METAMORPHOSIS WORKSHOP SERIEs
2021 NIRGENDWO, Brandenburg

The interdisciplinary project MetaMorphosis, was initiated in 2021 by designer Jakob and developed with artist Xaver Hirsch, composer Ben Meerwein and ecologist Esteban Menares. In the course of a residency at Ammersee, they researched the habitat of insects in the region. A wild meadow that was planted by the team in the house's garden. All around they created an artistic ritual that gathered acoustic and visual impressions of the site into an immersive audio-visual performance including various mediums such as live microscopy. Previously, the artists worked with visitors* to fill a site-specific sculptural insect habitat with local natural materials. In this way, insects, their life forms and needs became the focus of attention.This sequence, consisting of a scientific impulse lecture, a workshop and the audio-visual performance has since developed into a method that allows the project to unfold and evolve in analogy to a metamorphosis cycle, at ever new locations: most recently at the Berlin environmental education center Im Nirgendwo and in Brandenburg at Art Biesenthal 2022.

metamorphosis publication
2022 entkunstung

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.This interdisciplinary framework stems from the conviction that change in thought and action cannot be initiated solely through the presentation and understanding of imperatives. In order to understand what has been lost and will be lost in the future due to climate change, we need to understand the world with all our senses. MetaMorphosis therefore proposes artistic and poetic positions as allies of the sciences, which have long been alarmingly pointing to the catastrophic situation of the world.

With contributions by: Julian Charrière, Kate Chen, Monika Dorniak, Lea Grebe,Felipe Duque, Nikolaus Eckhard, Richard Frater, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Henrik Håkansson, Xaver Hirsch,Fabian Knecht, Jakob Kukula, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Niklas Liebetrau, Swantje Martach, Ben Meerwein, Esteban Menares, Prof. Dr. Michael Ohl, Janosch Reiter, Anna Ridler, Julia Sommerfeld, Symbiotic Spaces, Foreword by Leoni Fischer.The publication was produced in cooperation with Entkunstung. Click here to go to the shop. Design: Maximilian Mauracher