Between Us and Nature – A Reading Club #39 – Too Heavy to Dance

Inspired by spring and reading Braiding Sweetgrass we went to pick wild garlic. Then the war broke out in Ukraine. Destruction and death fueled by greed remind us of the chapter on Windigo and Burning Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Also historian Kate Brown takes us to the Chernobyl Zone, offering a biography of a lost but unforgettable landscape.

Between Us and Nature is an ongoing reading club that chooses texts related to natural sciences, art, anthropology, postcolonialism and the (post)anthropocene from a female perspective. Attendees read passages together out loud, and share experiences and thoughts about the nature they live in. Looking beyond disciplines, the group creates a space to learn from and with bacteria, algae, fungi, soil and multinaturalist narratives.

May 18, 2022. We start at 18:30 CEST. We have 2 hours of reading together.

Come and join us with an open mind here:
What:​ The Reading Club is in English language
Where​: Zabriskie Buchladen , Reichenberger Str. 150, 10999 Berlin
Who:​ small group of lovely, people who would like reading collectively (personal rsvp is necessary: please register by sending an email to: betweenusnature[at]gmail[dot]com
Why:​ to read together, be inspired and meet people
Covid: Despite the relaxed rules, we will keep the number of participants limited, and kindly ask everyone to do a test beforehand. We would like to make everyone feel as safe as possible and are trusting each of one’s responsibility. If you have symptoms of a cold, please refrain from attending, thank you!

Hosts:​ Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky, artist, and Sina Ribak, researcher for ecologies and the arts in collaboration with Zabriskie Buchladen für Kultur und Natur.

References: Robin Wall Kimmerer: Braiding Sweetgrass – Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Kate Brown: Marie Curie’s Fingerprint: Nuclear Spelunking in the Chernobyl Zone. In: Arts of Living on a Damaged Planet – Ghosts and Monsters of the Anthropocene, Anna Tsing, Heather Swanson, Elaine Gan, Nils Bubandt (Eds), 2017, University of Minnesota Press.