It kills plants, breaks down ecological structures, sets molecules adrift, shuffles species, opens up niches,
and for a time rewires the flow of energy and nutrients. Fire upsets, quickens, shreds, reorganizes, and rejuvenates. Pyne, 2021

As you read this, multiple devastating forest fires are burning somewhere around the globe. Fire is more than a dangerous side-effect of global heating, it is an integral part of ecologies and human history. And contrary to the proverb, fire can be fought with fire.

#52 Fire Landscapes is a session in collaboration with Lisa Hoffmann who is sharing her ongoing research around fire. She invites us to take a closer look at the many facets of fire and fire ecology, including the narratives and assumptions that have shaped human’s relation to this element.

While fire ecologist Stephen Pyne is proposing to use our relation to fire as a defining feature of the current eco-eco-crisis, Robin Wall Kimmerer is inviting us to think about a different kind of relation to the fire.

Between Us and Nature is an ongoing reading club that chooses texts related to natural sciences, art, anthropology, postcolonialism and the (post)anthropocene from a eco-feminist perspective. Attendees read passages together out loud, and share experiences and thoughts about the nature they live in. Looking beyond disciplines, the group creates a space to learn from and with bacteria, algae, fungi, soil and multinaturalist narratives.