RIHN 16th International Symposium

The Arts of Living with Nature

March 7 - 11, 2022
OnlineOrganized by

Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN)
National Institutes for the Humanities (NIHU)
Inter-University Research Institute Corporation
andÉcole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)PRÉCIS: The Arts of Living with Nature
Twenty years ago, the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature was established as one of
the sole scientific institutes in the world taking a cultural approach to the study of nature,environment, and environmental problems. Based in Kyoto, Japan, the institute wasestablished on the basis of East Asian philosophies and ways of life in which culture is aconstitutive element of the surrounding world, whose intrinsic nature nonetheless remains
fundamentally out of reach, unpossessable, an infinite source of mystery and inspiration.

Twenty years on, humankind is now widely seen to be everywhere within nature, especially as
illustrated by idea of the Anthropocene and the dangers of global climate crisis. Redefined in
our human image, nature is transformed into a super-complex techno-institutional
problematic. In the Anthropocene, it is often said that humankind must finally properly‘manage the biosphere’.
Instead, as RIHN enters its third decade, increasingly alarmed by human incursion into vast
nature and its consequences for human communities, we return to the creativity of life. RIHN’s
2021/2022 international symposium, The Arts of Living with Nature, addresses the arts as thefundamental creative fields of life. as they are instantiated in things, places, and social forms,
which in turn express humankind’s experience of living in continuity with the earthly forcesthat are ever at work.

This 2021/2022 symposium builds on two previous RIHN collaborations with scholars at
Kyoto University and l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) of France(“Dialogue: Japanese Views of Nature” at Kyoto University in 2018, and “Does Nature Think?”,
held at UNESCO Headquarters and at Maison de la Culture du Japon in Paris, 2019). Those
events joined Japanese and French scholars in exploration of different philosophicalstandpoints and field studies challenging the dualistic modern Nature/Culture paradigm.
These past inquiries must also be extended to dismantle the dualisms clinging to key conceptsof our present symposium, such as art/technology, art/craft, aesthetic/utility.

The garden provides a key point of entry. Gardens are sites of both labor and repose, idealized
representations of nature that are nourishing to body and mind. In microcosm, gardens can
express human understandings of the principles of life, even as their plants, trees, animals,
insects, and soils remain as silent ambassadors of other kinds of time and patterns ofinteraction. In human history, gardening is also a close cousin of gathering, and in this view,the techniques of the garden also extend to other much more dispersed activities andterritories, informing different ways of life in particular places.
In the Arts of Living, we continue to explore Eastern and Western conceptions of natural
intelligence, for such ideas of unpossessable alterity affirms a creative role for humankind. We
explore these root sources of human creativity in the material world, as they extend across theformal plastic arts, craft, and fields such as dance, music, and performance, all of which can beseen to speak to the human hope for life within a nature that remains a vast source of theunknown.

OUTLINE OF THE SESSIONSThe program follows a traditional Japanese narrative structure, progressing through fourphases: Opening, Reception, Transformation, and Conclusion. We have adapted this structure,adding a Prelude that helps us to set the stage, and shifted the orientation of our last phasefrom Conclusion to Renewal.

Day 1 Prelude. The Arts of Living with NatureThis Prelude takes the form of a dialogue between YAMAGIWA Juichi, RIHN’s Director-General,a primatologist by training and most recently the President of Kyoto University, and Oussouby
SACKO, President of Kyoto Seika University, and a landscape architect by training. Taking theclimate crisis as a point of departure, this conversation begins with the idea of a “Garden Earth”,
and what this concept can mean today as humankind is faced with the need to move beyond
anthropocentric and Western ideas of nature.

Day 2 Opening. Earthly Intelligence: The Planetary Vernacular
We are increasingly aware of the action of the non-human world. Humankind is surrounded bycomplex forms of consciousness and cognition, whose creativity can be both intellectuallychallenging and psychologically reassuring. This session engages non-human sensory
experience of the Earth in its own right, for the challenge it poses to our human habits ofthought, and for its potential to expand our perception of the creative Earth.

Day 3 Reception. Garden Planet: The technodiversity of life
Gardens are laboratories for interpreting and experimenting with the agencies of nature. As
they evolve, they express understandings of sets of ideas about the natural world. In receiving
the ideas of earthly intelligence described in Day 2, we are able to see that this intelligence is
not random, but intentional, in the sense that it reflects sets of practices, suites of activities,
much in the same way as do human technologies. Here we open to the infinite and interlocking
techniques of life through which humans have experienced the Earth.

Day 4 Transformation. Nature’s Arts
“We inhabit pre-existing forms, and in inhabiting them we change them, and are changed.”
The idea of ars is always lurks within the arts. The Latin roots of this term refers to ‘skilledlabor’. Ars emphasizes the role of humankind in transforming the materials of the Earth—andin so doing, transforming the human mind and body as well. This process proceeds firstly
through the bodily senses. This session speaks to this sensuous and aesthetic experience as afundamental mode of human exploration and learning, a field of experience from which welearn as much about ourselves as we do of the Earth.
Day 5 Renewal. Staying on Earth
Humans may dream today of detaching themselves from the Earth, but this vision of humanity
finally abandoned to itself seems a greater tragedy than triumph. Turning away from thecreative intelligence of the planet would only leave humankind lonely and impoverished, bereftof companion creatures, alienated from the great creative potential of the Earth. Yet we must
look deeply, both within and without, for the return passage, and seek to understand the living
intelligence of the planet as the ultimate source material of human perception and dialogue
with the infinite mystery of the world.

