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Video transcript: "And one of the reasons why I think regeneration is an important concept is because we talk about decolonization a lot, but decolonization means to remove something. I don't disagree with the idea that we need to remove perhaps toxic ways of being. But I think in that removal you must also make a suggestion of what to replace with. So it's not enough to just decolonize, it's not enough to just take away. It also means instantiating or practicing things that replace the current practices. And in that, I think that is a model of regeneration. It's not that we don't know how to live in balance with the Earth, we have always known how to live in balance with the Earth; it's that we need to encourage that balance to start to take over our systems as we move into the future. And that needs to be a guiding principle when we create our economic systems, our social systems, our academic systems, our energy systems.
It is common to describe our relationships with society, the world, and the biosphere with metaphors from economics, which has specific understandings of value. With regard to the biosphere, today’s prevailing economics conventions are unable to recognize intrinsic value to the ecosystems on which all life depends. In cultures overdetermined by concepts from economics, we are left without adequate discursive instruments to socially or politically address the importance of the work of the biosphere.
The Life Support System experiment consists of 1 square meter of wheat, cultivated artificially in a closed environment. All inputs such as water, light, heat, and nutrients are measured, monitored and displayed for the public. This one square meter unit of Life Support System is capable of furnishing 1 day’s worth of necessary caloric nutrition for one human adult every 4 months. To feed a single human adult all year would require approximately 100 such units running concurrently. This procedure makes palpable the orders of magnitude, of material and energy flows, that are required to reproduce human nutritional requirements in closed or artificial environments, in contrast to outdoor agriculture on arable land. This indoor farm experiment is a counter-example which points to the vastness of the ecosystem contributions involved in conventional agriculture, that defy conventional economic reductionism.
By attempting to grow, in a closed environment, a staple food like wheat, which has historically provided the greatest proportion of necessary caloric intake for humans in Europe, this experiment provides a sense of scale of ecosystem contributions that are poorly acknowledged under the current economic conventions. The empirical “true-cost estimates” obtained through this indoor experiment are about 200€ per kilogram of wheat, an extravagant cost compared to the 15 cent per kilogram current market price. Though Hydroponics can be used for certain plants, for necessary caloric nutrition there is as yet no economically justifiable replacement for conventional agriculture embedded radically and immanently in the biosphere.
The Life Support System experiment consists of 1 square meter of wheat, cultivated artificially in a closed environment. All inputs such as water, light, heat, and nutrients are measured, monitored and displayed for the public. This one square meter unit of Life Support System is capable of furnishing 1 day’s worth of necessary caloric nutrition for one human adult every 4 months. To feed a single human adult all year would require approximately 100 such units running concurrently. This procedure makes palpable the orders of magnitude, of material and energy flows, that are required to reproduce human nutritional requirements in closed or artificial environments, in contrast to outdoor agriculture on arable land. This indoor farm experiment is a counter-example which points to the vastness of the ecosystem contributions involved in conventional agriculture, that defy conventional economic reductionism.
By attempting to grow, in a closed environment, a staple food like wheat, which has historically provided the greatest proportion of necessary caloric intake for humans in Europe, this experiment provides a sense of scale of ecosystem contributions that are poorly acknowledged under the current economic conventions. The empirical “true-cost estimates” obtained through this indoor experiment are about 200€ per kilogram of wheat, an extravagant cost compared to the 15 cent per kilogram current market price. Though Hydroponics can be used for certain plants, for necessary caloric nutrition there is as yet no economically justifiable replacement for conventional agriculture embedded radically and immanently in the biosphere.
What ideological, social and biophysical factors have precipitated the current environmental crises? What agency is available for transformative practices and imaginaries to confront the continuous growth of our energy consumption?
The Post Growth exhibition invites us to challenge dominant narratives about growth and progress, and explore the radical implications of a speculative economic model based on energy emitted by the Sun. The exhibition provides perspectives for a shift away from the overexploitation of fossil fuels —ancient sunlight— on which the reproduction of our societies mainly depends today.
The series of artworks presented re-envision social metabolism through an understanding of the energy it requires, reconnecting human survival with the living, material qualities of the biosphere, drawing on ecofeminism, indigenous knowledge, environmental accounting and historical materialism.
In complement to the main exhibition, a series of workshops, discussions and filmed interviews will further explore the forms that a post-fossil society could take and the challenges we need to confront to get there.
Post Growth is an invitation to a collective and practical examination of the future of life on the planet, examining the notion of growth, in its many facets and implications, touching the limits of technology, of politics and of our imaginations.
The Post Growth exhibition invites us to challenge dominant narratives about growth and progress, and explore the radical implications of a speculative economic model based on energy emitted by the Sun. The exhibition provides perspectives for a shift away from the overexploitation of fossil fuels —ancient sunlight— on which the reproduction of our societies mainly depends today.
The series of artworks presented re-envision social metabolism through an understanding of the energy it requires, reconnecting human survival with the living, material qualities of the biosphere, drawing on ecofeminism, indigenous knowledge, environmental accounting and historical materialism.
In complement to the main exhibition, a series of workshops, discussions and filmed interviews will further explore the forms that a post-fossil society could take and the challenges we need to confront to get there.
Post Growth is an invitation to a collective and practical examination of the future of life on the planet, examining the notion of growth, in its many facets and implications, touching the limits of technology, of politics and of our imaginations.