Our Vision
Symbio(s)cene is a non-profit organisation with the vision to contribute to shaping a new mindset that promotes thinking beyond the Anthropocene. We see this new mindset as an important key to bringing about transformative change. The distinctive proposition of our initiative is a holistic approach that interconnects sciences and arts – giving space to both cognitive and emotional dimensions of knowledge – in order to foster sustainable human-nature relationships and thus open up new perspectives for a livable future for all living beings.
Our Motivation
The world is experiencing a major biodiversity crisis. The rate of species loss is increasing, and in most of the major taxonomic groups of plants and animals 25% of the species are threatened with extinction. In face of this biodiversity crisis and the interlinked climate crisis on top, there are growing calls for transformative change. A deep, radical and sweeping transformation of society is needed in order to reach the global goal of sustainability.
Shifting the Mindset
Such a sweeping transformation needs a shift in mindset, spreading through all layers of society. We are convinced that this new mindset needs to be rooted in a renewed human-nature relationship. Society needs to deeply understand how positive, rewarding and fruitful it can be to interact with nature in everyday life. A new awareness of nature is needed, an openness for and appreciation of other living beings, as well as new aesthetics, appreciating the soothing character of natural materials and structures.
The Symbiocene
This renewed human-nature relationship in our view should be based on a revived emotional bonding, but at the same time, it should draw from the rich scientific knowledge about nature and other living beings as well as from technological advancements. To move towards this new mindset, we therefore regard it as paramount to find novel approaches for productive interactions between arts and sciences. We envision a future in which the interaction of humans with other living beings is symbiotic in a figurative sense: Humans care for nature as much as nature nurtures us humans. This future era will be the Symbiocene.
Our Goals
With the initiative Symbio(s)cene, we want to bring to light examples demonstrating that this livable future is approaching already, and we want to contribute ourselves with projects that accelerate the rise of the new mindset to embraces a positive human-nature relationship. We want to motivate and enable scientists, artists, designers and the general public to engage actively in a transdisciplinary and participatory process, to develop positive, integrative and multifaceted visions for a livable future and towards a respectful and rewarding interaction with other living beings, on a global, regional and local level. We want to communicate the Symbio(s)cene approach, processes and outcomes with the aim to insprire similar activities elsewhere in order to trigger the urgently needed societal transformation on a global scale.