PROGRAM
Monday, 7 March 2022
Day 1
PreludeThe Arts of Living with Nature(JST Tokyo)

19:00-20:30

Dialogue: Earthly Garden
YAMAGIWA Juichi (RIHN)
Oussouby SACKO (Kyoto Seika University, Japan)
Comments and symposium overview

Frédéric JOULIAN (EHESS, France)
ABE Ken-ichi (RIHN)
Daniel NILES (RIHN)

Tuesday, 8 March 2022
Day 2
Opening
Earthly Intelligence: The Planetary Vernacular(JST Tokyo)

12:00-14:00

Academic Session
Leveling the Field in Primatology and Beyond
Christine E. WEBB (Harvard University, USA)

More-than-Human Gardening for Multispecies Sustainability
Christoph RUPPRECHT (Ehime University, Japan)

Shared Responsibilities: Negotiating Standards of Behaviours Between
Humans and Non-humans
Damien KUNIK (Musée d'Ethnographie de Genève, Switzerland)

Moderator: Daniel NILES (RIHN)
19:00-20:30

Public Session

Cosmophany: The Living Art of Opening Ambient Worlds
Augustin BERQUE (EHESS, France)
The Wrong Kinds of Nonhumans
Tim INGOLD (University of Aberdeen, UK)

Moderator: Frédéric JOULIAN (EHESS, France)Wednesday, 9 March 2022
Day 3
Reception
Garden Planet: The Technodiversity of Life(JST Tokyo)

17:00 -19:00

Academic Session
Design of Perspective
HANAMURA Chikahiro (Osaka Prefecture University, Japan)

On the Human Environment with Imagination and Calculation
KUMAZAWA Terukazu (RIHN)

Ambiguity of Nature, Traditional Knowledge, and Transdisciplinary
Approach: Disasters and Ecosystem Services in JapanYOSHIDA Takehito (RIHN)

Resisting Disasters: Subsistence Gardens in Vanuatu
Maëlle CALANDRA (Centre de Recherche et de Documentation surl'Océanie, France)
Moderator: Hein MALLEE (RIHN)
19:15-20:45

Public Session

Reciprocity: The End of Othering
Monica GAGLIANO (Southern Cross University, Australia)
The Biography of a Garden
OGAWA Katsuaki (Ueji family 12th generation, Japan)

Humans/Non-Humans and the Shared Waza
Frédéric JOULIAN (EHESS, France)

Moderator: ABE Ken-ichi (RIHN)

Thursday, 10 March 2022
Day 4
Transformation
Nature’s Arts
(JST Tokyo)

17:00 -19:00

Academic Session
KURITA Koichi × SUDA Yoshihiro
OTA Tomoko (Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan)

Re-reading The Story of Mimi-nashi-Hoichi by Lafcadio Hearn- Why Do Blind People View Cherry Blossoms? HIROSE Kojiro (National Museum of Ethnology, Japan)

Instrumentalizing Art or Aestheticizing the World?
David MAGGS (Metcalf Foundation, Canada)
Moderator: TERADA Masahiro (RIHN)

19:15-20:45

Public Session

ONO Shinryu (Tennoji Gakuso Garyokai / Kansai University, Japan)

The Role of Art and Curation in the Anthropocene
HASEGAWA Yuko (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa,
Japan)

Art, Science, and Nature: Making Sense of Data for Sustainable Futures
Ilan CHABAY (Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS)
Potsdam, Germany)
Moderator: ABE Ken-ichi (RIHN)

Friday, 11 March 2022
Day 5
Renewal
Staying on Earth(JST Tokyo)

17:00 -19:00

Academic Session
Minakata Kumagusu and the Emergence of Queer Nature: The Civilisation
Theory, Buddhist Science, and Microbes, 1887-1892
HONDA Eiko (University of Oxford, UK)

Readable Worlds. Practice-based Mesology in Craft and Graft
Yoann MOREAU (EHESS, France）

Capturing Nature: The Depiction and Representation of Nature by Optical
Instruments
ONO Tadashi (École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie, France)

Plécher the Living: Research Hypothesis for the Future of Traditional
Ecological Techniques in the Morvan
Caroline DARROUX (La Maison du patrimoine oral de Bourgogne, France)
Moderator: Daniel NILES (RIHN)
19:15-21:00

Public Session
Round table discussion

De-colonizing Nature
Sander VAN DER LEEUW (Arizona State University, USA)

Oussouby SACKO (Kyoto Seika University, Japan)
HASEGAWA Yuko (21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa,
Japan)YAMAGIWA Juichi (RIHN)

Moderator: Frédéric JOULIAN (EHESS, France)
ABE Ken-ichi (RIHN)
Daniel NILES (RIHN)
Closing
Frédéric JOULIAN (EHESS, France)
ABE Ken-ichi (RIHN)
Daniel NILES (RIHN)

Dialogue

Earthly Garden
YAMAGIWA Juichi
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan

Dr. Juichi Yamagiwa, Director-General of RIHN, is a world-renowned
researcher and expert in the study of primatology and human evolution.
Awarded Doctor of Science from Kyoto University in 1987. After holding
positions at the Karisoke Research Center, Japan Monkey Center, andPrimate Research Institute Kyoto University, he has been Professor of
Graduate School of Science at Kyoto University since 2002. Dean of
Graduate School and Faculty of Science, 2011-2013. 26th President of
Kyoto University, 2014-2020. Served as President of International
Primatological Society, 2008-2012, also as Editor in Chief of Primates, aquarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal of primatology published by
Springer Science+Business Media, 2010-2014. Domestically, he served
as the president of JANU, the president of Science Council of Japan, andthe ongoing member of Environmental Policy Committee of Ministry ofEnvironment. His passion for fieldwork research frequently made him
travel to some countries of Africa, where he discovered an abundance of
new findings related to gorillas, through his unique viewpoint of
evolution.

Dialogue

Earthly Garden
Oussouby SACKO
Kyoto Seika University, Japan

Born in Mali in 1966, Oussouby SACKO received government
scholarship and studied architecture in China. Residing in Japan since1991, he earned his PhD at Kyoto University’s Graduate School ofEngineering, Department of Architecture, researching relationships
between society and architectural space. His publications include
Literacy and Culture of Knowledge (Nakanishiya Publishing, 2007) andContemporary African Culture Today (Seigensha, 2020). Joining Kyoto
Seika University in 2001, he was promoted to Professor in 2013. On April
1, 2018, he was elected as the President of the University.

