlin's Paul Lincke Ufer.
The baseline for the exhibition is the urban design "SpreeVision-Osthafen", which was developed by the SpreeBerlin initiative. The design shows the scenario of a socially and ecologically transformed Spree in the section of the Osthafen basin.
The baseline for the exhibition is the urban design "SpreeVision-Osthafen", which was developed by the SpreeBerlin initiative. The design shows the scenario of a socially and ecologically transformed Spree in the section of the Osthafen basin.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Sv
SpreeVision
Osthafen
Project
2023
Mm
MetaMorphosis
Europa
Performance
2021 - 2022
The MetaMorphosis project, initiated in 2021 by artist Jakob Kukula and developed with artist Xaver Hirsch, composer Ben Meerwein, and ecologist Esteban Menares, explores the habitat of insects through interdisciplinary collaboration.
They researched insect life in the Ammersee region during a residency, creating an artistic ritual that combined acoustic and visual impressions in an immersive audio-visual performance. The project's method, consisting of a scientific lecture, workshop, and performance, now unfolds at different locations like the Berlin environmental education center
"Im Nirgendwo" and Art Biesenthal in Brandenburg (2022).
They researched insect life in the Ammersee region during a residency, creating an artistic ritual that combined acoustic and visual impressions in an immersive audio-visual performance. The project's method, consisting of a scientific lecture, workshop, and performance, now unfolds at different locations like the Berlin environmental education center
"Im Nirgendwo" and Art Biesenthal in Brandenburg (2022).
Mm
MetaMorphosis
Europe
Publication
2022
The starting point for the publication project MetaMorphosis is an understanding of humans as part of an assemblage of human and non-human actors that is always already in the process of becoming. In addition to concrete ideas on how to counteract the fatal species extinction of insects, this volume brings together contributions that spark the curiosity of readers in artistic, poetic, or philosophical ways and offer diverse approaches to the topic of metamorphosis.
Lw
Living With Uncertainty
Munich
Residency
2022
In the artistic project "Living with Uncertainties" at the Ebenböckhaus Residency in Munich, Florentin Aisslinger, Leonardo Pellegrino and Jakob Kukula address the question of how we can deal with today's uncertainties. Fear, uncertainty and discomfort serve as a compass. Amidst closely intertwined environmental, socio-political, and economic phenomena, we are experiencing a crisis of meaning, sense, and narrative. To confront this crisis, new forms of unified engagement and conscious persistence in uncertainty are needed.
Us
Unseal The City
Berlin
Intervention
2021
Soil sealing reduces ecological functions and alters the exchange of energy, water and gases between the area below and above a soil sealing layer. This has a direct negative impact on plant and animal biodiversity, such as the loss of plants and animals and their natural habitats. Plant biodiversity stimulates soil biodiversity and leads to increased soil function. Loss of natural habitat has been identified as one of the main reasons for recent declines in insect populations. The project is an “unsealing campaign” that invites the guests of a techno open air to while enjoying the music unseal a 12m2 area of a huge parking lot.
Sc
SynchroniCities
Berlin
Exhibition
2021
Which strategies can help to promote transformative processes of becoming-with? How do we create a mode of being in which all species co-exist equally? Which tools can help to look, listen and feel more closely? The participating urbanists, artists, designers and scientists present planet-centeric formats, ideas and projects that use all senses to investigate urban futures. The SynchroniCities exhibition invites you on an adventurous journey towards possible answers.
Sb
SpreeBerlin
Berlin
Initiative
2020-2023
In the context of the climate crisis and the accompanying social change, the project by Jakob Kukula examines the relationship between Berlin and the Spree, the urban space, the citizens and the body of water. How can the river be given its own "political" voice, and what can help to create more awareness for the Spree and the influence of humans?
Pf
Peatland Forensics
Weimar
Project
2021
Peatland Forensics engages the phenomenon of environmental mourning through a site-specific design and grieving process. What does it mean to grieve for a landscape? The term ecological grief describes negative emotions brought on by experiencing indirect or direct consequences of the climate crisis.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
Dp
DeProfundis
Sindelfingen
Exhibition
2023
Using various digital media, Pascal Marcel Dreier assembles an activist, an NGO, a major record company, and a well-known musician into an unlikely crew. In the interactive video installation, they enter a thrilling vortex of facts and fictions, appropriations and counter-appropriations, in which their roles ceaselessly reconfigure.
