The main protagonist in the video narratives of Ursula Biemann in recent years is the figure of the indigenous scientist who emerges from a shared history of colonialism and the appearance of modern science. Commissioned by the Art Museum of the National University of Colombia in 2018, she has conducted extensive field research in the Amazonian forests which led to several artistic productions–as the video Forest Mind and Devenir Universidad, a collaborative project involving the co-creation of a Biocultural Indigenous University in the Amazon. Grounded in an international partnership, this visionary project aims to bridge indigenous knowledge systems and modern science, fostering a supportive ecocentric worldview. Her lecture will raise the question of how art can contribute to decolonizing knowledge and push the transition from an extractive to a more generative and imaginative paradigm. If images are not merely depicting already existing realities but actually contribute to world-making, what role can image-making play in the encounter with the living cognitive territory?

Ursula Biemann is an artist, author, and video essayist. Her artistic practice is strongly research oriented and involves fieldwork in remote locations from Greenland to Amazonia, where she investigates climate change and the ecologies of oil, ice, forests and water. In her multi-layered videos, the artist interweaves vast cinematic landscapes with documentary footage, Science Fiction poetry and academic findings to narrate a changing planetary reality.

The lecture will be held in English language.

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