From The Edge Symposium: Floating University Berlin Reading Group

To accompany our From The Edge symposium - a day exploring community climate action and regenerative artistic practices through three live projects across the UK - Floating University Berlin will lead an online reading group focused on exploring the themes of the event. Designed as both an introduction for those attending the symposium, and a chance to engage with the topic for those who can’t attend in person, the reading group will offer an informal setting to collectively read and discuss a number of short texts. This reading group will also provide a reading list for those interested in delving into the ideas of the symposium further.

#1 Session: Tuesday 18 November 2025, 6-8pm

On maintenance, care and the planet

In the first session, we will read two texts exploring the practices of care within natureculture projects, questioning the role of knowledge and definitions of nature and purity.

#2 Session: Tuesday 2 December 2025, 6-8pm

On community-building through site-specific practices

In the second session, we want to put these nature-based practices within the context of site-specific work in post-industrial landscapes. Through the selected texts we will look at practical tools for regenerative, community-led work, strengthening shared language for ecological and social resilience, and examples of speculative futures.

Sign up here to take part in the free reading groups. Each session will be based around 2 short texts which will be provided in advance. These and a link to the video call will be sent to everyone who signs up ahead of each session.

About From The Edge symposium:

Contested zones on the edges of urban expansion, liminal spaces where nature and industry intertwine, and peripheral sites of infrastructure are increasingly holding unique ecological and social potential in the response to climate change and environmental injustice.

These locations, often defined by their contradictions – neither urban nor rural, common nor private, productive nor wastelands – are often being explored by artists, activists, and communities as places to nurture resistance, care, and learning.

Throughout the day, we will hear three case studies from arts organisations that are each cultivating regenerative art practices in sites like these. Round table conversations and panel discussions will bring together artists, curators, and communities at the forefront of reimagining the care of our environment, to collectively consider how we can collaborate as the guardians and agents of climate action.

About Floating University Berlin:

Floating University Berlin is a Natureculture learning site on and in the rainwater retention basin of former Berlin-Tempelhof airport, run by non-profit organisation Floating e.V. Through its adaptation and repurposing of this fully functioning urban infrastructure into an offshore campus, Floating e.v. has been exploring new ways to use and steward sites like these. The project looks to blend the ideas of the grey (urban infrastructure), blue (water infrastructure) and the green (‘natural’ space) to create an environment for learning, engaging and proposing alternative futures. Since its foundation in 2018 it has hosted a wide range of activities, bringing non-disciplinary, radical, and collaborative programs to the public.