Terrestrial University: The Right Uses of Land

How do we use land? How do we nurture georefuges in the age of extinction? These questions will be the starting point of our Terrestrial University, where the voices of climate researcher Prof. Dr. Julia Pongratz and artist Stéphane Verlet-Bottéro will meet.

In this dialogue, we will encounter the many ramifications of the question: how do we use land, and what are the effects of land use on climate? What land do we live on, and how does climate change affect it? Are there »right« uses of land, and what kind of politics do they require? Such questions ask for terrestrial approaches: entangled within the global and the local, navigating the planetary scale and local ecosystems. »Becoming terrestrial«, as the notion of the »Critical Zone« demands, also means knowing what land we care for, and what shelters we may maintain and where our refuges are – some more aspects this interdisciplinary encounter might reflect on. 

Julia Pongratz is full professor for Physical Geography and Land Use Systems at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität of Munich. She studied geography at the LMU and the University of Maryland, received her PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology/University of Hamburg on the early impact of human activity on climate, and conducted research on geoengineering and food security at the Carnegie Institution, Department of Global Ecology, Stanford. Since 2013 she has been leading a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology on Earth system modeling and land use effects. She is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Carbon Project and contributes as author to the latest and upcoming Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Stéphane Verlet-Bottéro is an artist, environmental engineer, and curator. At the crossroads of research, social practice, and activism, his work develops territory-based strategies that explore ecologies of care. He is a lecturer at Ecole Centrale Paris, curator at NA Project since 2012, a researcher at Unbewitch Finance Lab, a cofounding agent of the art and permaculture platform Zone Sensible. He co-published »Même si on pense que c’est foutu« (L’Harmattan, 2017), a book on grassroots movements and radical ecology. Recent exhibitions and performances include »Ruines et Futurs« (Partcours Festival, Dakar), »The School of Mutants« (Oslo Architecture Triennale), »Rituals to Unbewitch Finance« (Aurillac Festival), »Forum for Radical Imagination and Environmental Knowledge« (Sorbonne University). He has had curatorial collaborations with Institut Kunst (Basel), Technê Institute (Buffalo), Artsadmin (London), Science Museum (London), documenta (13) (Kassel).