Leveling the Field in Primatology and Beyond
Christine E. WEBBHarvard University, USA

Dr. Christine E. Webb is a broadly trained primatologist with expertise in social
behavior, cognition, and emotion. She has worked with humans’ closest living
relatives in diverse settings for over 15 years. She investigates how otherprimates manage and resolve conflicts and underlying affective states like
empathy and jealousy, countering longstanding notions that these complex
socioemotional capacities are human-unique. She simultaneously collaborates
with philosophers to reimagine the role of science in the growing charge to
grant moral status to other animals. Her latest work critically engages withanthropocentrism in primatology, science, and society. She is interested indoing and teaching science that reimagines relationships between humans andthe more-than-human world, including those between scientists and the beings
with whom they work.
Abstract
My encounters with other primates have fundamentally changed the way I see them, myself,
and the rest of Nature. Such experiences frequently challenge my conventional scientifictraining, which emphasized detachment and reductionism in the service of “objectivity.”
Drawing on my research on chimpanzee prosocial behaviors like consolation andunderlying emotions like empathy, I’ll discuss recent debates about the presence and extent
of great ape prosociality. I will argue that some studies inadvertently create an unlevelplaying field, allowing us to test human abilities in other species, but unlikely to illuminate
their own rich socioemotional and cognitive worlds. I will argue that a less human-centricparadigm would bring us closer to understanding other animals on their own terms, rather
than comparing them to a human standard of which they often inevitably “fall short.” I’ll
conclude by discussing the need to go beyond anthropocentric paradigms not just in theinterest of good science, but in order to reimagine our relationship to other species more
broadly.

More-than-Human Gardening for Multispecies
Sustainability
Christoph RUPPRECHT
Ehime University, Japan

Christoph Rupprecht is a geographer working on cities from the perspectivesof food, agriculture, green space, degrowth, multispecies/more-than-humanthinking and solarpunk. Currently an Associate Professor at the Department ofEnvironmental Design, Faculty of Collaborative Regional Innovation at Ehime
University, he’s also a founding member and Director at the non-profit
organization FEAST. Recent work includes the paper “Multispecies
sustainability”, the science fiction anthology “Multispecies Cities” (World
Weaver Press), and involvement in the upcoming exhibition “Microbes reallyare all around” launching at the Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Scienceand Innovation in April 2022.
Abstract
A mix of folly and hubris underpins the conclusion that, having managed to wreak
unprecedented havoc on Earth and its inhabitants, Western Science can and must now takethe reins and lead efforts in planetary stewardship to ‘tame Gaia’. In our recent proposal toredefine sustainability around species’ interdependent well-being, which we have argued
cybernetics shows is too complex to be controlled top-down. Reflecting on three principles
of multispecies sustainability, this talk: 1) traces why more-than-human intelligence is key
to “absorbing variety” involved in meeting diverse, changing, interdependent andinseparable needs of multiple species, 2) explores what forms “operational autonomy”
might take in systems that rely on and respect multispecies agency, and 3) speculates about
more-than-human anticipatory capacities. Taking up the symposium’s theme, the talkconcludes with a brief glimpse into related creative collaborations, followed by an appeal tojointly imagine arts of planetary gardening for multispecies sustainability: gardening not as
taming, but as co-creation, negotiation, coexistence, mutual respect, caring for and being
cared for by other life.

Shared Responsibilities: Negotiating Standards of
Behaviours Between Humans and Non-humans
Damien KUNIK
Musée d'Ethnographie de Genève, Switzerland

Damien KUNIK is the curator for the Asian collections at the MEG – Muséed’ethnographie de Genève, Switzerland since 2020. After his studies at INALCO(Paris, France), University of Geneva (Switzerland) and Keio University (Tokyo,
Japan), he obtained his PhD with a thesis (in French) titled “Art and Matter –Cultural nationalism and folk heritage in 20th Century Japan” (2016) and spent
the two following years at the National Museum of Ethnology (Osaka, Japan).
Outside of his current curatorial work, his research is focused on theanthropology of techniques as well as the history of anthropology.

Abstract
In the age of the Anthropocene, the idea of shared responsibilities between humans and thebroad realm of the non-human carries more than a symbolic meaning. At the center of an
ethical debate that nowadays informs even legal documents, the active maintenance of good
relations with the different elements making up the ecosystem -material and spiritual, living
and non-living- has become pivotal in the sustainable management of resources past,present and future.
This topic is a major chapter of the current temporary exhibition held at the Museum of
Ethnography in Geneva (MEG). Titled “Environmental Injustice – Indigenous People’s
Alternatives”, the exhibition explores various Indigenous Peoples’ views on the matter andtheir concrete application in the everyday.
Inspired by this approach valued since the inception of the exhibition in 2019, the MEG has
deeply reassessed its curatorial and heritage management practices towards theethnographic collections held in its walls.

Cosmophany: The Living Art of Opening Ambient
WorldsAugustin BERQUE
École des hautes études en sciences sociales, France

Augustin BERQUE (1942-), a geographer and orientalist, is a retired director ofstudies in mesology at the EHESS. A member of the Academia europaea, he wasin 2009 the first Westerner to receive the Fukuoka Grand Prize for Asian
cultures, and in 2018 was awarded the International Cosmos Prize. Latest
books : Recouvrance. Retour à la terre et cosmicité en Asie orientale (Éoliennes,2022) ; Entendre la Terre. À l’écoute des milieux humains (Le Pommier, 2022) ;Dryades et ptérodactyles de la Haute Lande. Dessins et légendes (Non-Agir,
2022). Webpage : https://ecoumene.blogspot.com/

Abstract
The word « art » is here understood in the double meaning of its Indo-European root AR-,i.e. an idea of joint and an idea of arrangement. How do living beings arrange the juncture
between themselves and the environment? The question will not be considered only inecological (or biological) terms, but also in ontological and logical terms ; that is,
onto/logically as well. It implies the subjecthood of the living, as advocated by Uexküll(1864-1944) and later by Imanishi (1902-1992), including the human, as advocated by
Watsuji (1889-1960), in the epistemic frame of mesology (Umweltlehre, fûdoron 風土論 :the study of milieux, or ambient worlds), which implies not only an overcoming of modern
dualism and mechanicism, but also a sublation (Aufhebung) of two incompatible logics : theAristotelian logic of the identity of the subject, and the Nishidian logic of the identity of thepredicate, as represented by the concept of trajection (tsûtai 通態).

