Upcoming Events

2026

EcoMythology online winter symposium (17-18 January 2026)

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Online Warm Data Labs “People Need People”

15 January 2026 at 18.00-20.00 CET and 23 January 2026 at 18.00-20.00 CET

Photo: ‘Seasonal Transitions’, still image from video, Tone Bjordam, 2021

Warm Data is contextual and relational living information about complex systems. It doesn’t isolate variables or seek answers in one domain, but holds the complexity of many contexts simultaneously.

Warm Data Labs (WDLs) invite us to share stories and memories from our lives helping us notice inter-dependencies and generate understandings of systemic patterns, even for those with no previous exposure to systems theory. WDLs help us widen our vision of the many relationships that coexist in any living context, increasing our capacity to respond with care, new awareness and relational insight.

Join our online Warm Data Labs called People Need People, in which we will be tending together to the art of multispecies care across multiple contexts (economy, education, art, technology, culture, science, media, ecology, family, and others). It is a space for simple, spacious, gentle, meaningful conversations that flow. These experiences have been described as a “kaleidoscope of conversations”, containing enriching stories, vitality, and insight. They nourish the soul, transform the way we approach each other, plant worlds, care work, life, and our communities, and ultimately, create space for new relationships to flourish. They can even plant new seeds for community projects to renew and revitalise community life.

Our conversations will include participants across diverse spheres of life, multispecies (re)search and care fields to discuss what is present for us as we explore our various questions we are carrying.

The space will be held by hosts trained in Warm Data Lab processes, developed by Nora Bateson and stewarded by the International Bateson Institute. These two-hour sessions are participatory, offering possibilities to converse in big groups and small groups. In each group you will meet a new set of people guided by question and different contexts. Whatever is alive in you in the moment, this space invites you to share that which wants to emerge.

Some resources for those considering joining the session:

Bateson, N. (2023). Combining. Triarchy Press.

Ecology of Mind: A Cybernetic Approach To Planetary Problems, Hans Busstra talks to Nora about her work and that of her father Gregory Bateson, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ekzHzRMjOk

Bateson, N. (2022). New worlds to hold the invisible world of possibility: Warm data, symmathesy and aphanipoiesis. Unpsychology, 8. https://www.unpsychology.org/

Bateson, N. (2021). Aphanipoiesis. Journal of the International Society for the Systemsm Sciences: Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the ISSS, 1(1).https://journals.isss.org/index.php/jisss/article/view/3887

Bateson, N. & Explorers of liminality (2020). Warm data and iced lemonade: A deeply human response to complexity is possible. https://thesideview.co/articles/warm-data-and-iced-lemonade/

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On-line session Writing(with)Plants

Writing(with)Medusa head cactus on 9 January 2026 at 15.00-17.00 CET

Previous events, presentations, talks

2025

Writing (with)Cedar, 5th of December 2025 at 14.00-16.00 CET, online

More information here.

Climate Histories Conference

August 18th – 22nd, 2025 in Uppsala, Sweden

Writing (with)Birch, 26th February 2025 at 15.00-17.00 CET, online

More here.

Writing(with)Spruce, 29th January 2025 at 19.00-21.00 CET

More here.

3rd international conference
Care Ethics
Research Consortium

Care, Aesthetics, and Repair

University of Humanistic Studies
Department of Care Ethics
Utrecht, The Netherlands

23-25 January 2025
Kontakt der Kontinenten, Soesterberg
The Netherlands (on-site)

‘Publication sprint’ symposium:
Politics of participation in a more-than-human world
Kolding (Denmark)
2-3 December 2024
~ lunch-to-lunch ~

Politics of Participation in a More-Than-Human World

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Atelier Immersion & illusion

18—22 novembre 9h-15h, ULB, Brussels

https://lamc.phisoc.ulb.be/actualites/nouvelles/atelier-immersion-illusion-18%E2%80%9422-novembre-9h-15h

Register by sending email to Centre de Recherche en Cinema et Arts du Spectacle ciasp.ltc@ulb.be (mentioning dates of attendence).

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Creating knowledge through participatory research

November 13th & 14th, OpenLab.brussels

https://www.ulb-vub.be/en/openlab

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IMPACT24
Powers of Practices – Scenarios of the Commons
06 – 10 November 2024

https://www.pact-zollverein.de/en/impact24

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Online circle: Writing(with)Plants – 21 November 2024

at 14.00-16.00 Copenhagen time

Main host: Wendy Wuyts

We offer some free online moments for the people who want to already connect in these darkening days with other people. In less than 2 hours, we create a space which is all about creativity and community, and full of learning through storytelling and play. Some people share scientific facts from botany, others personal stories about the plant, others some mythological and folklore knowhow, others some recipes.

What is this practice?

This practice consists of knowledge sharing and knowledge creation parts.

In the first part of each writing(with)plant session we always share the theories and background and open a circle for people to give comments, share their stories. We also invite people to share one fact, story, prayer, or recipe… about the plant. In the second half, we invite the persons to ‘shapeshift’ through their imagination in the plant and answer some questions, connected to the theme.

We have not written a paper or book chapter about this practice yet. We document some observations and stories, in the past 16 writing(with)plant sessions that we already hosted in the past 3 years, but we have some blogs on a personal website: Writing (with) plants – Project – Stories from the Wood Wide Web (woodwidewebstories.com)

Why Belladonna – as the guest plant?

