Announcement Climate Care 2023

by Lorna McDowell // Sept. 19, 2023

The third edition of the Climate Care festival takes place this year from September 21st to 30th at Floating Berlin (otherwise known as Floating University)—the rainwater retention basin of the former Berlin-Tempelhof airport. Under the stewardship of nonprofit organisation Floating e.V, the location has become a nature-culture learning site oriented towards “more-than-human eco-organising.” Climate Care 2023 continues this radical ethos with the theme ‘CritterKratia’, an amalgamation of the words “critter”—defined as a “usually endearing creature or animal”—and “kratia,” alluding to the Greek word for strength or power.

Climate Care 2021 // Photo by Constanze Flamme

The concept of ‘CritterKratia’ draws on the ideas of Indigenous scientist and herbalist Robin Wall Kimmerer to imagine a “beyond-human democracy,” in this case one that honours the reeds, frogs and all life forms within and of the basin at the Floating site. Kimmerer writes in ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ (2013): “If citizenship is a matter of shared beliefs, then I believe in the democracy of species… If good citizens agree to uphold the laws of the nation, then I choose natural law, the law of reciprocity, of regeneration, of mutual flourishing.” Climate Care 2023 is a space to imagine together with the public what Kimmerer’s democracy might look like on the site of Floating Berlin.

Climate Care 2021 // Photo by Constanze Flamme

Workshops, readings and artistic interventions in the basin will delve into ideas and models that emphasise social and environmental wellbeing, such as more-than-human organising, hybridised modes of food production, alternative models for income and radical sharing-based co-habitation. Berlin-Wedding-based project SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA by bi’bak—a transnational space for film culture, art, knowledge and community—will present films that use experimental hybrid aesthetics and narrative forms to depart from anthropocentric perspectives and explore our ecological past, present and future. Also part of this year’s program, members of Indonesian art collective ruangrupa will share the adaptable mutual care practice of “lumbung” (the Indonesian word for communal rice barn), whereby surplus harvest is stored for the benefit of the community and enables an alternative economy of collectivity, shared resource-building and equitable distribution.

Climate Care 2021 // Photo by Constanze Flamme

The Climate Care festival first took place in 2019 with the aim of addressing climate breakdown by developing a curriculum for urban practice. Its second edition in 2021 questioned the biological and ethical implications of re-wilding the site of Floating Berlin, a strategy that had been proposed by the city, but which threatens the biodiversity of the basin, now a space where numerous species co-habit. Climate Care 2023 continues to reimagine the relationship between the rainwater retention basin and Floating e.V. The diverse program will encourage festival-goers to ask, what can we learn about organising from patterns in nature? And can these these nature-inspired modes of organising promote a more livable future?