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Video | Talk “As Above/So Below” – #BiomoddBRG13

On June 30, the talk “As Above/So Below” (#BiomoddBRG13) produced and moderated by CEI-Iscte researcher, Ana Margarida Esteves, took place.

This initiative was included in the development of the #BiomoddBRG13 project, which features an installation produced by the SEADS network, in which Ana Margarida Esteves participates. This event was broadcasted for free by livestreaming, and can be reviewed here.

Overview
Soil, often associated with dirt and decay, is the very foundation of life. It is a site of creative chaos, where the four foundational elements – Earth, Water, Air and Fire – meet and interact.

In the last decades, deforestation, industrialized agriculture and geopolitical conflict have led to unprecedented levels of soil erosion around the globe.

Community-led initiatives for sustainability transition (ecovillages/transition towns/permaculture initiatives), community-developed art installations and analog space missions/outer life support research for space have produced a considerable amount of knowledge and technology aimed at producing or regenerating soil in adverse environments: disrupted terrestrial ecosystems and the life-threatening conditions of outer space. It’s these extreme contexts that force us to rethink accepted relationships between living organisms, humans and their environment, and come up with new configurations.

This talk promoted a dialogue between artists, scholars, activists and social entrepreneurs on regenerative approaches to the relationship between humans and soil.

Learn more about the panel here.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Ana Margarida Esteves

Ana Margarida Esteves is a Research Fellow at the Center for International Studies of the University Institute of Lisbon, Iscte and Guest Assistant Professor of the Department of Political Economy of the same institution. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University (Providence, RI, USA) where she was a Fulbright Fellow. Her research and teaching encompass the relations between the social and solidarity economy, the commons and the sustainability transition movements; synergies between nature, culture and technology; and the application of critical pedagogies, as well as strategies of non-formal education, to social mobilization and the promotion of participatory democracy. She is a founder and member of the International Editorial Committee of the journal "Interface: A journal for and about social movements" (www.interfacejournal.net). She is also a member the RC47: Social Classes and Social Movements of ISA - International Sociological Association and part of its editorial platform Open Movements / Open Democracy (https://www.opendemocracy.net/openmovements ). In 2020, Ana Margarida became a member of SEADS (Space Ecologies Art and Design), a transdisciplinary and cross-cultural collective of artists, scientists, engineers and activists that is actively engaged in deconstructing dominant paradigms about the future and develops alternative models through a combination of critical inquiry and hands-on experimentation.". Previous to joining CEI-IUL, Ana Margarida Esteves held teaching positions at Brown University, Universidade Federal Fluminense (Brazil), Tulane University (New Orleans, USA) and Sunway University (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). She is a Visiting Research Fellow at Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium) and Scuola Normale Superiore (Florence, Italy).