Autumn is the season of letting go, which also means boundary setting. This plant, especially as it is well-known for its poisonous features, has the trickster and boundary management energy that we want to explore in this season. There are a lot of stories about this plant. We will ‘shapeshift’ gradually into this plant and explore what transformative learning with/as belladonna can mean. The theme will be about unlearning and what we must let go this season (to e.g. be prepared before the winter symposium in February or other winter endeavours in your personal, professional… journey).

Art work by Teagan White - click on the picture to visit the website of this artist

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REGROWING A LIVING CULTURE

POCKETS
PATTERNS &
PRACTICES

A five-week online series
with Dougald Hine

STARTS 6 & 7 november 2024

at https://aschoolcalledhome.org/

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2023

Brussels2030 Summer Assembly 2023
28 June – 2 July 2023, Les Halles de Schaerbeek

Learning(with)plants in Brussels / Apprendre avec les plantes à Bruxelles / Leren met planten in Brussel

Keywords: Medicinal and edible plants, Co-habitation, Resilience
Hosts: Brussels Health Gardens – Jardins Santé à Bruxelles
What: co-creation lab
Participants: min. 10 – max. 12
When: Wednesday 28.06 – 14h-17h
Language: FR/EN
Where: Maison des Arts – Salon 5

In Learning(with)Plants interactive workshop we will invite local Brussels plants to participate in our space of learning and healing. We will reflect on vegetal intelligence and will question what plants can teach us and how they can participate in our mutual learning to respond to a fast-changing world. We will be sharing stories, memories, experiences, diverse knowledge and we will co-write(with)plants by shapeshifting into a guest plant, exploring phytography by creating a short story.

Link: https://molenbeekforbrussels2030.eu/schedule-of-the-brussels2030-summer-assembly-2023-02-07-2023/

Full programme: https://molenbeekforbrussels2030.eu/wp-content/uploads/EN-B2030-SUMMER-ASSEMBLY-2023.pdf

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ClimateExistence 2023 – 16-18 August

How can we embrace the dismembered world, live meaningful lives and actively engage for better?
Herds of ice calves leave the Arctic never to be seen again – testifying that the graphs and numbers from climate predictions are realized in the world beyond papers and projections. While humans flee war and famine, and the political as well as the natural landscape shake beneath our feet – we meet in Sigtuna for the sixth ClimateExistence conference 2023. Having listened to the scientists we realize listening to them alone might not be enough – do we need to hear the ice howling too?
How can we embrace the dismembered world, live meaningful lives and actively engage for better? What are the emotional repercussions of this climate crisis and what lies behind the graphs and numbers signaling this catastrophe? What is yet to reveal itself and how do we differentiate between the stars and satellites?

Interactive workshop Learning(with) Plants
In our current post-industrial and globalised society, more and more people are experiencing a sense of alienation, in particular from the more than human world. To address these traumas, we will explore the possibilities of Learning(with)Plants. In our interactive workshop we will invite local Sigtuna plants to participate in our space of learning and healing. We will reflect on vegetal intelligence and will question what plants can teach us and how they can participate in our mutual learning? We will be sharing stories, memories,experiences, knowledges and we will co-write(with)plants while shapeshifting into a guest plant, exploring phytography by writing a short story, poem, prayer,opinion piece or creating some other art work.

Memories: https://www.cemus.uu.se/climateexistence/

2020

International Conference Cultural Heritage for Mental Health 2 | Call for Contributions

The much positive feedback we received after the international conference Participation in cultural heritage for mental health recovery on 29 and 30 November 2018 in Ghent has encouraged us to organise a new edition in 2020. FARO, Museum Dr. Guislain and Iedereen Leest are teaming up again to deliver the second International Conference Cultural Heritage for Mental Health 2 on Thursday 10thand Friday 11th December 2020.

Final programme:

Click to access 2020_PCHMHR_programma_def.pdf

Green spaces of care sessions

There are many inspiring examples of cultural heritage institutions that use green spaces or gardening as a framework for working with vulnerable people. After all, a green space is often the way for a community to come into contact with a museum in an accessible way. For example, people can create a vegetable garden together with the museum or participate in creative workshops with material that comes from the museum garden.

2019

Citizens Researchers Open Forum meeting Jardins Santé à Bruxelles, 23 November 2019, ULB, Brussels

Belgian One Health Network, Launching Event, 5 November 2019, Tervuren, Belgium

Colloque – Les musées universitaires et leurs publics, 5-7 November 2019, Université de Liège, Belgium

Living heritage in the Nordic countries, 31 October-2 November 2019, Helsinki, Finland

Citizens Researchers Open Forum meeting Jardins Santé à Bruxelles, 19 October 2019, ULB, Brussels

Patrimoine culturel et espaces verts dans la ville, 19 October 2019, Brussels

6th World Congress on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants for Human and Animal Welfare (WOCMAP VI)

International forum: Evolving the Forest, 19-21 Ju ne 2019, UK

The Nature of Cities (TNOC) Summit, 4-7 June 2019, Paris, France

Urban Agricultural Heritage and the Shaping of Future Cities, 6-8 May 2019, Hanover

Workshop “Forests for Human Health – Challenges and Opportunities”, 8-9 April 2019, Vienna, Austria