FIBER Festival: Context Programme Day 2

Saturday, 31 May, 12:00 - 18:00


What does it mean to be wild? To embrace the unknown, become lost in time and space? In a world increasingly structured by optimization, control, and predictability, the call for wildness emerges as both an artistic and political act of resistance. It is a practice of unknowing, of embracing the chaotic, the feral, the untamed. In its tenth edition, FIBER Festival invites artists, thinkers, and audiences to explore the unpredictable forces of wildness, moving towards an aesthetic of bewilderment and a renewed understanding of the untamed in art, technology, and life itself.

At the heart of the festival, the Context Program provides a space for knowledge exchange, where contemporary developments in art, sound, and media culture are examined through critical discussions and artistic reflections.

Over two days, we gather to think, listen, and imagine alongside artists, musicians, designers, and researchers who challenge the structures we inhabit and offer glimpses into other ways of sensing, knowing, and creating. We invite you to join us and think beyond the boundaries of the known, towards wilder ways of sensing, making, and imagining.

SATURDAY MAY 31

The second day of the lecture and panel programme is dedicated to artistic-research that relates to urgent ecological, technological and socio-political themes. Speakers will show their work as well as engage in discussions on theory and practice. Make the frequencies of your brain vibrate faster, and learn about topics such as AI, human/non-human relationships and different perspectives on (re)wilding.

Location: de Brakke Grond
Nes 45, 1012 KD Amsterdam

EXPLORE CONTEXT PROGRAMME DAY 1

Programme Day 2

  • Worldbuilding the Wild

    12:00 - 13:30, de Brakke Grond (Grote Zaal)
    Talks by: Troy Vettese and Josèfa Ntjam

    How can we envision modes of ecological resistance and new relationships with non-human entities? Could this be achieved through practicing worldbuilding, theory and magical dreaming? Through this session of the festival talks you will learn how political and cultural worldbuilding could be a vessel for saving the planet. From rewilding our planet, healing our relationship with animals to mythical knowledge systems. Josèfa Ntjam and Troy Vettese will take you on a journey of radical ideas about potential relationships to wildness.

  • Into the Field – building artistic relationship with landscapes and animals

    14:00 - 15:15, de Brakke Grond (Grote Zaal)
    Talks by: Xandra van der Eijk and Matteo Marangoni. Moderation: Abdo Hassan

    Building on long-term (field) work to understand and relate to biological systems, the artists in this session conduct research and design installations that reveal environmental harm or envision symbiotic relationships between us, landscapes and animals. From water-focused projects to co-create with the Rhine through material experimentation, to interspecies communication between birds and machine learning systems. Xandra van Eijk and Matteo Marangoni’s installations question how we could relate differently to wildness.

  • Wilding AI – new perspectives on spatial sound and AI

    15:30 - 16:45, de Brakke Grond (Grote Zaal)
    Panel: Marice Jones, Dr. Beth Coleman, Pía Baltazar. Moderation: Abdo Hassan

    Building on long-term (field) work to understand and relate to biological systems, the artists in this session conduct research and design installations that reveal environmental harm or envision symbiotic relationships between us, landscapes and animals. From water-focused projects to co-create with the Rhine through material experimentation, to interspecies communication between birds and machine learning systems. Xandra van Eijk and Matteo Marangoni’s installations question how we could relate differently to wildness.

  • Symbiotic Spaces – Preparing for Shared Wildness

    17:00 - 18:20, de Brakke Grond (Grote Zaal)
    Talks by: Dr. Laura J. Martin (remote), Ivan Henriques. Moderation: Abdo Hassan

    In the fight against climate change and the sixth mass species extinction, environmental restoration is a global pursuit and a major political concern. Restorationists grappled with the deepest puzzles of human care for life on earth: How to intervene in nature for nature’s own sake? Even more profound: Is it possible to design nature without destroying wildness? The final block of the 2025 Context programme asks the question: can we create new spaces for symbiotic living? Dr. Laura J. Martin will share her book Wild by Design on how people create habitats for other species. Artist Ivan Henriques proposes a coexistence between plants, fungi and humans in the built environment through technological innovation, provoking critical discussions on questions such as what technology we want to develop from a vision of sustainability.

  • Abdo Hassan

    Fri May 30 + Sat May 31 | de Brakke Grond
    CONTEXT PROGRAMME DAY 1 & 2

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  • Dr. Laura J. Martin (Lecture | Remote)

    Sat May 31 | de Brakke Grond
    CONTEXT PROGRAMME DAY 2

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  • Josèfa Ntjam (Artist Talk )

    Sat May 31 | de Brakke Grond
    CONTEXT PROGRAMME DAY 2

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  • Maurice Jones (Panel)

    Sat May 31 | de Brakke Grond
    CONTEXT PROGRAMME DAY 2

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  • Matteo Marangoni (Artist Talk)

    Sat May 31 | de Brakke Grond
    CONTEXT PROGRAMME DAY 2

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  • PÍa Baltazar (Panel)

    Sat May 31 | de Brakke Grond
    CONTEXT PROGRAMME DAY 2

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  • Troy Vettese (Artist Talk)

    Sat May 31 | de Brakke Grond
    CONTEXT PROGRAMME DAY 2

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  • Xandra van der Eijk (Artist Talk)

    Sat May 31 | de Brakke Grond
    CONTEXT PROGRAMME DAY 2

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