Perspektive Amazonas: Forest Law und Forest Mind

The Anthropocene challenges our western thought patterns and shows that our knowledge systems are hegemonic and slow to open up. The two video essays "Forest Law" and "Forest Mind" by Swiss artist and author Ursula Biemann bundle our not knowing, our lostness in the face of the big questions. Based on research in the Amazon region of Ecuador, "Forest Law,” produced together with the Brazilian architect Paulo Tavares, explores the practical, political, and cosmological dimensions of nature's right to struggle against the dramatic expansion of land reclamation measures. In "Forest Mind," Biemann embarks on a search from the perspective of the forest for the potential of knowledge of nature's intelligence that Indigenous peoples have culturally integrated—and asks how this wealth of experience can be made effective.