黑料不打烊

The summer season at RADIUS commences with the group exhibition WE ARE ALL HOLOBIONTS! Popularised from 1991 by American evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis (1938-2011), the term holobiont refers to a host body鈥攖hink of a coral reef, the human intestines or lichens鈥攁nd its associated communities of microorganisms. A host body and its microbiota thus form a holobiont: an overarching composite life form constituted by different species that together form an ecological unit, therein demonstrating the importance of symbiosis for our and the planet鈥檚 health. In a similar fashion, the exhibition WE ARE ALL HOLOBIONTS! forms a multilayered assemblage that challenges current mechanisms of domination, competition, hierarchies, power structures and categorisation, in favour of 鈥榥ew鈥� ways of thinking and being in the world, in which reciprocity, interdependence, symbiosis and mutualism form the basis.

The social and psychological transformations wrought by the pandemic have shed additional light on the idea that life is, first and foremost, a process of multispecies becoming-with: we humans, like before, are colonised by bacteria, viruses and fungi. 鈥淭o be animal is to become-with bacteria, viruses and many other sorts of critters,鈥� in the words of feminist philosopher of science Donna Haraway, as she continues: 鈥淚ndeed, responsibility in and for the worldings in play in these stories requires the cultivation of viral response-abilities, carrying meanings and materials across kinds in order to infect processes and practices that might yet ignite epidemics of multi species recuperation and maybe even flourishing on terra in ordinary times and places.鈥�  However, capital accumulation and its (neo)colonial tendencies that continue to objectify the world prevail, emphasising an ego-centric (instead of eco-centric) and anthropocentric race to the bottom, ignorant of the multitudes that need to be contained in order to make environments that are liveable. As anthropologist Anna Tsing reminds us, sustenance and resurgence in complex ecosystems is the work of many organisms, negotiating through and across difference, without which we humans would sacrifice our livelihood. 

Simultaneously it becomes increasingly clear that it is unattainable to continue to consider the Earth as a repository of natural resources for unbridled human exploitation, exhaustion and expanse. Economical and ecological crises, furthered by advanced capitalism, have exemplified the pitfalls of individualism and the competition-driven model of neoliberalism even further. Within this dynamic, it seems no longer possible to uphold simplistic demarcations such as self and other, difference and sameness, individuality and collectivity, and yet we are made increasingly complicit in the intensifying geopolitical polarities and the fever dreams of border politics in which ecocide and genocide form two sides of the same coin in the ongoing struggles for land sovereignty鈥攐f humans and other-than-humans.