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We are thrilled to announce the call for papers for the upcoming issue of Kunstlicht dedicated to the ecological and discursive potential of swamps within artistic practices and design cultures.
Recent projects, such as Turba Tol Hol-Hol Tol presented at the Chilean Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022 and Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas’ retrospective Partially Swamped Institution at the Vilnius National Gallery of Art in 2023, oppose dominant interpretations and representations of the swamp as hostile, underdeveloped, and unprofitable and reveal the ongoing (post)colonial and climate crimes that are connected to these kinds of landscapes. With organic and archival materials and immersive multisensorial installations, the projects point to the potential of swamps as complex ecosystems of human and non-human coexistence and as political agents able to reverse colonial logic and provide bases for community-based activism and resistance.[1]
For this issue of Kunstlicht, we invite you to think with us and imagine the potential of swamps through art and design practices. What insights does studying (the history and the representation of) swamps with their many human and non-human inhabitants bring? How do these transitional areas between land and water afford other ways of physical and ethical connections to the environment in a time of deep ecological crisis and social injustice? What can artistic practices and design cultures learn from swamps (as spaces or metaphors) in order to create or imagine other ways of being in the world? And how can art practices and design cultures contribute to raising awareness of the swamp’s potential?
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