The Wrong Kinds of Nonhumans
Tim INGOLD
University of Aberdeen, UK

Tim Ingold, FBA, FRSE, is Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at the
University of Aberdeen. He has carried out fieldwork among Saami and Finnish
people in Lapland, and has written on environment, technology and socialorganisation in the circumpolar North, on animals in human society, and on
human ecology and evolutionary theory. His more recent work explores
environmental perception and skilled practice. Ingold’s current interests lie on
the interface between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. His
recent books include The Perception of the Environment (2000), Lines (2007),
Being Alive (2011), Making (2013), The Life of Lines (2015), Anthropology
and/as Education (2018), Anthropology: Why it Matters (2018),
Correspondences (2020) and Imagining For Real (2022).

Abstract
Most philosophical discussions of life in a more-than-human world continue to revolvearound a human centre. Accounts of interspecies communication, for example, invariably
focus on exchanges between humans and nonhumans, never between nonhumans ofdifferent kinds. Behind this bias, there still lurks an assumption that humans are exceptionalin the extent to which they enrol other kinds into their collective lives. Rejecting thisassumption, we recognise that just as much as humans share a world with nonhumans, so
do stones share a world with non-stones, trees with non-trees, sheep with non-sheep. How,
then, can we rewrite the history of the world in a way that allows every inhabitant to beitself-in-relation-to-others, rather than only in relation to us?

Design of Perspective
HANAMURA Chikahiro
Osaka Prefecture University, Japan

HANAMURA Chikahiro is an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of
Economics, Osaka Prefecture University. As a Landscape Artist with a Ph. D in
Environmental Sciences & Technologies, his research focuses on the landscapebased on interactions between human and environment including physical andpsychological aspects. He has developed a new theory, “Trans-scape theory” andmethod “Design of Perspective” to approach the design of self- imaginary
landscape. All of his art works including installation arts, filmmaking,architectural design, and performing arts, has been created on the basis of its
techniques.

Abstract
The current problem of the global environment turns on the environment of viewpoint
rather than the environment of itself. Even in the field of the landscape design created thescenery based on the relation with human being and the environment, their studies andpractices have been centered on designing the environment. Therefore, the purpose of thestudy concentrates to design aspects of human experiences toward a place.
When we, as a subject, look at the environment, we see it visually at the same time to see itmentally. As we see something over and over, we are getting used to it, and we do not see it
as scenery last. However, once the relation changes, a new scenery is created. Its
phenomenon is named “Trans -scape”.
For “Trans-scape” theory, landscape is created by the relation with " land " and "scape", andeach of factors has two characteristics of “physical aspects” and “psychological aspects”.
This becomes the design approach to create a new scenery by designing psychologicalaspects directly or indirectly. Its method is named "Design of Perspective".
The scenery repeats appearing and disappearing. Everything including value, meaning andour reality to the world continues changing like scenery. However, we cannot have a neutral
viewpoint, and our viewpoint of things is easily fixed.
If our view and state of mind make the world, it is insufficient to focus on only physicalaspects. It is necessary to do our own perspective differently before we tackle theenvironmental problems.

On the Human Environment with Imagination andCalculation
KUMAZAWA Terukazu
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan

Dr. Kumazawa specializes in regional planning and environmental informatics,
and has been developing systems to connect and visualize people's knowledge
in various fields and positions, while supporting regional development in Shiga
Prefecture and conducting workshops to think about the future environmentalsociety. In recent years, he has developed a website called "Visual Keyword Mapof Global Environmental Studies" and has also created contents to help people
understand global environmental studies. In addition, a joint research project
entitled "Fudo"-nization of Advanced technology: How to imagine the plausible
future of human-computer interdependency" is underway from fiscal year 2019with a grant from the Toyota Foundation.
Abstract
In a future world where knowledge processing by computers is the norm, what will theenvironment be like for people? The advancement of digital technology will make theembodiment of ideas and thoughts faster and easier.
The objects of imagination and thought has expanded from the local to the global, fromphysical space to virtual space. I will first focus on the past, referring to the cases of local
food culture and resource use, and argue that externalization of knowledge processing is
the key.
On the other hand, a rich and realistic imagination is in part supported by a wealth ofknowledge. Many of us cannot name the wildflowers that grow in front of us. At the sametime, however, there are cases where people who have experienced the pseudo-nature
created by online games are interested in its real experiences. The reality itself for us may
be changing. I will discuss the signs of this change and the types of people who reflect it.
Finally, as the boundary between natural and artificial objects is dissolving, we are now
being asked how to reconstruct the concept of "thing. While it becomes difficult to see theobject to be imagined, the presentation will show that the constraint of region rather helps
us to imagine the future.
Through the above discussion, I would like to think about the environment for people in the
future from the perspective of taking in the outside world and making it a coherent
phenomenon.

Ambiguity of Nature, Traditional Knowledge, andTransdisciplinary Approach: Disasters andEcosystem Services in JapanYOSHIDA Takehito
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan

Takehito Yoshida is an ecologist and limnologist who studies diversity andcomplexity of organisms and ecosystems from the viewpoints of adaptation andsystem dynamics, and explores human-nature interactions and sustainability inlocal communities in Japan. Trained in Kyoto University (PhD) and Cornell
University (postdoc), he was a member of the faculty at the University of Tokyoat Komaba before assuming joint appointments at RIHN and the University ofTokyo.

