SYMBIOPOIESIS

Disruption, displacement, and isolation disconnect us from the places we once knew or now inhabit. To exist we must find connections, but how can we do this when capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, and ecosystem destruction actively work to break our links within ourselves and to separate us from other human and non- human selves?

In this performance, we explore the necessity of these connections to survive, not only for ourselves but for all ecosystem inhabitants. We trace the possible pathways through which connections can be rebuilt, learning from the symbiosis which can be found when one looks
closely enough to see them. We imagine ourselves as single cells, which in order
to survive must evolve into multicellular organisms through sharing and combining and (be)coming together. We explore the processes of community formation following disruption in living installations, where soil, taken from around Vienna, is placed in a novel anaerobic environment, and we watch how the microorganisms form new communities. By reaching out, creating connections, and becoming more than ourselves we cease to be passive, we reject and refute the patriarchal assumptions that certain bodies and certain places do not have agency.

In actively finding and re-finding these connections, we restore the parts of ourselves and our ecosystems that were broken and have the chance to imagine a different world. Across multiple forms of storytelling, in a poetic space between art and biology, we explore the processes of finding connection and community after disruption.