#24 Between Us and Nature – A Reading Club

Yanomami Gardens - Growing Plants in the Amazon

Thursday, August 8 2019 - 17:00

at Climate Care Festival -A Curriculum for Urban Practice 
Floating University Berlin

in collaboration with Zabriskie Buchladen für Kultur und Natur

Forest trees and garden plants do not grow all by themselves, as white people think. Our forest is vast and beautiful. But it is not like this without reason. Its value of growth makes it so. This is what we call në rope. Nothing would grow there without it. It comes and goes like a visitor, making plants grow everywhere on its path. Kopenawa & Albert, 2013

How do forests and plants live and think according to alternate cosmovisions?

Through the ongoing dialogue between Davi Kopenawa, Shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon, and anthropologist Bruce Albert, the collaborative book "The Falling Sky - Words of a Yanomami Shaman" came to life.

This is an invitation to gather with an open mind and read together out loud. Collectively we will read passages from the book "The Falling Sky". We will learn from Yanomami culture, their spirits and ideas around the ‘value of growth of the forest’ (urihi a në rope).

Over the last 2 years, our monthly gathering at Zabriskie bookshop in Berlin is organically growing. ‘Between Us and Nature – A Reading Club’ becomes both a live performance event enfolding while happening and a collective practice of transdisciplinary learning co-shaped by each participant.

We, co-founders and hosts, are Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky, artist, and Sina Ribak, researcher for ecologies and the arts. We push each others boundaries inherited from our original disciplines, investigating art and ecology in a sympoietic practice.

The Reading Club itself becomes a garden. A dynamic ecosystem nurtured by our collective urge to read and investigate as a group. Our nerdy explorations involve natural sciences, art activism, anthropology, postcolonialism, (post)anthropocene, from a female perspective. Looking beyond disciplines we learn from seeds, mushrooms, soil, multinaturalist narratives and the genomic revolution.

With  ‘Between Us and Nature’ we host a space of empowerment - creating hope and change.

Those who would like to attend the reading session, please rsvp via email to betweenusnature@gmail.com​ until Wednesday 7th of August and you’ll receive a selection of texts.

PLEASE NOTE: IN TERMS OF SUSTAINABILITY WE WILL NOT PRINT OUT THE TEXT.

BRING YOUR COPY ON A DIGITAL DEVICE OF YOUR CHOICE OR PRINTED OUT! :-)

What:​ The Reading Club is in English language

Where​: Floating University Berlin: Regenwasserrückhaltebecken, Lilienthalstraße 32,10965 Berlin-Kreuzberg ( in collaboration with Zabriskie Buchladen für Kultur und Natur)

When:​ Thursday August 8, 2019, 17.00 (sharp!)

Who:​ small group of lovely, people who would like to meet you (rsvp only, not suitable for children)

Why:​ to read together, be inspired and meet people

Note: ​Bring your copy of the text as print out or on a digital device

Hosts:​ Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky, artist, and Sina Ribak, researcher for ecologies and the arts

References:

1 "The Falling Sky Words of a Yanomami Shaman" by Davi Kopenawa and Bruce Albert. published by Harvard University Press, 2013.