Ph.D. Project:
Unlearning for The Commons
Based on initial postcolonial research with a focus on gender and racism issues in relation to photography (global industrialization and colonization through a cultural practice using the example of Kodak), the following ontological questions have emerged through the decolonial research process: What modern consciousness of reality is at work in the medium, technology and process of photography?
The focus is therefore on relationships, no longer on technology, especially the relationships between non-humans, animals and plants, both in the global North and the global South.
In addition to approaches from the global South, I refer to two theoretical approaches: Philippe Descola and his analysis of naturalism and Arturo Escobar's political ontology and the idea of pluriversality. Therefore, a second, collaborative and practical part, a so-called pluriversal project is starting in 2024, focusing on the process and the “how”.
It discusses the (relational) ontology and epistemology of post-'representation' or 'post-representationism' or other representational epistemologies and epistemes - of the world, of the cosmos, of "worlding", by asking what it means to have a so-called "earth-connected" approach in a joint approach between the Global North and the Global South that meets the current challenges of climate change.