Abstract
Nature of the Japanese archipelago is characterized by diverse types of ecosystems, distinct
seasons formed by the Asian monsoon, plenty of disturbances including floods, landslides
and volcanos, all of which contribute to harbor diverse organisms in lands and seas. Humans
also shaped the nature of Japan throughout the long history, and Satoyama landscapes andSatoumi seascapes were created as the result of lasting human-nature interactions, whichflourished cultural diversity as well as maintaining biodiversity in local socio-ecologicalsystems. On the other hand, nature challenges humans by disasters, for example, due tofloods and landslides caused by heavy rain. Although modern engineering technologies
prevented some but not all disasters, humans have long traditions to cope with disasters
before those technologies developed, in which ambiguity of nature as challenges (disasters)
and blessings (ecosystem services) underlies. This ambiguity is innate to the interaction
between nature and humanity, and the plentiful knowledge around it has been passed downfrom generation to generation and still remains in local communities. I will talk about someexamples of the traditional knowledge of how to avoid disasters and be given nature’s
blessings at the same time in mountains, rivers, and lakes of Japan, based on the outcomesof our RIHN research project. My talk stresses that cooperation and collaboration by diverse
actors are crucial for recognizing and utilizing the traditional knowledge in actual solutions
and actions, and that those knowledge is significant for realizing the sustainability of local
socio-ecological systems in the era of social and ecological instabilities.

Resisting Disasters: Subsistence Gardens in
VanuatuMaëlle CALANDRA
Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Océanie, France

She completed a PhD in socio-cultural anthropology in 2017 at EHESS,
supervised by Pr. Philippe Descola and Pr. Pierre Lemonnier. She has been
awarded the best doctoral dissertation for the year 2018 by the Musée du Quai
Branly-Jacques Chirac and and by THESE-PAC for the best thesis on the South
Pacific. She is presently a postdoctoral fellow at the International ResearchCentre of Disaster Science and Sustainable Development, and a research
associate at CREDO (UMR 7308). She specialises in Pacific societies, particularly
in rural Vanuatu. Her work sits at the nexus of theorisations of disaster,
humanitarian aid and forced migrations.

Abstract
Based on ethnographic data collected between 2011 and 2018 on Tongoa island (Central
Vanuatu, South Pacific), this presentation seeks to highlight the singularity of the local
horticulture in the context of Vanuatu. This archipelago is known for being particularly
vulnerable to the effects of climate change and is commonly exposed to large environmental
hazards (landslides, volcanic eruptions, cyclones and droughts). The frequent occurrence of
these devastating disasters is reflected in relevant international rankings. As in previous
years, it appears as the country with the highest disaster risk worldwide. However, the local
population has earned to live in this environment, and they have developed specificknowledge and coping strategies reflected, among others, in the architecture of their socalled “traditional” houses and their agriculture. Here, I wish to illustrate how inhabitants
anticipate destroying events through daily practices rooted in a careful reading of theirenvironment. I will present the different types of gardens encountered in Tongoa and also
hope to offer insights on why they provide locally the threshold with which to measure anddefine disasters.

Reciprocity: The End of Othering
Monica GAGLIANOSouthern Cross University, Australia

Monica Gagliano, PhD is a Research Associate Professor of evolutionary
ecology affiliated with the Sydney Environment Institute at the University ofSydney and currently based at Southern Cross University where she directs the
Biological Intelligence (BI) Lab as part of the Diverse Intelligences Initiative of
the Templeton World Charity Foundation. Monica has pioneered the brand-new
research field of plant bioacoustics, which for the first time, experimentallydemonstrates that plants emit voices and detect and respond to the sounds oftheir environments. Her work has extended the concept of cognition in plants.
By demonstrating experimentally that learning and memory are not theexclusive province of animals, Monica has reignited the discourse of plant
subjectivity, as well as ethical and legal standing. Inspired by encounters withnature and indigenous elders from around the world, Monica applies aninnovative and holistic approach to science.one that is progressive because it iscomfortable engaging at the interface between areas as diverse as ecology,
physics, law, anthropology, philosophy, literature, music, the arts, andspirituality. By re-kindling a sense of wonder for the beautiful place we callhome, she is helping to create a new ecology of mind that inspires the emergenceof revolutionary solutions toward human interactions with the world we coinhabit. Monica’s studies have led her to author numerous ground-breaking
scientific articles and books, including Thus Spoke the Plant (2018) and recent
edited collection, The Mind of Plants (2021). Her upcoming project is called
Resonant Earth, a new research initiative for acoustically-assisted planetary
regeneration through the direct engagement with, and listening to, all sourcesof wisdom derived from humans, plants, and the land. More information:www.monicagagliano.com

Abstract
In modern parlance, the word reciprocity conjures gestures of mutual giving, caring, andsharing. Reciprocity is intuitively understood as a mutually beneficial exchange, where one
individual selectively helps another individual that will provide benefits in return. Within
the boundaries of a human-centred view, the “individual” in question is implicitly assumed
to be human. Naturally, the use of the word reciprocity has long been limited to humans
sharing with other humans. And yet, reciprocity is not an exclusively ‘human thing’.
Reciprocity is widespread and inclusive, being of great importance to many non-humanothers, from tiny bacteria and hidden fungi to an extraordinary diversity of plants andanimals, as well as mountain tops and the living waters of the big rivers. What if our
exclusive use of the word has effectively excluded us from the world? Could non-humanothers teach us reciprocity and embrace us back to the world?

