Zone2Source - Multispecies Assembly
Elmo Vermijs - How do we take the importance of all life into account?
Elmo Vermijs, Anne Jesuina, Tanja Dekker (bodemdeskundige, ecoloog), Nicole de Rop (Beheer gemeente Amsterdam), Marieke Nooren (dramaturg), Alice Smits (Zone2Source)
Multispecies Assembly is an initiative of artist Elmo Vermijs in collaboration with Zone2Source, a testing ground for art and ecology in Amstelpark. The origins of this project date back to 2022, when the project “De Bomen Vertellen hun verhaal” (The Trees Tell Their Story) took place. This project is taking place in the context of Zoöp Amstelpark, which will be launched on 4 October at 3 p.m. This is a collaboration between Zone2Source, the Zoönomisch Instituut and the Municipality of Amsterdam. Zone2Source has challenged the municipality to manage Amsterdam for the next 750 years as a city of billions – human and more-than-human inhabitants – and thus do justice to the city’s ecological diversity. The Amstelpark will become a testing ground where we can learn together how multispecies policy, legislation, design, planning, etc. can take shape.
Multispecies Assembly is a series of installations and performative events in which we practise how to make decisions that take into account the interests of both human and non-human lives. This first MultiSpecies Assembly focuses on a management issue in Amstelpark, raised by gardener Nicole de Rop: we will examine how we can view the tree pruning policy, for which safety considerations are an important factor, from the perspective of multiple species – humans, trees and everything that lives on them and depends on them. Anne Jesuina Tobias de Andrade
Anne Jesuina Tobias de Andrade (all pronouns) (1989) is a decolonial, anti-disciplinary artist of Northern Dutch and Afro-Brazillian descent, based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Anne is also one of the two first Speakers for the Living in the world’s first public Zoöp Amstelpark. Their work moves between post-activism, multispecies justice, and somatic abolitionism, and investigates the relationship between worldview, emotion, relationship and ecology. Through writing, music, voice, moving images, and performance, Anne seeks to uncover the invisibilised socio-somatic dimensions of white “supremacy” culture in order to heal individual, eco-collective wounds and to reclaim regenerative sources of power.
Agenda
