Fog - School of Ecological Imagination

four-day workshop series
Eva Kot'atková, Lenka Vráblíková + guests*

22 - 25 April 2025, every day from 9.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.
Kafkárna, Buštěhradská 2, Praha 6

How can we learn together without using entrenched extractivist ways of relating to the world and to ourselves? How can education contribute to solving the multiple crises we are currently experiencing? How can we learn to face uncertainty whilst cultivating hope for a more just future? And what possibilities does the realm of art offer for a deeper and more sensitive approach to nature? Let's explore together ways of learning from and with the natural world, using practical and theoretical methods of contemporary art, critical pedagogy, systems and ecological thinking, and embodied work with senses and emotions. Our aim will be - through the transformative potential of artistic practice - to develop the critical and creative approaches that are necessary to address the ecological and socio-political challenges of the contemporary world, such as global warming, the decline in plant and animal biodiversity and the rise of social inequalities. 

In this four-day workshop series we will learn from and with the natural world through the language of contemporary art in collaboration with invited artists. In addition to the work of Czech and international artists, we will learn from eco-activists and eco-critical thinkers, using cultural analysis, critical theory and working with experiential methods. The content and form of the workshop series will draw on and actively respond to its unique location - the KAFKÁRNA Centre for Art and Ecology, which we understand as a natural, socio-political and imaginative "ecosystem". Learning from and with the natural world will proceed in thematic blocks (so-called "ecospheres") and will take the form of collective and individual activities (e.g. performance, movement and sensory exercises, interactive reading, discussion and reflection), allowing participants to try out and learn experimental methods such as listening, autofiction, critical and speculative fabulation and bio-imagination. Rather than the end result, we will emphasize the transformative process of learning with and from the natural world, thus fostering curiosity, discovery, critical and creative exploration and experimentation to enhance civic consciousness and develop imagination and other competencies necessary to promote environmental and social justice. 

The four-day workshop series is a precursor to course and educational materials developed for the Lifelong Learning Programme that will take place at the Centre for Arts and Ecology Kafkárna. Participation in the workshop series is free of charge; attendance for the entire duration is required. For UMPRUM students, the workshop series is for credit. In addition to attending the entire workshop, to successfully complete the workshop series, students will produce an individual written reflection (2 standard pages) or use another medium of equivalent scope.