initiators
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dr. Sabine Kunst was President of the Humboldt University of Berlin. Before she was Minister of Science, Research and Culture in Brandenburg until she took office in 2016.
Before that, the university lecturer and researcher held various executive positions, including President of the University of Potsdam and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).
Her scientific work and international commitment have taken the researcher to a number of countries, for example to Bolivia, Mexico and Peru. Sabine Kunst studied biology, political science and water management at the University of Hannover from 1972 to 1982. In 1982 she received her doctorate in engineering, in 1990 in political science.
Antje Boetius is a professor of geomicrobiology at the University of Bremen and head of the joint research group “Deep-Sea Ecology and Technology” of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres and the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology.
She also chairs the steering committee of Wissenschaft im Dialog and is director of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven. Antje Boetius supports the project “Theatre of the Anthropocene” with funds from the German Environmental Award she was awarded in 2018 and from project funds of her ERC Advanced Grant ABYSS, which she not only uses for technology developments but also science communication.
Frank M. Raddatz Publicist, dramaturge at various theatres. Collaboration with Heiner Müller, Frank Castorf, Dimiter Gotscheff, Jannis Kounellis, Theodoros Terzopoulos, Einar Schleef and Tadashi Suzuki, among others.
Artistic director of international cooperation Mania Thebaia (Düsseldorf/Epidaurus) 2002 and Promethiade Athens – Essen – Istanbul 2010. 2007 to May 2014 in the chief editorial office of Theater der Zeit, since then Lettre International, Berlin. Member of the ITI. Raddatz teaches at various universities, currently at the HU Berlin. He published numerous works on aesthetics, literature and theatre theory, most recently “Das Drama des Anthropozän” (Theater der Zeit, Berlin 2021).
partners
With its commitment to the theatre of the Anthropocene, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin picks up a thread of Alexander von Humboldt’s travelling researcher and scholar and addresses the current interactions between nature and man. On this new Humboldt stage, science, art and society are to be linked together and, through the knowledge gained in the exchange, enable their audience to act in the sense of a sustainable future. On the basis of its self-image of learning through research, Humboldt-Universität is working on the fundamental conflict between man and nature in the dialogue between university and society and in the dialogue between university and culture. Anthropocene – this is the term science has chosen for our era. A geological age in which mankind will decide on the future of the Earth in a way never before seen.
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin is one of the eleven Excellence Universities in Germany. By researching socially relevant topics and questions of the future, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin has a positive impact on the economy and society beyond the university setting.
As the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, the Alfred Wegener Institute is primarily active in the cold and temperate regions of the world. Working together with numerous national and international partners, we are actively involved in unravelling the complex processes at work in the “Earth System”.
Our planet is undergoing fundamental climate change; the polar regions and the oceans, which play central roles in the global climate system, are in flux. How will planet Earth evolve? Do the phenomena we’re observing represent short-term fluctuations or long-term trends? Polar and marine research has always been a fascinating scientific challenge; today it is also research into the future.
Together with the Humboldt University, the Alfred Wegener Institute (Antje Boetius) and the dramaturg Frank Raddatz, the Stiftung AlltagForschungKunst is developing a new format of inventive expedition in the Humboldt sense.
The foundation’s work integrates professional practice and artistic-scientific research with “people found by chance” and scientists. It thus integrates everyday knowledge into research in order to develop new insights and ideas for the future. This format of expeditions enables us to immerse ourselves in the “accidental events” of the immediate surroundings of our everyday lives. Scientists, laymen, young activists, landscape architects and artists lead the expeditions under “guidance”. The participants explore and discover the signs of the Anthropocene and try to understand them.
In this way, views and insights about our time and our living environment are brought forth that are often so close that we overlook them. In Humboldt’s sense, these insights arise from movement in space, curiosity and empathy for our life-world. The first focus is on the topic of city trees in urban space.
We want to focus on species that are sometimes migrated, sometimes invaded or even indigenous, and those that will “survive” in the course of climate change. What effects does this have on the design of living environments, on society and biodiversity in urban and rural areas? Which strategies and measures are conceivable?