{"id":37956,"date":"2026-03-31T12:43:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T11:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bonnierskonsthall.se\/event\/saturday-nightly-blossoms-tangled-roots-a-symposium-on-ecological-intimacies\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T15:39:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T14:39:13","slug":"saturday-nightly-blossoms-tangled-roots-a-symposium-on-ecological-intimacies","status":"publish","type":"calendar_event","link":"https:\/\/bonnierskonsthall.se\/en\/event\/saturday-nightly-blossoms-tangled-roots-a-symposium-on-ecological-intimacies\/","title":{"rendered":"Saturday\/Nightly Blossoms, Tangled Roots: A Symposium on Ecological Intimacies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Saturday\/Nightly Blossoms, Tangled Roots: A Symposium on Ecological Intimacies<\/h2><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\n\tSat 30 May 10:00<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t15:50<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Among flowering cacti, burning giant hogweed and bleeding mulberries, the exhibition Nocturnal Games<\/em> by artist Ingela Ihrman invites us to join a sincere desire to get close and linger in borderline states. On the occasion of the exhibition, the two-day international symposium Nightly Blossoms, Tangled Roots<\/em> gathers influential voices to tangle in conversations on how the intimate and the awkward in multispecies encounters can be understood as sites of both vulnerability and generative possibility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nightly Blossoms, Tangled Roots <\/em>propose an engagement with ecological intimacies<\/em>, alongside what it means to be ecologically intimate<\/em> \u2013 to perceive how such views may open for new imaginations and transformative ways of thinking and being. From the outlook of visual art and feminist posthumanities the symposium seeks to discuss ecological intimacies from a variety of perspectives within curating, botany, design, archeology, art history and environmental humanities. Through tangling with the roots of flowers, science, darkness, soil, grief and grotesque bodies, we stay with a naturecultural notion of intimacy that includes being uncomfortable and in awkwardness.[1]<\/a> Nightly Blossoms, Tangled Roots<\/em> therefore highlights how both humans and nonhumans are already part of many networks of worldly relations that requires closeness with that what is different \u2013 \u201coddkin\u201d \u2013 in the form of unexpected encounters, collaborations and combinations.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The symposium is organised in the form of three keynote lectures by feminist biologist Banu Subramaniam, art curator Chus Mart\u00ednez and urban design scholar Nick Dunn, accompanied by a series of duo and panel discussions. Subramaniam calls in her book Botany of Empire<\/em>, for a \u201cpolyphonic, polybotanical imagination\u201d in her critique of how colonial science has organized biological diversity into a simple system of classification based on human gender, race and sexuality. Consequently, Subramaniam challenge binaries where botany becomes \u201ca site of joyful and playful explorations for flourishing botanical futures\u201d.[3]<\/a> Mart\u00ednez contributes to the new monography on Ihrman, discussing how the artist\u2019s soft flower sculptures constitute an exercise for understanding the perspectives of other nonhuman beings. From this radical position, Martinez suggests that we must accept that \u201dcomprehension and possibility is born not from escapism in search of an ultimate redemption but of an act of reinvention that would give birth to a new logic\u201d.[4]<\/a> Likewise, Dunn suggest a more intimate relationship with darkness while addressing the biological impact of artificial illumination. His lecture acknowledges how humans today often \u201cdo not know what darkness really is and thus we normalise the destruction of lifeworlds that are reliant on coexistences of light and dark\u201d. [5]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Environmental humanities scholars Marietta Radomska and Christina Fredengren bring the theme of darkness further into the visual arts from which they examine rituals, species extinction and ecological grief. In their panel, gender studies scholars Cecilia \u00c5sberg and Tara Mehrabi together with artistic researcher Mirko Nikoli\u0107 starts within conceptions of feminist posthumanities to discuss ecological intimacies and fieldwork practices. On the Saturday artistic researcher Malin Arnell and curatorial theorist Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris take their respective theory practices as point of departure to discuss how planetary breathing and eco technologies is manifested in contemporary art. Importantly the symposium features the performance Nocturnal Games<\/em> by Ihrman, an introduction of the exhibition and a moderated conversation between Ihrman and Mart\u00ednez. Tangling together with this remarkable group of speakers, we ask: Is intimacy fundamentally about closeness, or can it include being changed by what we encounter? Can something be intimate without being chosen or welcomed? Will intimacy as we normally conceive it (warm, chosen and known) insulate us from genuine political responsiveness?  Nightly Blossoms, Tangling Roots<\/em> thus wish to be a labyrinthic space for entanglements, frictions and porosities \u2013 a borderland where roots are sprawling and \u201coddkin\u201d makes us co-create and transform one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Caroline Elgh and Caroline Malmstr\u00f6m, curators of Nightly Blossoms, Tangling Roots: A Symposium on Ecological Intimacies<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Schedule \u2192 Saturday 30 May<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

10:00-10:10<\/strong> Introduction by curators of the symposium Caroline Elgh and Caroline Malmstr\u00f6m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10:10-11:10<\/strong> Keynote lecture: Chus Mart\u00ednez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

11:10-11:30<\/strong> Coffee and tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11:30-12:30<\/strong> Malin Arnell and Bronwyn Bailey-Charteris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

12:30-13:20<\/strong> Lunch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

13:20-14:20<\/strong> Keynote lecture: Nick Dunn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

14:20-14:40<\/strong> Coffee and tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14:40-15:40<\/strong> Artist talk with Ingela Ihrman, moderated by Chus Mart\u00ednez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

15:40-15:50<\/strong> Reflections and finishing words by organisers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16:00-17:00<\/strong> Possibility to take part of Katarina Bonnevier\u2019s guided tour of Ingela Ihrman\u2019s exhibition (part of the Bonniers Konsthall general program, in Swedish). Read more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Are you interested in attending both Friday\u2019s<\/a> and Saturday\u2019s readings? Please book a ticket for each day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lunch (vegan sandwich), coffee and tea is included in the ticket prize. This time, unfortunately, we cannot accommodate allergies or special dietary requirements. Changes to the schedule may occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In English. Admission to the exhibition is included, limited admission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/a> Haraway, Donna, When Species Meet<\/em>, University of Minnesota Press, 2008. See also, Mehrabi, Tara & Straube, Wibke, \u201cUnsettling Intimacies: On World-Making Practices with the Other in Minoosh Zomorodinia\u2019s Installation Knots and Ripples\u201d. NORA \u2013 Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research<\/em>, p. 1\u201315, 2024, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/08038740.2024.2432439
[2]<\/a> Haraway, Donna, Staying with the trouble: making kin in the Chthulucene<\/em>, Duke University Press, Durham, 2016, p. 4.
[3]<\/a> Subramaniam, Banu, Botany of Empire: plant worlds and the scientific legacies of colonialism<\/em>, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2024, p. 4.
[4]<\/a> Mart\u00ednez, Chus,\u201dFlying Flowers in Search of Freedom: From Flower Power to Flower Powerlessness and Back to Power\u201d in Queen of the Night: Ingela Ihrman<\/em>, Bonniers Konsthall & Mousse Publishing, Stockholm & Milan, 2026, p. 156.
[5] Dunn, Nick, Dark Futures: when the lights go down<\/em>, John Hunt Publishing, Washington, 2025. Quote retrieved from Dunn\u2019s abstract to this symposium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Illustration: Saskia Gullstrand<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Admission<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Ticket<\/p>\n\n\n\n

130 SEK<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Are you interested in attending both Friday’s and Saturday’s readings? Please book a ticket for each day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Buy ticket<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In collaboration with IASPIS, the Swedish Arts Grants Committee\u00b4s International Programme for Visual and Applied Arts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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