MULTITUDE OF VOICES

 

13/06/2023 MULTITUDE OF VOICES – Vielfalt der Umwelten
Ein Panel (* zweisprachig englisch/deutsch // in english and german)
Mit dem Panel MULTITUDE OF VOICES wird das intermediale Kunstprojekt THE Å//A UNIVERSE – HIDDEN SONGLINES OF THE BALTIC SEA feierlich eröffnet.
Die Berliner Künstlergruppe FrauVonDa untersucht in ihrer diesjährigen Arbeit, gemeinsam mit ihren Partner:innen aus Wissenschaft und Kunst, die Diversität in der Unterwasserwelt der Ostsee. Sie diskutiert die Möglichkeiten eines nachhaltigen Bündnisses von Mensch und Meer und überträgt die gewonnenen Perspektiven auf das gesellschaftliches Miteinander:
Denn beim Sondieren des aktuellen Zustandes der Ostsee und der ökologischen Herausforderungen des jüngsten Meeres sind Begriffe wie Balance, Wahrnehmung, ‚Response-Ability‘ und allen voran die lebensnotwendige Bedeutung von Diversität zentral, in sinnlich-poetischer Arbeit genauso wie in der Wissenschaft. Eine uns wichtige Frage ist dabei, wie sich der Mensch wieder mehr als Teil einer lebenswerten TERRAPOLIS aller Lebewesen verstehen und die Vielfalt als überlebenswichtiges, Perspektiven und Resilienz schaffendes Gut betrachten kann. Im Panel erweitern wir den Wirkkreis dieses so erneuerten Selbstverständnisses auf unsere internationale, auch kulturell diverse Staatengemeinschaft.
Am Anfang des mehrteiligen Projektes steht daher das Gespräch
MULTITUDE OF VOICES – Vielfalt der Umwelten.
Wir gehen mit den Begriffen Wahrnehmen, Balance und ‚Response-Ability‘ an Land und erörtern mit unseren Gästen die politischen Möglichkeiten einer internationalen Gemeinschaft, die sensibel wahrnimmt, rücksichtsvoll gestaltet und kulturelle Vielfalt als schützenswertes Gut pflegt.
Am Beispiel der weitgehend autonomen finnischen Åland-Inseln und des ehemals teilautonomen Banat erkunden wir bewährte Modelle zum Erhalt kultureller Vielfalt. Denn hier wird deutlich wie auch gesellschaftlich das Wahrnehmen, der achtsame Umgang mit und der Schutz von letztendlich jeglicher Diversität zu politischer ‚Response-Ability‘ und gesellschaftlicher Resilienz führen kann.
Unsere Gäste:
Dr. Sia Spiliapoulou-Åkermark, Åland Islands Peace Institute
Petra Granholm, Åland Islands Peace Institute
Dr. Victor Neumann, West Universität Temeswar
Isaac Yuen, Nature Writer
Moderation:
Dr. Simon Teune, Freie Universität Berlin

 

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The panel MULTITUDE OF VOICES — DIVERSITY OF ENVIRONMENTS opens the intermedia project THE Å//A UNIVERSE – HIDDEN SONGLINES OF THE BALTIC SEA.

In this year’s international project, the Berlin-based artist group FrauVonDa, together with its partners from science and art, investigates diversity in the underwater world of the Baltic Sea. They discuss the possibilities of a sustainable alliance between humans and the sea and transfer the perspectives gained to social coexistence:
By investigating the current state of the Baltic Sea and the ecological challenges, concepts such as balance, perception, ‚response-ability‘ and, above all, the vital importance of diversity are central, in sensual-poetic work as much as in science. An important question for us is how humans can position themselves more as part of a TERRAPOLIS worth living in, and how we can see diversity as a vital asset that creates perspectives and resilience. In the panel, we extend the sphere of influence of this renewed self-understanding to our international, also culturally diverse community of states.
At the beginning of this multi-part project we will therefore have the conversation
MULTITUDE OF VOICES – Diversity of Environments.
We go ashore with the concepts of perceiving, balance and ‚response-ability‘ and discuss with our guests the political possibilities of an international community that perceives sensitively, shapes considerately and cultivates cultural diversity as a virtue worth protecting.
Contemplating the example of the largely autonomous Finnish Åland Islands and the formerly semi-autonomous Banat, we explore proven models for preserving cultural diversity. For here it becomes clear how the perception, the mindful handling and the protection of ultimately any kind of diversity can lead to political „response-ability“ and social resilience.

