From Rewilding to Re-Containing: Exploring Curatorial Leakage

Working through the concept of curatorial leakage, we embrace the idea of re-containing within our principles of rewilding, which offers a way to engage and coexist with the dynamic processes of nature and culture, facilitating a balanced, sympoeitic, and dynamic relationship between the two. Alysse Kushinski notes how “Leaks are always relational: out of something, somewhere, someone and into something, somewhere, someone else.”^[1] As curators, we aim to foreground the questions: How do we foster environments that facilitate the relationality of leaking? How do we hold space, re-contain our notions of cultural production and exchange, without laying down stringent boundaries that divide humans from non-humans, and deter the cultivation of worlds within worlds.

To “contain” bears the etymology of holding together, which manifests as a call in our curatorial work to think critically about how we make, occupy, and share space amongst and between various entities. Re-containing as a curatorial approach involves creating flexible, adaptive contexts that foster beneficial interactions among diverse entities. The concept of permeable boundaries in environmental science, as discussed in “Ecology of Fear” by Mike Davis, illustrates how natural and human-made boundaries can be designed to allow for movement and exchange, rather than isolation. Davis discusses how flexible, permeable boundaries in ecosystems would allow for natural processes like water flow and species migration, which maintain ecological balance (Davis, 1998).^[2] Drawing from Davis, the purpose of re-containing as a curatorial approach is to facilitate positive interactions within ecosystems. This involves promoting synergies and collaborative practices that enhance mutual support and cohabitation. Just as water seeps between a swamp and its aquifers, sustaining worlds-within-worlds through nutrient cycling, symbiotic interaction, and the maintenance of hydrological balance, re-containing and leakiness as curatorial practice recognizes the exchanges within a multispecies planet.^[3] Re-containing involves delineating enclaves of dialogue that do not isolate, but rather guide and facilitate beneficial interactions that activate and nourish cultural and community ecosystems.

Curatorial leakage embraces the inevitable flow of influence and interaction between humans and non-human others. Thus, leaky curatorial practices reflect and respect the stories and dreams of diverse environments – a perspective in line with Petra Kuppers’ concept of “eco soma” (Kuppers, 2022) – or speculative performances where participants can imagine new ways of being and interacting with the world.^[4] Kuppers emphasizes the importance of embodied experiences, ethical cohabitation, and speculative imagination, much like how curatorial leakage encourages a sensory tuning to both the inside and outside, promoting an awareness that is simultaneously introspective and outward-looking.^[5]

Curatorial practices, rooted in multi-species ontologies, embrace the profound connections among all beings, honoring their intrinsic worth and agency. By weaving a tapestry of care that acknowledges every thread in the ecological fabric, these practices foster a holistic and inclusive approach, much like the intricate workings of a swamp. In our leaky curating and re-containing, we’re creating spaces for flow, where art, learning, and ecological intelligence come together to think about a multi-species future. We aim to blur the lines that separate nature and culture, human and non-human, and explore collaborative, intersectional practices of eco-commoning. Jean-Luc Nancy conceptualizes a community as “being-in-common,” which articulates that a community is inherently formed through the process of commoning. Commoning involves the sharing of property, practices, or knowledge, and is the fundamental process through which a community is produced and sustained (Gibson-Graham, 2006).^[6] For our practice, this means asking how our work can break down individualistic barriers and promote shared ecological efforts.

By incorporating the principles and intelligences of different beings and terrains, we aim to recalibrate cultural ecosystems to honor both the histories and imaginaries of these environments and entities. In our work, we seek to align with feminist, postcapitalist, indigenous, and community economy scholars who insist upon the necessity of multispecies thinking for the survival of all species.^[7] This integrated perspective underscores the importance of social and ecological reproduction, advocating for holistic approaches to environmental and community care that is grounded, porous, and accountable to the vibrancy of our shared worlds^[8]

Collective Rewilding

References:

Mitsch, W. J., & Gosselink, J. G. (2011). Wetlands. Wiley.
Kuppers, P. (2022). Eco Soma: Pain and Joy in Speculative Performance Encounters. University of Minnesota Press.
Gibson-Graham, J. K., Cameron, J., & Healy, S. (2016). Commoning as a Postcapitalist Politics. In Releasing the Commons: Rethinking the Future of the Commons. Routledge.
Sato, C., & Soto Alarcón, J. M. (2019). Toward a postcapitalist feminist political ecology’s approach to the commons and commoning. International Journal of the Commons, 13(1), 36-61.
Tilman, D., et al. (2006). Biodiversity and Ecosystem Stability. Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve.

^[1] Alysse Kushinksi,“The Potential of Leaks: Mediation, Materiality and Incontinent Domains,” PhD diss., (York University, 2019), 13.

^[2] Davis, M. (1998). Ecology of fear: Los Angeles and the imagination of disaster. Metropolitan Books.

^[3] Mitsch, W. J., & Gosselink, J. G. (2011). Wetlands. Wiley.

^[4] Kuppers, P. (2022). Introducing eco soma. In Eco soma: Pain and joy in speculative performance encounters (pp. 1-12). University of Minnesota Press.

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] Gibson-Graham, J. K., Cameron, J., & Healy, S. (2016). Commoning as a postcapitalist politics. In A. Amin & P. Howell (Eds.), Releasing the commons: Rethinking the future of the commons (pp. 192-212). Routledge.

^[7] Sato, C., & Soto Alarcón, J. M. Toward a postcapitalist feminist political ecology’s approach to the commons and commoning. International Journal of the Commons, 13(1), 36-61.

^[8] Ibid.