The bird, the beetle, the chicken, the human, the mushroom, and the aspen tree .. 

We place them in fixed terms, often in singular form, classified and sorted like in museum cabinets or like characters in a spectacle, objectified as living things. Critics argue that organisms and kinds of organisms are never fixed objects, but rather entangled and interlaced fluid assemblages that "stay with the trouble“ (Haraway), build "agencements“ (Despret), and seek "correspondence" (Ingold). And, hence, they focus on agency, interrelation and meaning. Yet, our encounters, relations and presences with human and non-human living beings are tangible and without doubt have a bodily aspect. We encounter embodied living beings not as abstract relations, as actors not as actions. This opens the question how to represent life-material and bodies of living beings and at the same time avoiding the pitfalls of objectification.

In an open conversation at SOLU Space with Bartaku (artist, FI/BE), Björn Kröger (paleontologist, FI/DE), Marietta Radomska (philosopherFI/SE/PL) and Mari Keski-Korsu (artist, FI), we will ask if this is possible at all or even desirable.

Free entry, welcome!

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Image: Björn Kröger