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Isaac Yuen
A first-generation Hong Kong-Canadian with a lifelong passion for the environment, Isaac Yuen pens short stories and personal essays exploring forms and themes around nature, culture, and identity. He holds a Bachelor’s in Environmental Science and a Master’s in Environmental Education and Communication.
Isaac is the co-author of the essay collection, The Sound Atlas: A Guide to Strange Sounds across Landscapes and Imagination, along with nature writer Michaela Vieser, forthcoming in German with Knesebeck Verlag in 2023. His debut solo nature essay collection, Utter, Earth, is also forthcoming in 2024 with West Virginia University Press. The title piece with the same name, published in AGNI, was awarded a Pushcart Prize.
Isaac’s other creative works have been published at Gulf Coast, Newfound, Orion, Pleiades, Shenandoah, The Willowherb Review, Tin House online, and elsewhere. He was a 2019 Jan Michalski Foundation writer-in-residence in Switzerland and is a 2023 Fiction Meets Science fellow at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute of Advanced Studies in Delmenhorst, Germany.
Isaac is represented by Willenfield Literary Agency.

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Victor Neumann
is a Romanian historian, political analyst, and professor at the West University in Timișoara. He is a well-known specialist in the recent cultural and intellectual histories of Eastern and Central Europe (focusing his research on interculturality and multiculturality). Much of his work deals with Conceptual History, history of political thought and theory of history. As of October 2013, he is Director of the Timișoara Art Museum.
Born in Lugoj, Victor Neumann graduated from the University of Cluj-Napoca in 1976, and earned his PhD in History from the University of Bucharest in 1992. He was a visiting professor at the Université d’Angers (1999), Emory University in Atlanta, and Georgia State University in Athens, Georgia (1999), the National Foreign Affairs Training Center from Washington, D.C. (2001), and the University of Vienna (2003–2004). He received NATO Scholarship (1995-1997) and he was Fulbright Senior Scholar (September 2000 – September 2001) affiliated with The Catholic University of America and with the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies within the Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.
Neumann was also head of research at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, and a lecturer at several higher learning institutions (the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Columbia University, the London School of Slavonic and East European Studies, and the University of Udine).

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The Åland Islands Peace Institute
works on peace and conflict issues with both a practical and a research-oriented approach, using Åland and its special status as a starting point. The institute focuses on forms of self-governance, minority issues, demilitarisation, and conflict resolution.  The Åland Island Peace Institute is part of several national and international networks for organisations that work on related issues.

The Peace Institute is a nonpolitical, nonreligious foundation that was founded in 1992. The institute’s board determines the overall activities while the researcher council is responsible for the scientific focus. The institute has consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

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Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark
has been the director of the Åland Peace Institute since 2007. She is a lawyer, with a PhD in international law from Uppsala University. Sia has worked at and with civil society organizations, universities and research institutions around the world. During 2002-2006 and 2010-2014, Sia was an expert member of the Council of Europe’s Advisory Committee on National Minorities. She was the committee’s president 2012-2014. In 2019, Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark was appointed conciliator at the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration within the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark’s areas of interest and expertise are minorities, indigenous peoples, self-government events, the Åland Example, the relationship between international and national law, as well as issues of collective security, peaceful resolution of conflicts and rules on international violence.

Petra Granholm
research coordinator and head of the åland mediation office
Petra Granholm has been working at the Institute in several intervals and now works with issues related to research projects and publications. She is Managing Editor for the e-journal Journal of Autonomy and Security Studies, JASS.
As Head of the Åland Mediation Office, Petra is responsible for the mediation services, a statutory complimentary service that is offered to parties in criminal cases and certain civil disputes.
Petra holds a master’s in political science from Åbo Akademi University, Finland and a master’s in resource management from the University of Akureyri, Iceland.
She speaks Swedish, English, German, and instrumental Icelandic and Finnish.

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