25.04.24, 20:00, Sébastien Hendrickx

Gaia, the planet-spanning Web of Life on which human survival depends, is rapidly unraveling. This natural-historical event is not a 'climate crisis.' Unlike a crisis, it does not pass and includes, in addition to climate warming, other planetary transgressions such as biodiversity loss, chemical pollution, and ocean acidification.

As an activist, Sébastien Hendrickx has tried over the past five years, together with many supporters from Extinction Rebellion, Code Red, and The Citizen's Parliament, to influence some of the social and political implications of this ecological mutation. In 2023, he initiated the Degrowth Propaganda Squad, a collective of activists, scientists, and artists promoting a systemic alternative to a politics focused on economic growth.

After being active for over 15 years as an art critic and dramaturge for performing artists such as Benjamin Verdonck, Luanda Casella, and Alexander Vantournhout, Sébastien Hendrickx found his calling as a theater maker relatively late. His debut, "The Good Life" (2021), was an immersive performance exploring the question of the good life in light of the ecological catastrophe. Since 2022, he has been creating new versions of "Moddertong," a storytelling theater piece that explores everyday relationality within a utopian community of humans and non-humans.

In his lecture, Hendrickx will reflect on the concept of a cosmogram, developed by the anthropologist John Tresch, and the role that this concept plays in his own artistic research practices. Cosmograms are representations of cosmologies or worldviews created within scientific, spiritual, or artistic contexts. How can they help address compositional challenges such as holism, multiplicity, transversality, and complexity?