No dia 20 de maio, o Grupo de Investigação LIFE organiza um seminário sobre Weaving and attuning to the rain shelters of tamya añanku: an inverted multisensory experience. Kuai Shen (ICS-ULisboa) será o orador convidado. A partir das 11h, na Sala 2 do ICS-ULisboa e online.

In the Kichwa nation of Sarayaku the colonial image of army ants, species Eciton burchellii, dissolves with the rain. These ants are locally known as tamya añanku, the rain messengers. Guided by a Kichwa performative language based on weaving and turning with rhythm, the rain ants of Sarayaku reveal themselves as territorial weavers, which turn into living shelters and bridges over water. Through tactical media and multispecies ethnography, a multisensory installation is generated with sensors, algorithms, music, vibrations, and olfactory experiments. Tamya añanku are more-than-human emissaries in the Sarayaku ontology of Kawsak Sacha, the living forest.

Dr. Kuai Shen is an artistic mediator of ant worlds specialised in multispecies ethnography. His practice-led research employs technology-based performances and decolonial tactics to overturn conventional representations of ants instilled by dominant research imaginaries. Kuai develops the concept of inverted aesthesis: a multisensory amplification of insect-human relations through earthly attunements to more-than-human ecologies and indigenous ontologies. His transversal work with ants has been published in journals such as Society and Animals, Antennae, Art&Australia, Humans and Nature, and in the book Distributed Perception. His artworks have been commissioned by Eli Broad Museum, FACT Liverpool, National Art Gallery Vilnius, House of Arts Brno, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Quito. Kuai has been awarded stipends and prizes, such as Musikfonds Germany, Bridge from Michigan State University, the Saxony Cynetart Award, the Edith-Russ-Haus Media Prize, and an honorary mention at Prix Ars Electronica.

Kuai Shen is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project ABIDE – Animal ABidings: recoverIng from DisastErs in more-than-human communities, coordinated by PI Verónica Policarpo and funded by the European Union (ERC, ABIDE, CoG ID 101043231). Views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.