Homeostasis - between Borders and Flows

Homeostasis is the mechanism by which organisms or systems sustain balance, or return to balance when needed. This natural regulation engine aims in maintaining a dynamic equilibrium, while evidencing the interrelatedness of all the parts that constitute the natural machine. This project proposes the phenomenon of Homeostasis as a metaphor to address the actual need to restore balance within our complex living environments – or the entanglements of individual and collective bodies and actions, human and other-than-human, borders and flows, on the local and global levels. It establishes an expanded artistic/ pedagogical format to bring together local and international artists, ecologists, urbanists and earth-rights defenders to reimagine the entanglements of ecology and urbanity, while debating and co-creating artistic works.

Homeostasis focus on spaces on the edges of Graz — micro-forests and green areas circumscribed by highways roundabouts, located near to the borders of the city; using them as physical exploration devices to inquire around systemic change, and indispensable alterations to the ways we see, behave and act within nature. Life-flows do not follow the standardly imposed administrative borders. These artificial lines have been historically a topic of conflict within political, urbanistic and ecological discourses, as they do not follow the organic pathways and mechanisms of regulation of ecosystems. Concepts as “making kin” and “urban metabolism”, essential references for the research, debate and artistic outputs which are formulated and speculated upon inviting the public in Graz to expand our senses of (inter)connection in a post-human world.