Transecologies: Contemporary Art in the Context of the Climate Crisis

• Applicant: Dr. Lena Geuer
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 553021980

Against the backdrop of multiple environmental crises, contemporary artists and artistic collectives are increasingly exploring the complex relationships and interactions between 'natural' and social, biological and technical-cultural systems. With regard to ecological destruction, they also discuss the inherent gendered or ethnically determined power relations and neo-colonial structures that are apparent, for example, in the separation between the countries of the so-called Global South and the Global North. Following the recent expansion of the concept of ecology, such links between social and ecological processes have increasingly become the subject of scientific debates. According to the research network's central hypothesis, contemporary art produced in the context of the climate crisis is mainly concerned with these trans-ecological aspects. In order to adequately explore the complex relationships between diverse socio-ecological processes and their aesthetic and artistic negotiations, the network “Transecologies: Contemporary Art in the Context of the Climate Crisis” aims at developing a transecological approach for art studies. Based on the critical revision and synthesis of existing definitions of transecology from anthropology, political philosophy and gender studies, the network members and selected international guests will develop 'transecology' as an innovative theoretical concept and a new method for art studies. With this project, the network is responding to a research gap. Despite the evident centrality of ecological themes in contemporary art production and in cultural studies theory, a well-founded examination of these phenomena in German-speaking art studies is still in its infancy. The prefix “trans”, here in its dynamic meaning, has only become established in relation to cultural issues, but not in the context of ecology. While transcultural approaches, for example, have prevailed in German-speaking art studies since the 2010s, the implementation of trans-ecological perspectives in art history is still a desideratum. Within the framework of the three main topics “I. Transecological Interdependencies”, “II. Transecological Modes of Existence and Future” and “III. Transecological Spaces of Action”, the research network therefore analyzes central questions with regard to artistic and ecological processes and aims to examine the methodological applicability of a transecological approach.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Dr. Hauke Ohls