During this workshop we will open nature’s box of Pandora and witness which contemporary disasters, plagues and troubles are coming out. Are they frightening us? Do we now fear nature as well, and fight it? Or do we just accept these ‘gifts from below’ as a deserved response to our own actions? In which form (image, thought, smell, …) is hope coming to us?

Pandora, in Greek mythology, was the first female human. Just like Eve, she was a gift from the Gods to humanity. And just like Eve, she was gifted with curiosity and brought misfortune when she acted upon that. But are our contemporary disasters truly caused by femininity?

Nature, as a concept, is often seen as female too. Mother nature, Gaia, Terra, … in Latin, ‘nature’ literally meant ‘birth’. Nature became something to concur, to master, to overcome. Over time, nature was treated as badly as many women were. The disasters caused by this attitude, unfortunately, not only harm humanity. Does our hope include the more-than-human too?

This workshop departs from an artistic approach to probing practices. A Pandora’s box will be used as a probing prop. Together we’ll search for the hope that stayed behind in the bottom of this box and we’ll try to find out what our hope consists of.

Besides a healthy dose of imagination, you only need to prepare some white paper and some pencils or colored markers.

We gathered on Zoom for the workshop on 12th of December, 2020.