Infinite Ecologies Marathon: The Prelude
14 October 2023, Serpentine, London
Photos by Talie Rose Eigeland. From top left: 1. Audiences in the Serpentine Pavilion 2023, À table, by Lina Ghotmeh – Architecture. 2. Manthia Diawara in conversation with Kostas Stasinopoulos. 3. Lucia Pietroiusti. 4. Daisy Hildyard. 5. Kumi Naidoo. 6. Adrián Villar Rojas. 7. Adrián Villar Rojas, The End of Imagination. 8. Nabihah Iqbal and Fiscal Harm. 9. Ventura Profana, Vandria Garcia Correa and Ta’Wa Melke.
This event is a prelude to an upcoming festival in July 2024 – the Infinite Ecologies Marathon, which marks the ten-year anniversary of the 2014 Extinction Marathon. Both Infinite Ecologies gatherings seek agency in current times, focusing on what must be witnessed, remembered and held in facing a climate breakdown which is unequally distributed between persons, human and non-human alike.
Infinite Ecologies Marathon: The Prelude brings together key figures across disciplines – including Marina Abramović, Anohni*, James Bridle*, Cooking Sections, Gabriela De Matos, Manthia Diawara, Brian Eno*, Fiscal Harm, Formafantasma*, Lina Ghotmeh, Daisy Hildyard, Louisa Hooper, Nabihah Iqbal, Judy Ling Wong, Gabriel Massan, Mariana Mazzucato, Jojo Mehta, Kumi Naidoo*, Ventura Profana with Vandria Garcia Corrêa and Ta’Wa Melke, Tomás Saraceno, Nikolaj Schultz, Yinka Shonibare, Natsuko Uchino, Adrián Villar Rojas and Johannes Vogel – to respond to the prompts:
What is underrepresented on the environmental agenda today?
What is not yet on the agenda, but will be in the near future?
*denotes remote or online contribution
Interventions at The Prelude will set the agenda for the July 2024 Marathon, and for Serpentine’s actions in the lead-up to it. The Infinite Ecologies Marathon inaugurates Serpentine’s Ecologies initiatives for 2024-2026 and builds on Serpentine’s longstanding commitment to artist-led, systems-focused ecological research and initiatives, from the Extinction Marathon (2014) to the General Ecology project (since 2018) and Back to Earth (2020-2022).
Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director; Lucia Pietroiusti, Head of Ecologies; and Kostas Stasinopoulos, Curator, Live Programmes; with Sarah Hamed, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions and Eva Speight, Curatorial Assistant, Live Programmes.