GMU:Re-enchanting the field

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Erasmus+ Blended Intensiv Program (BIP). A collaboration between Bauhaus University Weimar (Sound Ecologies and Media Environments), the Estonian Academy of Arts (Master of Craft Studies), Potsdam University of Applied Sciences (Department of Design) and the Unniversity of Applied Arts (Transformation Studies) Vienna,Austria.

Prof. Ursula Damm, Prof. Kerstin Ergenzinger, Mindaugas Gapševičius (Bauhaus University Weimar)
Prof. Monika Halkort (University of Applied Arts Vienna)
Prof. Myriel Milicevic (Potsdam University of Applied Sciences)
Prof. Kärt Ojavee (Estonian Academy of Arts)

SCHEDULE

Preparatory Sessions (Online): April 4th, 11th 25th and May 9th 2025
Field visit, Narva, Estonia (including travel days): 18.5. – 25.5.2025
Follow up & Project Review (online): June 20th and July 5th 2025

ECTS AWARDED: 6 (4 SWS)

Topics addressed: energy transitions, extractivism, industrial waste as material witness and driver of (geo)political transformations and change.

SYLLABUS

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

This course offers an intensive training in elemental ethnography and ecological research. During a week long fieldvisit to Narva, Estonia, near the Russian border we will investigate the material legacy of oil shale extraction in the Baltic region, focusing in particular on the historical entanglement of energy, substances, landscapes, and bodies, and their unintended proliferations and designs. The fieldvisit will be preceded by 4 online lectures to provide context and to introduce us to the main topcis and cpnceptual framing of our research.

Our main aim is to engage with the emergent properties of bio/geo-chemical waste in their broader geopolitical context and to unpack how they hold landscapes and bodies in colonial relations, long after the mining activities have been shut down.

More specifically we want to explore the recurrent cycles of decomposition, death and renewal that are shaping the ambivalent landscapes of extractivism in Estonia, making their queer connections and affinities visible and apparent for critical inquiry and future research.

METHODOLOGY & TASKS

Together with local residents and field guides, we will visit ash mountains, ghost villages and abandoned manufacturing plants, built under Soviet Occupation (1941 – 1991), when oil shale production was at its historical height. Additional insights will be provided by scientific inputs from researchers in biology, geology, and environmental history in preparatory sessions online.

The outcome of this collaborative exercise will be documented in a shared workbook (digital/online publication) based on group projects conducted in the field. The workbook will be designed as a living index of liminal relations that sustain the shale oil ecosystem, mapping how they animate, de/recompose and transform social and natural landscapes, organisms and bodies at different speeds, durations and levels of intensity. Drawing on acoustic sensing, environmental mappings, and elemental ethnography / bio-geochemical analysis, we hope to reveal the less noticeable tensions, collaborations, and attunements that emerge from ‘non-consensual inhabitations’ (Masco) and forced transfers and unpack how they facilitate and/or disrupt land-body relations against a backdrop of shifting geopolitical borders and energy regimes.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Participants in this workshop will develop an understanding of bio-chemical processes and relations as critical infrastructures of geopolitical transformations and recognize how socio-ecological change is as much about (re)configuring life and responsibility beyond the individual body (Murphy, 2017, p. 479) as it is premised upon structures of violence and extraction that require land and bodies as sacrifice zones.

COURSE MATERIALS

Course Materials (all)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HV75lDkZEHdtrAgx0-7SFfqAEqqGSGdL

Social and Cultural History of Oil Shale Production in Estonia (Text)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1rlz26-7diSfn2Mp-YVLSBt_TdLZdldKl?usp=drive_link

Environmental Studies (Text)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yM6MCDSTPJWmKqPqw7r_KL6FQKmc9tjP?usp=drive_link

Ecology (Text)

Methodology

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nHvoJGnypVfDTGesCPSrxdQw5lTeQ2i8?usp=drive_link

  • Feral Atlas feralatlas.org

EXPECTATIONS

Participation in the trip to Estonia 18. -25. May 2025
Interest in discourse, reading, research as well as hands-on material experiments around anthropocene & feral landscapes, relationality, more-than-human design, interdisciplinary, experimental and poetic approaches, team work
Documentation and experimental storytelling (transferring findings and relations into visual, sonic, experimental narratives). These narratives will be published on a dedicated course website.

PARTICIPANTS

Bauhaus Universität Weimar

Potsdam University of Applied Sciences

University of Applied Arts Vienna

Estonian Academy of Arts

BUDGET

Participants receive stipends from the Erasmus programme to cover travel expenses.

ACCOMMODATION

We will be staying at Narva Art Residency (NART)

Info Sheet Accomodation & Arrtival

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DB6yc_PfR_PKR0QnDerWHTY-JDR-xenj?usp=drive_link

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