Mapping Animals in Global Spaces

Human-animal interferences occur in specific spatial settings. Animals are and have been affected spatially by various human actions and endeavors including migration, agricultural exploitation, war, trade, geographical exploration, scientific expeditions, imperialism, and colonialism. But, the ‘silent (or not so silent) neighbors’ do not merely surround humans; they too are migrants as well as active producers of space and built environments. Much as human beings migrate, create, and shape the space around them, animals create dwellings as natural spectacles, form and transform natural (and urban) landscapes, and interact with humans in space through resistance, co-habitation, and (re-)occupation. Artificial environments may relocate nonhumans from ‘wilderness’ to ‘civilized’ enclosures, whereas humans benefit from spaces created by animals.

Moving beyond narratives of subordination and oppression, this interdisciplinary workshop aims to foster a critical debate by exploring spaces that create significant interspaces of tension and confrontation, but also conciliation and coexistence (sometimes even mutual dependence), between humans and nonhumans. Particular attention will be given to artistic practices and architecture and their relations to ecological, anthropological, historiographical, and methodological debates. The workshop is eager to understand how animal spaces have been observed, documented, perceived, and imitated on a global horizon. Furthermore, it questions what impact these practices (and therefore the agency of animals) had or have on human space and what future perspectives regarding built and shaped environments are.

PROGRAM

Thursday, January 25th 

10.30 Welcome (Gerhard Wolf)
10.40–11.10 Introduction (Christine Kleiter and Lianming Wang) 

Panel I: Animals in Architecture
Chair: Hana Gründler
11.10-11.40 Anna Blume (New York), The Creative Practice of Spiders 
11.40-12.10 Mary Danisi (Cornell/Rome), Obscure Architecture: Boukrania, Fillets, and Light Effects of the Mysteries 
12.10-12.40 Sanja Savkić Šebek (London), The Significance of Animals in the Artistic and Architectural Traditions of the Ancient Maya   
12.40-13.00 Discussion

Lunch Break

Panel II: Spaces of Symbiosis 
Chair: Hannah Baader
14.00-14.30 Elizabeth Tavella (Chicago/Rome), The Biopolitical (Un)making of the Wild: Liminal Ecologies in the Zoo
14.30-15.00 Tairan An (Princeton), Incidental Artifacts: Aquatic Epistemologies and the Architecture of Water-Biology at the Bay of Naples, c. 1870s (online)
15.00-15.30 Gianlorenzo Chiaraluce (Rome), Relational Hives: Artistic Practices of Interconnection between Bees and Humans   
15.30-15.45 Discussion

15.45–16.00 – Coffee Break

Panel III: Animals in Pictorial Space 
Chair: Lianming Wang
16.00-16.30 Chloé Pluchon-Riera (Grenoble), Margins: Specific Spatial Settings for Animals in Early Modern Italian Paintings (online)
16.30-17.00 Dingding Wang (San Diego), Coving Whales: The Poetics and Visuality of Japanese Traditional Whaling
17.00-17.30 Mei Mei Rado (New York), Woven Animals: the Tenture des Indes for the Qing emperor 
17.30-17.45 Discussion
18.00-18.45 Troy Vettese (Florence), Half-Earth Socialism in One Country

Friday, January 26th

Panel IV: Spaces of Livestock 
Chair: Christine Kleiter
14.00-14.30 Zhengfeng Wang (Leiden), A City of Three Abattoirs 
14.30-15.00 Sofia Nannini (Turin), Architects and the Design of Animal Farming: Cedric Price’s Research Documents for Westpen (1977-79)
15.00-15.30 Filiz Tütüncü Çağlar (Berlin), Of Horses and Men: Archaeology of Stables in Medieval Cappadocia
15.30-15.45 Discussion

15.45–16.00 – Coffee Break

Panel V: Animals and Urbanism 
Chair: Gerhard Wolf
16.00-16.30 Noemi Quagliati (Venice), Flying Visions, Atmospheres, Chicken Eggs: The Bird Space in the History of Photography
16.30-17.00 Nathalie Kerschen (Rome), Urbs animalis: a Situated Case Study of Rome’s Animals as Co-habitants, Dwellers & Agents
17.00-17.30 Anna Caramuru Aubert & Laura Pappalardo (Münster/Sao Paolo), Reimagining Interspecies Relations: Challenging Human Exceptionalism through Artistic, Architectural, and Place-Making Animal Agency (online)
17.30-17.45 Discussion

17.45-18.00 Conclusion (Gerhard Wolf)