KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory at Berlin Anthropocene Event
Sverker Sörlin and Sabine Höhler presented the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory in a four-day event titled The Anthropocene Project – An Opening, which took place at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin from January 10 to 13.
The Anthropocene Project is a joint initiative of the HKW, the Max Planck Society, the Deutsches Museum Munich, the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society Munich and the Potsdam Institute for Advanced Studies. The project addresses the recent proposition of the Anthropocene as the new geological age and the historical era in which humans and their interventions into nature and environment have become a major geological force that tremendously and often irreversibly changed the face of the planet. The Anthropocene thesis captures the observation that on the one hand human agency has become as powerful as a natural force while on the other hand humankind is increasingly affected by anthropogenic design losing control of the unintended consequences, as presently witnessed with global climate change. The conference, which opened up the two-year Anthropocene project, brought together artists and scholars from diverse backgrounds to discuss and explore how humans could and would like to inhabit planet Earth in the future, and which transitions in human relations to their environment will be required. In the Anthropocenic Research Forum Sörlin and Höhler put to discussion ideas about Anthropocene Education and the question of how to shape a post-disciplinary environment.
Read more on the website of the HKW Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin http://www.hkw.de/de/programm/2013/anthropozaen/anthropozaen_76723.php
Read the article on the opening day in Der Tagesspiegel (11 January 2013) http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/haus-der-kulturen-der-welt-und-der-mensch-machte-sich-die-erde-untertan-/7619820.html