We are happy to finally share the video documentation of UNEXPECTED LESSONS #2 – Decolonizing Nature.

Just like its predecessor event in Berlin and Nairobi, UNEXPECTED LESSONS #2 is dedicated to the theme of decolonization. This time we put a focus on nature, from different perspectives. The UNEXPECTED LESSONS are organic. As part of the TALKING OBJECTS LAB, they provide starting points and intermediate points, interweaving thematically with think tanks in Dakar, Nairobi and Frankfurt (2022).

The extraordinary nature of Iceland, the geologically highly interesting area that can be experienced as an archive of the earth's history, becomes the “other object” in Reykjavik, based on the idea of an expanded concept of an “object”. What makes nature the other? What role does the decoupling of nature and culture play in this? Is the culture/nature dichotomy tenable at all? And how can we decolonize our view of the world and think nature differently?

UNEXPECTED LESSONS #2 is preceded by a think tank in July 2022 in Nairobi. The event addresses seed archives and their colonial entanglements, colonization of land, lost indigenous knowledge on plants and medical botanicals, nature as an archive of memory and the philosophy of nature.

Documentation Session #1 – 14. September 2022, see below: 

Welcome Remarks

with Isabel Raabe, Mahret Ifeoma Kupka, Njoki Ngumi  & Chao Tayiana  

The Indigenous Forest

Input by Harriet Chebet Ng’ok (Harriet’s Botanicals, Nairobi)

Njoki Ngumi in conversation with Harriet Chebet Ng’ok

Digital Lesson from Nairobi #1 with Patrick Maundu (ethnobiologist, Nairobi)

video in three parts