UTOPIENALE

UTOPIENALE V 21 - 24 August 2026

Havelberg & Berlin

UTOPIENALE V

/ Nature Art Laboratory

Talks, Workshops and Artistic Field Practice across Ecology, Agriculture and Community

Nature Art Lab asks a central question: how can artistic practice help us imagine and shape more resilient, attentive and sustainable forms of living across ecological, agricultural and community contexts?

Bringing together artists, curators, educators, cultural practitioners, environmental researchers and local initiatives, the conference approaches nature not as a distant subject of representation, but as a living field of relationships — between rivers and cities, land and food, knowledge and craft, institutions and communities, memory and future forms of action.

Across Havelberg, Dessau and Berlin, the programme unfolds through talks, workshops, field-based artistic practice, exhibition, performance, music and round-table discussions. It moves from rivers, biosphere landscapes and the Greening the Negev Desert initiative, through education, youth empowerment, traditional crafts, rural knowledge, food systems and future technologies of life. Rather than separating art from ecology, agriculture or civic life, Nature Art Lab frames artistic practice as a site-specific, collaborative and experimental way of asking urgent questions: How do we learn from place? How can cultural work respond to environmental change without limiting it to a single discipline, method or narrative? How can communities build resilience?

The conference invites participants and stakeholders from the fields of art, culture, education, ecology, agriculture and community development to think together about future-oriented models of practice. It proposes the artistic field as a shared laboratory: a space in which observation, creation, dialogue and imagination can connect human and environmental systems, activate local knowledge, and open new perspectives on community, (thr)utopia and cultural futures.

Programme* – 21–24 August 2026
21–23 August > Havelberg, 24 August > Berlin

*All sessions will be held in a panel format, with 3–6 leading speakers seated together in front of the participants. One of the speakers will serve as the session moderator. Panel members may present short, focused presentations as part of the session.

First Conference Day — Session A (21.8)
Art, Nature and Ecological Laboratory: Rivers, Biosphere, Desert and Research Spaces

As heat, scarcity of water versus floods, biodiversity loss and fragility of landscapes increasingly shape the conditions of human life, moving education by disaster centre stage: How can artistic field practice help us rethink ecological knowledge as a direct question of survival, care and quality of life?

*Practical outdoor fieldwork/studio by the participating artists will take place from the morning through to the afternoon. The panel sessions, as detailed below, will commence in the afternoon.

· Anke Leonhardt — connecting Old School ICA, Galerie Stadtinsel and the local environment.

· Wolf Guenter Thiel — leads the presentation of the conference spaces, participates in the Nature Laboratory workshops; a central figure in connecting art, place, nature and curating.

· Doron Polak — leads Nature Art Lab, facilitates workshops with artists and educational activists, and presents the theme of Greening the Negev Desert; connects art, ecology, desert and curating.

· Gerald Walter — participates in Nature Art Lab and leads a workshop on new models of resilience; connects sustainability, community, nutrition, rurality and future forms of living.

· Marion Zosel-Mohr — presents the conference spaces and thematic focal points together with Wolf Guenter Thiel; connected to the local-community framing of the event.

· Jella Schnirch — connected to Haus der Flüsse and to the journey into the biosphere; represents the direct connection between the conference, the river, the environment and ecological education.

· Philippa Engelbrechten — presents Unfold e.V.; connected to education, empowerment, children and young people, as well as personal and social resilience.

· Kerstin Rice — presents TheARCH gUG; engages in traditional crafts, local knowledge, material heritage and community.

· Anne Baumann — presents science2public, connecting science, the public, education, community and accessible science communication.

First Conference Day — Session B (21.8)
Art, Society and Community: Education, Participation, Civic Resilience and Local Institutions

In a near future marked by social fragmentation, environmental pressure and unequal access to knowledge, how can art, education and local institutions help communities remain connected, capable and resilient?

*Practical outdoor fieldwork/studio by the participating artists will take place from the morning through to the afternoon. The panel sessions, as detailed below, will commence in the afternoon.

· Doron Polak — leads Nature Art Lab, facilitates workshops with artists and educational activists; connects art, ecology, desert and curatorial action.

· Halleli Fried — leads a workshop with Doron Polak and participates in the discussion; connects art, nature and experimental creative processes.

· Yetiv Zvi Cohen — leads a workshop with Doron Polak and participates in the discussion; connects art, nature and experimental creative processes.

· Derk Schneider — connected to Haus der Flüsse and to Nature Laboratory; participates in the axis of environmental education, rivers, biosphere and field research.

· Miriam Zeller — discussion facilitator/chair, connected to Comenius Schule and Grüne Landesliste; represents the connection between education, civic activity and the environment.

· Barbara Rüppel — participates in the discussion on behalf of Diesterweg & Havelberg Gymnasium; represents the local education system and the connection between pupils, culture and art.

· Bettina Müller — participates in the discussion on behalf of Kunstitut; engages with art, art education and the facilitation of creative processes in the community.

