FutureLand, Who’s Land?

In order to explore material transformations of a seemingly elusive material, we will visit Rotterdam’s most prominent reclamation project, Maasvlakte 2. The harbour tour will serve as an introduction to sand as an interscalar vehicle as well as a critical reading of interspecies relationships in design (from object-oriented-feminism to questions of individuation). Observations on the symbolic, economic and physical values of sand made during the tour and exhibition at FutureLand will be collected and discussed. The aim of the workshop is to get an insight into the politics of human-material relationships in Rotterdam and understand how they might limit the becoming of both matter and humans by design choices made.

Please stay tuned for more information about the tour.

Michaela Büsse

Michaela Büsse is an artistic researcher interested in speculative and experimental design practices, new materialism and philosophies of technology and ecology. Her practice is research-led ranging from text to film and installations to workshops. Currently, Michaela is a PhD candidate at the Critical Media Lab in Basel. She has been a fellow at Strelka Institute's design think-tank ‘The New Normal’ (2017), and took part in the research residency ‘Acts of Life’ - an interdisciplinary collaboration of NTU CCA Singapore and MCAD Manila (2018). Michaela regularly lectures and runs workshops at various institutions; is part of the editorial board at Migrant Journal and co-founder of OTHERWISE - a festival-as-research.