The Biography of a Garden
OGAWA Katsuaki
Ueji family 12th generation, Japan

OGAWA Katsuaki was born in 1973. He trained under OGAWA Jihei XI from thetime he entered high school. The family business began about 260 years ago
when the first generation of the family, who was a samurai warrior, decided topursue the path of gardening instead. Each subsequent generation has taken thename Ogawa Jihei, whose style has been especially influenced by the seventh
generation, who created the Heian Jingu Shrine garden in Kyoto, among others,
in a way respecting the surrounding natural scenery. OGAWA Katsuaki spentmuch of his childhood in these gardens, and trained under OGAWA Jihei XI fromthe time he entered high school. After graduating from the College of Law at
Ritsumeikan University, he devoted himself to creating gardens, and is
exploring new possibilities for gardens, including gardening with theparticipation of citizens, in addition to the creation of traditional gardens.
Abstract
The role of a garden is to connect people with nature. Trees live for hundreds of years,
stones for tens and hundreds of thousands of years, and the earth for billions of years, andthese different generations meet in the garden. People who live for a few decades yearn for
nature and often seek gardens. (Sometimes people seek gardens as way to control nature).
Some gardens follow the workings of nature, while others are the exact opposite. The formof a garden is not the most significant; it is a place where you can feel nature’s way. A
garden used to be a part of daily life: 家 (House) + 庭 (Garden) = 家庭 (Home), rather thanan extraordinary place to visit at shrines and temples. Today, there are many green belts,
but the number of thoughtfully created gardens has decreased. In the garden, people's
thoughts and feelings are exchanged across generations. Creating a garden is therefore acollaborative effort with our ancestors across generations, and a task to be passed on to
future generations.

Humans/Non-Humans and the Shared Waza
Frédéric JOULIAN
École des hautes études en sciences sociales, France

Frédéric Joulian is an anthropologist. Assistant professor at the École deshautes études en sciences sociales, he was deputy director of the Social
Anthropology Laboratory at the Collège de France and head of theinterdisciplinary program Evolution, Natures and Cultures at the EHESS until
2011. He directed the interdisciplinary journal Techniques&culture from 2006
to 2016. His research focuses on evolutionary processes and the meanings oftechnical and cultural phenomena over time and on human-animal interactionsin Africa and Europe. His main publications include: La Nature est-elle culturelle?
Éditions Errance (1998), Les Natures de l'Homme, with S. de Cheveigné (2007),
Dire le Savoir-Faire with S. d'Onofrio (2008), Anthologie raisonnée deTechniques&culture with G. Bartholeyns and N. Govoroff (2010), Geste et Matière(2011). He coordinated with Y.-P. Tastevin and the MuCEM the edition of acollective work on the question of the remainder and waste, entitled "Fixing theWorld, Excess, Remainder and Innovation" (2016) and "The Instrumental Body"
with G. Bartholeyns in 2017. He is now devoting himself to a personal work
tracing all of his work in Africa: "From the origins of culture: Men and
Chimpanzees in Perspective" and to an editorial project "Anthropographiks"
associating Human sciences and Manga which gave rise in 2021 to an exhibition
Washi, from Mulburry to Manga, the art of paper in Japan, in partnership with
Seika University and to a book just published on the arts of learning andtransmission Waza, the inefable art of learning, with A. Takada, X. Tian and M.
Shimada (2021) Kyoto Univ, Seika Univ. and the RIHN.

Abstract
The question of Waza, life skills, and the arts of living with nature will be raised in myintervention by some general remarks showing the blockages of thought and action,
blockages linked to the dual ontologies with which we organize and act on the world, ormore dramatically, to those linked to an evolutionism based on some idealized material
progress, or worse, on a liberal and consumerist vision of the common goods. Facing climatechange and its impacts on the planetary system and on our societies requires us to addressthese blockages, this complexity. It means taking the measure of cohabitation and thedifferent forms of life. It means creating mini-worlds, gardens, exploring sustainableartisanal cultures, sharing non-human intelligences, and creating new and exciting
relationships and contracts for the benefit of all.

KURITA Koichi × SUDA Yoshihiro
OTA Tomoko
Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art, Japan

2006 Completed master’s course at Graduate School of Humanities andSociology and Faculty of Letters, The University of Tokyo
Selected exhibitions: IKEDA Tatsuo (2010), HAGIWARA Hideo (2013), Japanese
Masters of the Night (2015), FUKAZAWA Yukio (2018), KURITA Koichi × SUDA
Yoshihiro (2020)

Abstract
In 2020, the exhibition “KURITA Koichi × SUDA Yoshihiro -Contentment in the details- ” washeld at the Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art. KURITA Koichi(1962~) and SUDA
Yoshihiro(1969~), both natives of Fuefuki city in Yamanashi, are contemporary artists who
are active not only in Japan but also internationally. Kurita exhibits the soil he had gatheredby hand at each location he visits. Suda carves and colors Japanese white-bark magnolia to
produce woodcarvings of plants, and displays them in various ways within the space,something which was also done in the exhibition as various installations. The subtitle of theexhibition “-Contentment in the details- ” signifies that the important things dwell in thesmall objects around us. It is the same attitude that the two artists share when approaching
objects. In the exhibition, we also suggested that the vernacular of their hometown
Yamanashi had a considerable amount of influence on the forming of this attitude. In thepresent day, focusing on what we are given from the community can lead to the question ofwhat is important to us in our livelihoods. Kurita and Suda’s art provide us with profoundsuggestions on the subject.

Re-reading The Story of Mimi-nashi-Hoichi by
Lafcadio Hearn- Why Do Blind People View Cherry Blossoms? HIROSE Kojiro
National Museum of Ethnology, Japan

Born in Tokyo in 1967. He lost his sight at the age of 13. He graduated from theSpecial Needs Education School for the Visually Impaired at the University ofTsukuba and matriculated at Kyoto University.
In 2000, he received his PhD in literature from the Graduate School of Kyoto
University.
His research specialization is Japanese religious history and tactile culture. He
is working on a practical study of the “Universal Museum”, a museum that all
can enjoy, and creates various events around the theme of touch throughout
Japan. He has written many books, including most recently But Still We Stay in
Close Contact! (Soredemo bokutachi-wa Noukousesshoku”-wo tsuzukeru!
Chiisagosha Publisher). He curated a special exhibition“Universal Museum:
Exploring the New Field of Tactile Sensation” exhibited September-November
2021 at the National Museum of Ethnology.

