Exploring Circularity Through Science and Art
Within the framework of the Klima Biennale Wien, a unique collaboration between science and art highlighted CircEUlar’s research findings through the lens of artists.
Over a four-month period, a distinguished curator, Nora Mayr, facilitated dynamic exchanges between four groups of researchers from CircEUlar with the artists Barbara Kapusta, Borjana Ventzislavova, Julian Palacz, and Imayna Caceres. Under the title “Sensing Resonance“, these collaborative efforts resulted in a series of artworks that were unveiled for the first time at the Vienna Climate Summit, held at KunstHausWien on 24 and 25 June 2024.
The initiative aims to enrich cultural education by fostering forward-thinking concepts for schools and extracurricular learning programmes. Bringing together the public and stakeholders from culture, science, education, and schools, the event sparked cross-disciplinary dialogue through a combination of good practice examples, workshops, and scientific, practical, and artistic impulses. The objective of the event was to collectively find new approaches for communicating climate and scientific knowledge.
Barbara Kapusta x “Narratives for Circular Economy-driven Net-Zero Emission Pathways”
How might possible futures unfold if we successfully adopt certain circular production and consumption practices? Building upon existing data and their potential for a net-zero emission trajectory, the research project “Narratives for Circular Economy-driven Net-Zero Emission Pathways” is developing concepts for various future scenarios to facilitate the integration of circular economy principles. In her participative work Assembly, Barbara Kapusta proposes her own form of circular economy: remnants of the misproduced vinyl work A New Fiery Community are offered to visitors for recycling. The artist’s poetic instructions encourage participants to cut up and glue the vinyl: to refuse, strike, redesign, or rethink.
Assembly (2024)
Vinyl remnants of the work A New Fiery Community kept by Wiener Städtische Versicherung AG – Vienna Insurance Group, scissors, instruction
Additionally, Kapusta infiltrates the Vienna Climate Summit with short video animations: here and there, heavy-breathing, sweaty, melancholic creatures appear in film sequences inserted between the presentations, which seem to be urging viewers to pause for a moment.
Video animations. Interventions on screens of the Vienna Climate Summit
15:00 min (total run time)
Voice recording and sound: Euroteuro
Borjana Ventzislavova x “Circular Consumption Practices”
On the basis of biographical interviews conducted across Western Europe, the project “Circular Consumption Practices” explores the realities of people’s daily consumption and their links to circularity. The interviews uncover the reasons behind an individual’s engagement (or lack thereof) in promising practices such as living without a car, sharing living spaces, or buying and selling second-hand goods online.
Under the title Now it’s sunny in the rich man’s world!, Borjana Ventzislavova is developing a “sketch for our world” comprised of audio, video, and photographic works, which addresses a central factor in climate concerns: the fact that the wealthiest segment of the population is the strongest driving force behind global warming.
The artist uses photomontage to stage imaginary advertising campaigns for Bernard Arnault’s luxury brand empire. Using modified quotes from the interviews conducted for the CircEUlar research project, Ventzislavova addresses the absurdities of our consumer world. The result is proposals for possible changes towards a more equal, inclusive, and harmonious world.
Now it’s sunny in the rich man’s world! (2024)
Sketch for our world
Various media (video, audio, photography)
Julian Palacz x “Mapping Building Stocks across Europe”
The research project “Mapping Building Stocks across Europe” aims to develop detailed, high-resolution maps of building stocks across Europe that may reveal unexpected spatial patterns. To achieve this immense task, the research team collected data from more than 200 million buildings in 30 countries (EUBUCCO data set). In his work, Julian Palacz focuses on the visualisation and poetic representation of data. Under the title Little Boxes, the artist has developed an interactive installation and a series of laser engraved drawings that playfully manipulate the collected floor plans of the research project and analyse their aesthetic characteristics.
Using speculative queries within the database, Palacz generates meta-referential correlations that open up new perspectives on the existing data set. For example, what images result when the floor plans of the ten largest, tallest, or oldest building typologies are superimposed?
Find out through his interactive web application here.
Delicate laser engraved drawings visualize the outcome on elements of the Culture-Climate Pavilion (Breath Erath Collective).
Imayna Caceres x “Biodiversity Footprint of Urban Consumption”
Many of us are aware that our dietary choices and consumption habits directly impact the climate and biodiversity. In recent years, numerous research reports have honed in on the interplay between global ecological shifts and a sustainable and healthy food system in Vienna. These reports encompass analyses of global land use and its connection with consumption trends, which necessitate complex supply chains – for example, a spatially explicit assessment of the regional to global impacts of Viennese biomass consumption. Imayna Caceres contrasts this research with her own investigations into sensory-based forms of knowledge and counter-narratives of symbiotic worlds. In the form of a lecture performance, she conducts an examination into biodiversity and food consumption in Vienna – an “offering” for what keeps us alive and recipes for less planetary damage. In her works, Caceres outlines practices of acknowledging the earth beings that engender our existence, while proposing new narratives about our relationship with food.
Explore her artistic interpretation of the scientific research through this link.
Rituals of resistance. Practices of acknowledging the beings that keep us alive. (2024)
Ceramics, bowls, textile, food
Photo Credits
Barbara Kapusta x “Narratives for Circular Economy-driven Net-Zero Emission Pathways
All: © Sensing Resonance, Barbara Kapusta, Klima Biennale Wien x CircEUlar, Vienna Climate Summit 2024. Photos: Paul Pibernig
Borjana Ventzislavova x “Circular Consumption Practices”
© Sensing Resonance, Borjana Ventzislavova, Klima Biennale Wien x CircEUlar, Vienna Climate Summit 2024. Photos: Paul Pibernig
Julian Palacz x “Mapping Building Stocks across Europe”
Gallery (all): © Sensing Resonance, Julian Palacz, Klima Biennale Wien x CircEUlar, Vienna Climate Summit 2024. Photos: Paul Pibernig
Imayna Caceres x “Biodiversity Footprint of Urban Consumption”
Gallery (1 & 4): © Sensing Resonance, Imayna Caceres, Klima Biennale Wien x CircEUlar, Vienna Climate Summit 2024. Photos: Paul Pibernig
Gallery (2 & 3): © Recipes for survival, Imayna Caceres