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AKI BIO MATTERs
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Programme

Programme

Can we imagine and pursue other forms of living - different practices, habits, and desires - that will not just allow us to live as we do, but instead transform us?

Symbiosis of theory and practice

During lecture discussions, readings and workshops the programme goes into problems, methods and ideas as they arise within the life sciences, philosophy, ethics and ecology. The goal of BIO MATTERs is to bring new methodologies and ways of thinking into the artistic and design realm where difficult yet urgent ecological and aesthetic questions are critically researched through material practice. This allows urgent questions to be raised hands-on, when we immediately experience our role and responsibility before the living bodies we create with.

Lecturers

Dr. Agnieszka Anna Wołodźko is head of the programme. She has a background in philosophy of art, art and science relations, posthumanism and new materialism. During the programme, she gives lectures and practical workshops that complement each other and guide students in their research.

Collaborating tutors:
Patrick Mangnus, who teaches about biomaterial methods in graphic arts.
Aalt van de Glind, who teaches about non-human and non-lens photography.

The programme invites various artists and designers as guest teachers. Previous guest teachers were: Raphael Kim, Aniela Hoitink, Sonja Bäumel, Zeger Reyers, Špela Petrič, Adam Zaretsky, Pei-Ying Lin, Christine van der Heide, Adriana Knouf, Roland van Dierendonck, Maro Pebo, Merle Bergers and Helena Sanders.

Publications and past events

Publications:

Past (public) events/workshops:

  • Posthuman Pedagogies in Practice, workshop by Agnieszka Anna Wołodźko during conference Future Art School; (Un)learning Practices, 30 November 2023
  • Matters of Witches, Plants and Potions, program on decolonial and material feminist take on how we gather knowledge led by A.A.Wołodźko within Artez Honours Lab and AKI Biomatters collaboration, 2022-2023.
  • Matters of Demons, Ghost and Aliens, program on relational and more than human ways of knowing and sensing led by A.A.Wołodźko within Artez Honours Lab and AKI Biomatters collaboration, 2022-2023.
  • Sentient Encounters: series of film screenings and discussions on reimagining and reclaiming sentience to describe relations with bodies that are still excluded from meaning-making practices. Collaboration between Sjoerd van Oevelen (Department head of Moving Image, AKI Enschede), Agnieszka Anna Wołodźko (initiator and lecturer AKI BIO MATTTERs), and supported by ArtEZ studium generale, 2022
  • Living Matters online exhibition – storytelling by AKI Bio Matters research on the precarity that has always been now, June 2020
  • How on Earth presents Living Images – movie screening series on ecologies of vision in collaboration with Artez Studium Generale 2019
  • Biodesign of Plastocene exhibition and symposium at Tetem 27 March – 7 April 2019. The present exhibition was a result of the artistic research programme at AKI BIO MATTERs in 2018/2019 that addresses the problems of anthropocene and materially speculates on possible scenarios of change through biodesign practice
  • Science-Friction workshop and symposium at the Design Lab UT Twente 22 November 2017 – symposium on the contemporary discussions around the practices of biotechnologies that asked how new biotech bodies create disruptions that change our way of living. It was the joint production by AKI and DesignLab University of Twente curated by Agnieszka Anna Wołodźko and Frank Kresin.