Curator Borbála Soós invites us to a virtual tour of real and imaginary places, full of exotic vegetation and special details. Participant will also have the opportunity to choose their own route and to reveal hidden ones, as well as make use of selections by the “guide.”

Using Zoom teleconferencing together with sound recordings, videos and other works of art, Soós will take us on an exploration of the complex and interconnected relationship between places, species and history. During this interactive journey, Soós opens up space for questions of narrativization and the way we understand nature. We will cross over the boundary between fact and fiction, question colonial heritage, address the monetization of nature, and look at rewilding and humans as a possible saviors of nature.

We would like to ask you to please sign up in advance for the lecture. Please send your intention to attend to: michal.kindernay@agosto-foundation.org with “How to Become a Forest” in the subject of the email.

In the second part of her ongoing (virtual) residency, Soós is currently at work developing a blog called Speculative Nature Watch together with the Agosto Foundation. It is intended to serve as a platform to explore ideas having to do with ecology, politics, the philosophy of science and artistic enquiry during the COVID-19 pandemic. It takes the form of a speculative bestiary of viral images, news, factoids and metaphors, blurring the distinction between fact and fiction, while reflecting on the biopolitical and ecological effects of such stories. The blog traces a paradigm shift in the making through the images of certain animal and plant protagonists as the viral contagion sweeps across the borders of countries, structures of society and human and more-than-human relationships.

Borbála Soós is a London-based curator and an active advocate, participant and organiser of artistic and ecological research. Soós’ practice responds to, disrupts and enriches environmental thinking and related social and political urgencies. More about the curator.

The Agosto Foundation artist in residence program is supported by the Czech Ministry of Culture.