Interdisciplinarity – a process of negotiated imagination?
A talk on Art-Science Collaborations and Methodological Reorientations with Marianne Achiam followed by a discussion with Eva la Cour and Johanna Paschen.
Why do the humanities matter for climate research? This talk begins with a growing recognition: The humanities are vital to climate research – yet this recognition emerges at a time when the humanities themselves are under severe institutional pressure.
The talk will address the limitations of siloed expertise and science-technocratic solutions that lack critical, reflexive, and cultural grounding – an issue that is becoming increasingly evident. Conceptual, historical, and imaginative insights and skills, rooted in deep understandings of media, language, and human cultures, are essential to addressing the complexity of climatic changes.
But what does interdisciplinarity really mean? Situated within the aims of Marianne Achiam’s research project, SUSTAIN-ART-SCI – a project dedicated to developing transformational, arts-based science communication – the talk asks whether and how interdisciplinarity can it be more than a buzzword. Can it be something that serves as a meaningful mode of shared inquiry? A way of working that values epistemic justice and embraces productive friction tensions not only between the humanities and natural sciences, but also among social sciences and the arts? This lecture argues for a methodological reorientation toward such sometimes inconvenient encounters of friction.
Following Marianne Achiam’s talk, artistic postdoc Eva la Cour and visiting PhD Johanna Paschen at CApE will join a conversation about shifting interdisciplinary terrains and how artists, scientists, and citizens can collaborate to shape more just forms and cultures of knowledge.
We will wrap up with a a small reception.
Marianne Achiam
Marianne Achiam is an Associate Professor and the head of the research group Science Communication at the Department of Science Education, University of Copenhagen. Her research and teaching focus on the role of science communication and public engagement in promoting sustainability.
Johanna Paschen
Johanna Paschen (she/her) is a PhD researcher at the EcoArtLab, working at the intersection of climate justice, critical sustainability, art, and transdisciplinarity. Affiliated with the University of Bern and Bern Academy of the Arts, she is currently a visiting PhD at CApE. With a background in Human Ecology and Liberal Arts and Sciences, her work focuses on collaborative art-science research. She has also been active in environmental NGOs such as NOAH – Friends of the Earth Denmark.
Eva la Cour
Eva la Cour is a visual artist and postdoc at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Art and Cultural Studies and the Center for Applied Ecological Thinking (CApE). Her practice combines academic research and image-making, often through collaborative processes. She uses process-oriented filmmaking to explore interdisciplinarity and the role of art in relation to Danish colonial history and its links to today’s ecological and social crises. She holds a practice-based PhD from HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg.