On a -9° winters day in Rigor - Latvia, dance artist Agnese Bordjukova shared methods to develop awareness of processes within the human body that can then extend outwards to embrace our surroundings, making sensible the interconnection between bodies and worlds. Agnese often works with ‘non-motion’ such as sleeping or stillness, as a starting point for her choreographies. From this place, she focuses on the intensity of her internal activity which then inspires her to make dance works for video and stage. In this episode we discuss two of her short dance videos: ‘Hear me’ (2017) - a creation about sound generated by the human body and the ‘Loudest place in the world’ (2020) - exploring the topic of freedom and how this is communicated through only the head and shoulders.

Learn more at: http://renaeshadler.com/worlding

Human inability to value the role of plants on earth and see or notice plants in one's everyday life is a phenomenon known as ‘plant blindness’. Media artist Daniel Hengst addresses this phenomenon through his work, asking whether we are willing to empathize with plants and grant them an autonomous intrinsic value. Daniel’s projects often center non-human subjects and deal with the potential of digital technologies to encourage social change. In this episode we focus on Daniel’s works ‘Blooming love’ - a virtual reality artwork that explores the simulated Peatlands of Latvia and ‘Nastien & Tropismen’ - a virtual-installative greenhouse where no plants grow according to human doctrine, enabling new relationships between humans and plants develop.

Learn more at: http://renaeshadler.com/worlding

While scientists tend to categorize their objects of study in order to verify some pre-prepared hypotheses, visual artist Oliver Thie is focused on the individual within the species or class of things. In this episode we dive into two of Oliver’s solo exhibitions: ‘The truth about the origin of the world’ (2020) where he worked with an 18th century stone collection from the Siebengebirge in Germany and ‘Mapping the Invisible’ where Oliver explores a microscopic Hawaiian cave-dwelling cicada by enlarging it into a wall-sized drawing. In times of Anthropocentric landscapes and rapidly increasing insect extinction, his work is a persistent act of documentation that brings to life unseen microcosms and the beauty within the individuality of things.

Learn more at: http://renaeshadler.com/worlding