Abstract
Each spring, summer, autumn and winter has its own sound. Let's try to feel that sound withour bodies, using our bodily senses other than sight. In today's vision-dominated society,this paper appeals for the restoration of the body’s antennae (those sensors distributed
throughout the body). In October 2021, I published a picture book Touching the Sound –“Hands” to Enjoy Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter (音にさわる－はるなつあきふ
ゆをたのしむ「手」)that expresses the Japanese experience of four seasons (日本の四季の風景) in a tactile way. This book is a 21st century version of the story of Mimi-nashiHoichi, that is, the story of Hoichi after his ears were cut off due to a family grudge. The
illustrations of cherry blossoms, cicadas, fallen leaves, and snow that appear on each pageare printed with tactile ridges. These unique picture books, which are fun to look at andstimulate the imagination when touched, will surely give us clues to sharpen our antennae.
In the current COVID-19 disaster, where non-contact is emphasized, re-reading the story ofMimi-nashi-Hoichi, which pursues the value of invisible things, will spread a chain of diverse
inspirations.

Instrumentalizing Art or Aestheticizing the World?
David MAGGS
Metcalf Foundation, Canada

David Maggs carries on an active career as an interdisciplinary artist andresearcher focused on arts, climate change, and sustainability. A student of JaneCoop, Andre Laplante, and Marc Durand, he is the founder and pianist for Dark
by Five (darkbyfive.com), has written works for the stage, and collaborated onlarge augmented reality and virtual reality projects (see Mummer’s Journey).
David is the artistic director of the rural Canadian interarts organization Gros
Morne Summer Music (gmsm.ca), and founder and co-director of the Graham
Academy, a youth training academy founded in honour of his teacher andmentor, Dr. Gary Graham. He initiated and co-produced the CBC doc channel
film The Country, exploring the Canadian government’s handling of indigenous
identity in Newfoundland.
As a fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School for Global Affairs, David
co-authored Sustainability in an Imaginary World (Routledge Press, 2020) withmentor and longtime collaborator John Robinson, exploring the relationshipbetween art and sustainability. He is former senior fellow at the Institute forAdvanced Studies in Sustainability in Potsdam, Germany, where he led work on
culture and climate change. Currently he is the inaugural Innovation Fellow inresidence at the Metcalf Foundation where he will explore the role of art insociety, with particular focus on innovation, climate change, and cultural policy.
David has been a featured speaker at the Canadian Arts Summit (Charlottetown,
Banff, Montreal), The International Transdisciplinarity Conference (Leuphana),
the National Valuing Nature Conference (Corner Brook), The American
Association for the Advancement of Science (Vancouver), Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology (Zurich), Sustainability Through Art Conference(Geneva), the Narratives of Transformation conference of the International
Association for Analytical Psychology (Berlin/Kyoto), and elsewhere.

Abstract
The past decade has featured a sharp increase in interest in the arts as problem-solver. Thatis, a growing faith that the arts can ‘do something useful’ in problem spaces as diverse as
criminal rehabilitation and climate change. This talk explores the roots of this enthusiasm,
the risks associated with it, and some of the theoretical and methodological implications myresearch has developed in an attempt to reduce those risks while nonetheless not turning
our backs on this growing desire for a more engaged relationship between art and society.
The aim is to establish a clear, if somewhat paradoxical middle ground: a relationshipbetween art and society that is applied but not instrumentalized, where art remains highly
empowered but not autonomous. What is the theoretical framework that helps establish
this middle ground? And what are the methodological implications of operating effectively
within it?

ONO Shinryu
Tennoji Gakuso Garyokai / Kansai University, JapanONO Shinryu is Vice President of Tennoji Gakuso Garyokai and Visiting
Professor, Kansai University. He was born in 1965 in Gansenji Temple (Osaka)of the Jodo Shinshu Hongwanji-ha school of Buddhism. From an early age, he
performed as a dancer at Shitennoji Temple, and went on to become a Tennoji
Gakunin musician. He completed the doctoral program in religious studies,
Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University. From 2008 to 2016, he was aspecially appointed associate professor at Soai University. After that, he wasappointed as the 44th head priest of Gansenji Temple, a position he holds to thisday. His major publications include Heidegger Studies (Kyoto University Press)
and Cosmology of Gagaku (Hozokan). He also pursued his studies as a gagaku
performer. Since 1993, he has been a member of Tennoji Gakuso Garyokai, agroup preserving important intangible folk cultural property, and has
performed Gagaku at Shitennoji Temple, Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine, andItsukushimajinja Shrine.

Abstract
In “The Arts of Living with Nature," I would like to introduce Gagaku, Japan's oldest
performing art. In Japan, there are various traditional performing arts such as Noh andKabuki, but Gagaku is distinct from these. Rather than being an art that emerged from thepeople and was subsequently refined to become a traditional art form, Gagaku’s sourcemusic, instruments, style, and musical theory is taken mostly from music imported from
Tang Dynasty China. The number of instruments and the precision of the musical theory are
unrivaled by other traditional Japanese performing arts, making it truly an ancientorchestra.
For 1,200 years, Gagaku has been used in Japanese religious rituals as an art that connects
humans with the gods and Buddha. In Japan, Shintoism is the foundation of Shinto-Buddhist
syncretism; the reverence for sacred nature exists at the oldest level. As a consequence,
Buddhist ceremonies or Shinto rituals are as a rule performed outdoors in nature. Gagaku,
the ritual music, is also played in nature. In other words, Gagaku was also the "art" ofcommuning with nature as a sacred transcendence.
Japanese temples and shrines are built on natural sites that are thought to hold sacred
power, as a circuit to interact with that power while making its presence explicit. That holy
power is ambivalent to humans and can never be "managed" because it sometimes rages asa wild spirit. In this circuit, Gagaku was meant to invoke the sacred power, to make offerings,
and to return and be pacified.
It can be said that Gagaku is an important clue to examine the Japanese people's religious
consciousness and the way they live with nature as transcendence.