· Norbert Krebber — participates in the discussion on behalf of Vitos Elbehof; connected to environmental education, landscape, community and nature.

· Azby Brown — conceptually connected to the fields of sustainability, material culture, environmental planning and ecological knowledge.

· Wieland Krause — performs in the concert; connected to photography, video, sound and installation.

· Franziska Seifert — Exhibition reception at Old School ICA

Second Conference Day — Session C (22.8)
Art, Nature and Agriculture: Food, Land, Rurality, Future Agriculture and Life Technologies

As food systems, rural livelihoods and land-based knowledge come under growing ecological, economic and technological pressure, how can artists, researchers and agricultural practitioners imagine fairer and more liveable futures for people and places?

*Practical outdoor fieldwork/studio by the participating artists will take place from the morning through to the afternoon. The panel sessions, as detailed below, will commence in the afternoon.

· Yair Avivi — presents High Tech Kibbutz, co-working and high tech; leads a workshop on new models of resilience and work in rural regions.

· Nicoletta Geiersbach — participates in the discussion as a representative of Sieben Linden; connected to eco-community, community learning, shared living and social processes.

· Selina Tenzer — Waldgärtnerei Kyritz https://www.waldgaertnerei-kyritz.de

· Thilo Motschall — presents the algae farm Algomed Klötze and works from Lichtblütenfestival; connects algae, food, agriculture, light and art.

· Karsten Wittke — presents grape-growing and wine in Brandenburg; connects local agriculture, land, wine, art and community.

· Liat Danieli — https://liatdanieli.com

· Kerstin & Miles Rice — lead a workshop on traditional crafts and local survival strategies; represent rural knowledge, material, craft and community planning.

Second Conference Day — Session D (22.8)
Art, Society and Community: Exhibition, Performance, Music and Utopia

When uncertainty, displacement and social anxiety reshape the way people experience belonging, how can exhibition, performance, music and artistic intervention create spaces in which communities can rehearse alternative futures?

*Practical outdoor fieldwork/studio by the participating artists will take place from the morning through to the afternoon. The panel sessions, as detailed below, will commence in the afternoon.

· Amir Cohen — leads, together with Wolf Guenter Thiel, the Nature Laboratory workshop connecting artists from Tel Aviv with artists from Saxony-Anhalt; engages with the connection between curatorial thinking, art, place and identity.

· Boisseau & Westermeyer — https://www.filmerei.net/

· Nadine Rennert — https://nadinerennert.de/sondergesandte

· Norma Drimmer — participates within the framework of Performance / Film; engages with video, installation, media, nature, science and perception.

· Sebastian Maas & Karolina Vocke —https://www.heldenreizer.com/sebastian-maashttps://pam-akademie.de/

· Sergej Gladkich — Misspellings & Corrections — https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergej_Gladkich

· Aneta Panek — participates within the framework of Performance / Film; works with film, performance, image, rebellion and transformation.

· Iv Toshain — presents works as part of the exhibition; works in performance, film, installation and sculpture.

· Lado Khartishvili — presents works as part of the exhibition; an artist working in contexts of contemporary art, collective action and cultural space.

· Hofstetter Kurt — presents works as part of the exhibition; connected to media art, sound, light, computers and conceptual installations.

· Bazon Brock — https://bazonbrock.de

Third Conference Day — Session E (23.8)

City Squeeze vs. Rural Areas and Ideal Spaces: Resilience, Careand Happyness for All 

· Johanna Fick — lectures on behalf of Thünen Institut on the theme Culture and Resilience; connects culture, resilience, community and rural regions.

· Norbert Röder — lectures on behalf of Thünen Institut on the theme The Economy of Utopia; engages with rural economy, land use, agricultural policy and the future of rural regions.

· Franziska Seifert — lectures on Cordts Kunstiftung, Arcadia and ideal places for sculpture.

· Doron Polak — presents the theme of Greening the Negev Desert.

· Maren Ernst —Uplift - Aufwind.e.V. — https://www.uplift-aufwind.org/de

· Kristian Hornsleth — presents works and participates in the discussion; engages with conceptual art, socially critical projects and provocative actions in public space.

Sessions A-E: Brief Structural Note
The division creates a clear conceptual progression:

Session A - Opens the conference with nature, rivers, the biosphere, and an artistic laboratory.

Session B - Shifts the emphasis to education, community and social resilience.

Session C - Focuses on agriculture, food, rurality and life technologies.

Session D - Showcases art, performance, music and cultural utopia.

Session E - Concludes the Havelberg programme with the future of country life, utopia and care.

Session F – Berlin (24.8)
At Franziska Seifert / Cordts Art Foundation / Space No Gallery

Reception and Exhibition by the artists of the Nature Art Laboratory

Sound makes space – Homage to Robert Wilson — With The 4th Wall artists.

Theatrical Imagination - In a world shaped by acceleration, noise and fractured attention, how can Robert Wilson’s language of light, sound, time and space help us recover slowness, perception and dialogue as conditions for social and environmental imagination?