Natural Contract Lab

STILL HERE – an alliance of care for the SZenne River

VIERNULVIER

Sat 02.05

10:00 - 21:00

De Vooruit

Tickets

What rights do nature and its allies have?

For three years (2022-25), Natural Contract Lab (NCL) has been walking-with1 the SZenne river and its communities of kin, its plants, people, mud, knotweed, nettles, seen and unseen,... From the source emerging under a willow tree in Naast to the confluence where the river meets three bodies of water in Zennegat. In this symposium the NCL group will present the Living Bill2 for the SZenne river in the format of a hybrid symposium that unfolds from the Protocol for Reciprocal Care3 for bodies of water under deep ecological transformation. During the day, NCL will share their transdisciplinary approach interweaving rights of nature, restorative justice, ecological grief, sensory scenography, participatory rituals and walking methodologies. There will be three parts, which will unfold like a walking-with1 with a storyline, a conversation and a tribune. While walking-with the waters of Ghent, we greet, dialogue and sense the landscape. In VIERNULVIER, weave in guests in a conversation and presentation of the Living Bill for the rights of the SZenne river by the alliance. ( the alliance includes all the ones who have walked-with, the beings, and other rivers that are in solidarity with the SZenne river)

Part of

Vocabulary

*Walking-with

Walking-with are our site-responsive artistic walks with the river. They are a moving narrative that activates sensory scores (listening and sensing), conversational circles (exchange of water memories, river stories, harms and ecological grief), storytelling and speculative ecologies (learning from the river as our teacher). While walking-with, we become witnessing bodies, giving and receiving care. Walking-with is an act of accountability, a gesture of solidarity, a moment for unlearning and reconciling with the river.

*Living Bill

The concept of the Living Bill is a research in the making, an artistic attempt to unlearn the making process of a preamble as an amendment for the rights of nature. The Living Bill is both a written legal document and a preamble that is the landscape, the river itself. The preamble becomes, in our artistic process, an embodied walking-with, like a sensing cartography that remembers the river as an ecosystem of meaningful relationships with storytelling, songs and memories. The Living Bill is a proof of evidence of our relationship with the SZenne river as a legitimate alliance of SZenne guardians calling for its legal recognition in the Belgian constitution.

Zoom in

Natural Contract Lab was initiated in 2021 by Maria Lucia Cruz Correia in ongoing co-creation with a transdisciplinary group, including the SZenne river (ally/ teacher), vinny jones (sensory scenography/dramaturgy), Brunilda Pali (restorative justice), Lode Vranken (design/philosophy), Margarida Mendes (research/sonic guidance)

STILL HERE collaborators: Saartje Monden (River guardian Pedagogies), Flore Herman (mediation dramaturgy), Jef Seghers LDR Advocaten (Szenne Living Bill), Caroline Daish (vocal archivist)Thessa Kruger (intern), Marzia Dalfini (design), Matteo Deblasio (river vessel design/conception), Christel Stalpaert (hyphenated thinker), Melanie Ganino (artistic assistant), Laura Eva Meuris (weaver)

Production: Hiros Coproduction: VIERNULVIER, workspacebrussels, Kanal Centre Pompidou, Sint Lucas Antwerpen School of Arts KdG, UGent: Research Centre S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts & Media) Local partners: Gemeenschapscentrum De Rinck, Centre Culturel de Soignies, Kunsthal mechelen Supported by: Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Erfgoedcel Mechelen, European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ, Marie Toussaint, Member of the European Parliament (Greens/EFA).