In this talk, curator Kathryn Weir traces a decade of collaborative, research-based curatorial projects — from founding the Cosmopolis platform at Centre Pompidou to exhibitions in Chengdu, Naples, and Hong Kong (including 'Green Snake', co-curated with Xue Tan) — that bring artists, collectives, and thinkers together around ecology, technology, and cosmology. Drawing on thinkers like Denise Ferreira da Silva and Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, she argues for moving beyond the Eurocentric "universal human" toward situated, plural knowledge systems and translocal solidarity in the face of colonial-era extractive histories and today's climate, toxicity, and biodiversity crises. Her current focus is a project on Himalayan water systems, following artists across the region whose work links ancestral water cosmologies, dam infrastructure, desertification, and community-led repair of damaged rivers and ecosystems.
“Artists can play a really important role in weaving other visions, vocabularies, and narratives of possible paths and futures.”
— Kathryn Weir
