An oral examination of “A Journal of the Plague Year”, an exhibition organized by Cosmin Costinas and Inti Guerrero that was shown in Para Site.

The “end of the world” is a seemingly interminable topic at least, of course, until it happens. Environmental catastrophe and planetary apocalypse are subjects of enduring fascination and, as ethnographic studies show, human cultures have approached them in very different ways.

Hong Kong has the highest density of restaurants in the world. There is one restaurant for every 300 people. But it imports most of the food, which leads to problems that should not be underestimated.

(Voluntary) Labour of Love introduces work as prefigurative politics – facing the chimera of capitalism, hegemony and collusion. The short lecture will discuss how Hong Kong’s socio-political and environmental conditions can become catalysts towards ecological heterotopias and a more equitable society.

Stan Hok-Wui Wong will offer a brief introduction to Hongkong’s political history, the state and the socio-economic elite, the rise of the “real estate hegemony” in post-1997 Hong Kong and its (unintended) consequences.

We propose a day of thinking together through the exciting possibilities as well as the problems and challenges in both the terminology around as well as the practical aspects of dealing with ecologies in the Arts. 

Forest ecosystems exist since more than 300 million years and are nowadays faced with major changes, as for example biodiversity loss, aliens and climate changes. We dive in-situ in one of the most crucial ecosystems of our planet and review the impact of human activities.

In the slipstream of ecological debates the topic of landscape comes to the fore with a multilayered understanding including transdisciplinary and transcultural perspectives. Most human beings rely on a sense of place and carry images and perceptions of and values attached to landscapes or environments that were relevant for their identity building. Such spaces and ideas form the backdrop of socialization and individuation but also of landscape development. This talk focusses on landscape as a human attitude towards nature and on their manifold sources and histories.