Touch Nature Closing Panel Thursday: From Exhibit To Action At Austrian Cultural Forum

INVITATION: TOUCH NATURE – CLOSING PANEL: From Exhibit to Action

FEBRUARY 22nd, 2024, 7 PM

Austrian Cultural Forum New York 11 East 52nd Street, NYC

Editor’s note: We’ve previously reported on new technologies that use AI and sustainable techniques for weed control that may also help mitigate climate change by reducing agriculture’s reliance on toxic chemicals to grow food.  These chemicals get into waterways and into the environment, and can cause lasting harm. By using heat to kill weeds instead of chemicals, this technology also shows promise related to this topic of human activity’s impact on nature. 

The art works presented in the exhibition Touch Nature, curated by Dr. Sabine Fellner and co-curated with Dr. Stephanie Buhmann and on display at the ACFNY until February 25th, 2024, address our dire ecological crisis: They investigate the multifaceted impact human activity has on nature and the climate, and they seek to envision a new relationship between humans and nature, rooted in mindfulness and sustainability.

During the closing panel, scholars and practitioners in landscape architecture engage in a discussion on how to get from exhibit to action. Landscape architecture focuses on design in the public realm, with a focus on the relationship between the living and built worlds, especially to engage and create meaningful multispecies relationships. Landscape architecture aims to augment the well-being of humans, plants, and animals that, together, form a living environment.

Dr. Anette Freytag, a native Austrian and Professor of the History and Theory of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University, Dr. Rosetta S. Elkin, Principal of Practice Landscape, and Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture Program at Pratt Institute, and Elizabeth Kennedy, FASLA, Founder and Principal of EKLA PLLC, one of NYC’s leading open space design and consulting firms, will discuss how this discipline may help lead us out of the current climate crisis.

For more information about the panelists, please visit our website.

Banner Image: Maren Jeleff (in collaboration with Klaus Pichler and Martin Kitchmair), #08 – Lily-Flowered Tulip ‘Captain Fryatt’ Courtesy of the Artists.