A History of Touch and Nature
Ecology in historical and contemporary artistic practices
©Salto Productions
What role does an artist play in developing concrete environmental action and ecological sensibility? And how are animals, plants and other organic material witnesses to history and trauma? During this 'Food for thought' lecture, curator and writer Filipa Ramos and artist Grace Schwindt explore how plants, animals and landscapes in art are not just decoration, but essential participants and witnesses of memories, traumas and cultural stories. And analysing how this manifests itself in Schwindt's work.
Ahead of the lecture, there will be the possibility to visit Grace Schwindt’s exhibition 'A History of Touch' as a group.
A History of Touch
For her exhibition 'A History of Touch', Schwindt created a new sculpture incorporating fragments of a medieval Christ on a cold stone from the collection of M. The sculpture features plant motifs, based on her research into the vegetation surrounding Golgotha that she compared with plants that appear in historical art works depicting Christ before crucifixion, often chosen for their symbolic value. Schwindt engraved plants that Christ might have seen, smelled, or heard and those that were turned into a symbol. Schwindt’s sculptural gesture proposes to understand plants as historical witnesses and history through them.
Grace Schwindt, 'A History of Touch', 2025, photo: We Document Art for M Leuven
About Filipa Ramos
Filipa Ramos, PhD, is a Lisbon-born curator and writer whose work intersects art, moving images and ecology. She is a lecturer at the Basel Institute of Art and Design HGK/FHNW and Artistic Director of Loop Festival, Barcelona.
Ramos’s curatorial practice is often collaborative. With Lucia Pietroiusti, she runs the arts and humanities festival The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish (2018-onwards). Together, they co-curated the 13th Shanghai Biennale (2021) and curated the 8th Biennale Gherdëina (2023) and the exhibition Songs for the Changing Seasons for the 1st Vienna Climate Biennale (2024). Ramos curated Bestiari, which represented Catalonia for the 60. Venice Biennale (2024).
Ramos was Editor-in-Chief of e-flux criticism (2013-20), Associate Editor of Manifesta Journal (2009-11) and contributed for Documenta 13 (2012) and 14 (2017). She authored Lost and Found (Silvana Editoriale, 2009) and edited Animals (Whitechapel Gallery/MIT Press, 2016). Her upcoming book, The Artist as Ecologist (Lund Humphreys, 2025), surveys the ways in which 21st-century artists engage with ecology.
© gerdastudio
When?
- Thursday 18 September 2025
- 19:30 – 20:00 : collective visit to Grace Schwindt’s exhibition 'A History of Touch'
- 20:00 – 21:00: lecture with artist Grace Schwindt & curator and writer Filipa Ramos
Where?
Language?
English
Price?
Free
Tickets?
Registration is required and can be done via this link.