Public Program and Activation
Public Program
On Saturday, June 28, de Appel and Cinetol hosted "Oceans, Pluriverses, and Rights of Nature," a gathering that focused on artistic experimentation and radical environmental politics. The event featured discussions with Sylvia Kay, Carsten Pedersen, Fiona Dove (TNI), Rosa Jijón, Francesco Martone (A4C), Christiane Bosman and Harpo ‘t Hart (Embassy of the North Sea), and Roberta Bosu (Antarctic Rights), covering topics such as ocean justice, the pluriverse, and legal rights for the more-than-human world. The Embassy of the North Sea presented initiatives that promoted water ecosystems as legal entities.
The program explored the exploitation of oceans and the displacement of local communities, highlighting the role of contemporary art in advocating for oceanic and community rights. Discussions also focused on artistic and legal recognition of the rights of nature, aiming to shift from anthropocentric to ecocentric frameworks.
The evening included a performance of the Water Bodies Orchestra alongside the Smartphone Orchestra, integrating human and non-human voices from European waters in an interactive experience. Fresh Stalls provided a menu featuring ingredients from local regenerative farms. The event envisioned collective futures beyond anthropocentrism while celebrating art, food, and performances.
The closing event of Sensing Interdependence featured the film projection I Am the River, the River Is Me—a collective reflection on the fluid relations between bodies, territories, and ecosystems. The film traced a series of encounters with artists, activists, and communities who work through water as a living agent of connection, memory, and resistance. Flowing between documentary and poetic gesture, I Am a River revealed how rivers hold stories of coexistence, extraction, and renewal, inviting viewers to sense the entanglements that shape our shared environments.
The screening was followed by a conversation with the artists and contributors to Sensing Interdependence, creating a space to reflect on the project’s process and on the role of artistic practices in reimagining ecological interdependence.
ACITVATION
As part of our ongoing commitment to connecting artistic and social movements, Joint Cultural Initiatives (JCI) collaborated with the global campaign Debt for Climate, art collective Biquini Wax, and feminist activist group Feministas en Hollanda and and the Amsterdam-based collective space Grond to organize a fundraising event supporting the Mesoamerican Caravan—a transnational alliance of Indigenous, feminist, and environmental defenders across Central America.
The event combined artistic interventions, collective discussions, and a communal dinner, fostering an exchange between ecological struggles in the Global South and activist-artistic practices in Europe. By hosting and co-producing the initiative, JCI aimed to strengthen networks of solidarity and amplify voices advocating for climate justice and systemic change.
During the same period, the exhibition space was activated by the Arts and Labor Research Group of the Rijksakademie (Amsterdam), transforming it into a site for collective study, reflection, and mutual support among artists, researchers, and cultural workers. Together, these overlapping activations reflected JCI’s curatorial approach: cultivating spaces where art, research, and activism converge to imagine alternative futures.
