Terrestrial University: Observing-Participating-Commoning

Sam Skinner is an artist, curator, and publisher working on intersections between community, technology, and horticulture. He completed a practice-based PhD at Manchester School of Art in 2019, which investigated the history of observatories and observation, with research translating into co-curation of »The New Observatory« exhibition at FACT, Liverpool and the artist book »Obs«, published by Broken Dimanche Press. Sam was co-chair of Working Group 1 of the COST Action on New Materialism and co-edited the project »almanac«. He co-directs Torque Editions, an experimental digital literacy and publishing project, recent books include »Artists Re: Thinking the Blockchain and The Act of Reading«. Skinner has recently launched a new art and horticulture project entitled »Fig«, see www.fig.studio for more info. 

Mirko Nikolić’s practice seeks to contribute to climate and earth justice through performance and text. His current long-term project »water is (non)life« based at Linköping University moves in a space between art and environmental humanities. It deals with entanglements between climate and social justice in the regions of intense extractivist exploitation in the semi-peripheries of Europe. Nikolić completed a PhD at the Centre for Research, Education in Arts and Media at the University of Westminster, London, in 2017, with the project titled »minoritarian ecologies: performance before a more-than-human world«. Working member of various collectives and collaborations, among which Pluriversal Radio and Mustarinda Association.