Documentary Screening – “La veine verte”
On May 9th, we will screen the documentary “La Veine Verte – The agroecology in West Africa”. The Documenatry powerfully profiles the work of the Food System Caravane that conducted a 50-day road show and communication caravan tour across five West African countries, taking key messages from the food security research partnership projects to various institutions promoting knowledge exchange on the sustainability of food systems, including agroecology, agroforestry, organic agriculture and gender equality. After the film, we discussed with Fernando Sousa & Sara Baga, the producers of the movies.
Movie Screening & discussion with the artist
In November 2022, we welcomed the director Maisha Maene (Goma, Eastern DRC) to show two of his short films : Mother Nature and Mulika. The movie screening was then followed by an insightful discussion on the colonial entaglements of mining activities in Congo with the artist and various researchers. Mother Nature was exhibited during the COP27 in Egypt and Mulika received a prize at the Locarno Film Festival 2022.
Artist Talk
In October 2022, La Cápsula invited the artist María García Ibáñez for a talk in the greenhouse. La Cápsula is an independent and experimental curatorial project that seeks to create a dialogue between the artistic and cultural production of Latin America and Swiss/local artists. María’s projects investigate the many ways in which identity is shaped in relation to mobility and migration.
Maria re-thinks and explores concepts such as house, origin and memory from a very personal perspective, and through a wide variety of visual elements: land, earth, maps, holes, walls, mountains, textiles, beehives… Maria is also co-founder of the project La Polinizadora, a collective project interested in discussing the great failures of the medical and food industry, agro-industry, extractive industries and all the massive and disrespectful practices with life that require social action. In 2022 was one of the projects invited to the third Biennal UNAM (Mexico) “Intangible Resistance, ideas to postpone the end of the world”.
Days of Agroecology
The Days of Agroecology are a serie of events making visible and celebrating the diverse solutions of agroecology for a more sustainable agriculture and nutrition. Throughout the month of October 2022, many different organizations across Switzerland presented their agroecology visions and projects. The greenhouse hosted the two following events.
Agroecology and the soil beneath our feet
With three of the SAE group scientists, Prof. Dr. Johan Six, Dr. Marijn Van de Broek and Claude Müller, we discussed soils. Soils are the foundation of our terrestrial ecosystems and soil health is crucial to global food production. This dialogue fostered an exchange with various researchers focusing on the many interactions within the soil. Together we discussed: Why is soil health a fundamental principle of agroecology? What are the threats to soil health in Europe? What are the levers of change to improve soil health in Europe and worldwide?
Decolonize Zurich
The project Remapping Zurich offers an alternative guide for Zurich. This digital platform proposes a decolonial memory culture of the city, enabling people to engage with different layers of (neo)colonialism, racism as well as with actions of resistance to various oppressive structures and possible practices of decoloniality. It offers historic context as well as decolonial and anti- racist strategies, that were developed as an alternative response to ongoing colonial and racist remnants in the city of Zurich.
In July 2022 the project and the content of the newly created platform (remappingzurich.ch) was presented to a broader audience in the SAE Greenhouse.
Decolonizing Ecology, And the environmental Sciences
Members of the Student Sustainability Commission (SSC), the African Students Association of Zurich, hosted in the greenhouse an exchange on the topic of Decolonizing Ecology and the Environmental Sciences. Starting from short presentations by Prof. Elizabeth Tilley (D-MAVT) and Dr. Kenza Benabderrazik (D-USYS), the aim was to discuss, reflect on inclusion in ecology and research in the environmental sciences.