How do we build living relationships and design practices that reawaken our sense of belonging to the vibrant web of life? ‘Feral Species and Ecosomatics Manifesto’ is public space intervention and manifesto that explores/evokes the relationships of inter-being between multispecies bodies and local lands. Bridging art~ecology~embodiment by interweaving Krater’s feral presence with the urban sites of Ljubjana, carefully placing small reminders of inter-being throughout the city scape.
Many of the crises of our times emerge from the breakdown of the human-Earth relationship within a dominant, western culture; respect and reciprocity have been replaced by exploitation and extraction, community by consumerism. To navigate through uncertainty and change we need to first of all inhabit a broader understanding of how things got to be ’the way they are’ so we are better equipped to embrace complexity.
Practices that reawaken our sense of belonging to a vibrant web of life are vital to ground and orient us in this context.
We see the urgency for new ways and practices of care that form a bridge to first explore the relationship between human and other-than-human bodies . Before designing or conceptualizing any spatial, economic, political or societal plans, we first need to acknowledge our human (and more-than-human) bodies and consciously acknowledge our surrounding community of ecology, clearly realizing the effect we have on it. First, we need to become members of the whole again (re:membering).