The Role of Art and Curation in the Anthropocene
HASEGAWA Yuko
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan

HASEGAWA Yuko is Director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art,
Kanazawa, and Professor of Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of theArts. Her areas of specialization are art criticism and modern and contemporary art.
She completed a BA in Law from Kyoto University and an MFA in Art History from
Tokyo University of the Arts. She has curated many exhibitions at art museums inJapan and biennials abroad, based on a critical perspective. Has pursued a crossdisciplinary curatorial practice, straddling different media (architecture, fashion,
music) and multiple research fields (science, anthropology, and so on). Throughcontemporary art, her research focuses on examining the relationship between
ecology and art, from gender and posthuman theory to the reconnection of humans
with nature, including research in Brazil, the Amazon, and so on. She curated
Clouds⇆Forest (2017), a project at the 7th Moscow Biennale on the theme of art in
the Anthropocene.
Her publications include JAPANORAMA: New Vision on Art Since 1970, Suiseisha,
2021; “A New Ecology and Art: on the Clouds⇄Forests exhibition”, Journal of Global
Arts Studies and Curatorial Practices vol. 1, Tokyo University of the Arts, 2020;
Destroy, They Say: Women Artists Subtly Traversing Boundaries, Tokyo Geidai
Press, 2017; “Performativity in the Work of Female Japanese Artists In the 1950s1960s and the 1990s”, Modern Women: Women Artists at the Museum of Modern
Art, Museum of Modern Art, 2010; Kazuyo Sejima + Ryue Nishizawa: SANAA,
Phaidon Press, 2006.
"New Ecology and Art: The Anthropocene as a 'dithering time'"(Ibunsha), an
anthology in collaboration with other researchers for which she served as editor,
will be published in April, while an exhibition on the same theme will be plannedand held at The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of the Arts from May 28
to June 26 this year.

Abstract
A work of art is a medium, a thing made manifest, given form through critical perspectives,interpretations, and imaginings of world events. Whether it is a sound, a visual image, a threedimensional object, a scent, or a written text, it can basically be attached to a space and sharedwith others, or an audience. The audience appreciates this, and makes their own interpretations.
The curator imbues these works of art, materials, and various objects with a form through theframework of an exhibition. The practice of curation creates “relational value,” in the sense of
how new things emerge through connections. In today’s chaotic and uncertain era, caused by
global warming, environmental destruction, and the division of society due to dualism andmechanistic modernism, sensory learning has the potential to transcend these issues.
Beyond anthropocentrism and subjectivism, a new narrative born from symbolization andabstraction generated through the five senses will lead to a transformation of perspective and a
new resonance with all things and the world around us. In this new age of the Anthropocene, art
and the curatorial practices that transmit it have an important role to play.
Interpretation, translation, and the creation of a “field of empathy” are essential to the artistic
act as a way of connecting with others and those different from us. These two aspects are also
the very essence of the practice of curation.

Art, Science, and Nature: Making Sense of Data for
Sustainable Futures
Ilan CHABAY
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, Potsdam, Germany

Ilan Chabay is Head of Strategic Science Initiatives and Senior Scientist in theReal Deal EU project at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS)in Potsdam Germany and Adjunct Professor in the School of Sustainability,
Arizona State University. He co-leads KLASICA 2.0 (Knowledge, Learning, andSocietal Change Alliance). After his first career of innovative research in laser
physics, he became associate director of The Exploratorium Science Museum(San Francisco), then president of a company designing and producing
interactive exhibitions for 230 museums around the world, including Disney,
the Smithsonian, and NASA. In 2006 he began his current third career insociology and sustainability science, focusing on understanding the narrativesof vision and identity in communities and how they influence collective
behavior change toward sustainable futures. In addition to research with 80+
publications in natural and social sciences, he continues designing games toinspire people for a more sustainable future.
Abstract
Science and art share the common ground of making sense of the data received by oursenses. Making sense of or assigning meaning to any form of data is the normative processof interpretation, which lies at the core of both science and art. Similarly, interpreting
sensory data guides the flow of each of our lives as integral parts of the natural world. But
we are guided not only by our individual senses. As social beings we are guided in our
individual and collective actions by norms and narratives. Narratives offer an invaluableinterface through art to the normative landscape embedded within a particular context andare powerful ways to engage society meaningfully in that landscape. In the past decade,narratives have been increasingly recognized as sources of valuable and legitimate data forscience. They reinforce social identities, cultures, and visions, and reflect or influence how
individuals and communities respond to salient issues of sustainability. Since 2011 KLASICA(the Knowledge, Learning, and Societal Change Alliance) has contributed to this growing
recognition and understanding of narratives. KLASICA 2.0 expands on this by forming a newinternational open research platform to catalyze innovative thinking, research, and practicethat will gather narratives, develop and test new methods for analysis of key concerns andsocial dynamics from narratives, and provide output for improved policy and practice inadvancing toward sustainable futures in the cultures and contexts of the world.

Minakata Kumagusu and the Emergence of Queer
Nature: The Civilisation Theory, Buddhist Science,and Microbes, 1887-1892
HONDA Eiko
University of Oxford, UK

HONDA Eiko is a Research and Teaching Associate in History at the Nissan
Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford, and the 2022 Landhaus
Fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. Her work
elucidates currently unknown intellectual paradigms that emerged in life andworks of scientist-polymaths in modern Japan. These were paradigms where‘humanistic’ knowledge of Asia impacted the articulation of ‘scientific truths’
amidst social, ecological, and political changes. She is currently working on amonograph entitled The Emergence of Queer Nature: Minakata Kumagusu andthe Making of Microbial Paradigm, 1887-1912.
Abstract
The late 1880s in the intellectual history of modern Japan epitomised the Meiji
government’s effort to ‘civilise’ through Westernisation, driven by the social Darwinianvision of the survival of the fittest. During this period in America, ideas of civilisation theory
informed by the very antithesis of the Meiji state’s understanding surfaced in life and workof the aspiring young naturalist-botanist Minakata Kumagusu. He imagined a “different kindof civilisation” as he re-examined the nature of social evolution in microbes by turning to
Sino-Asian derived knowledge of his home region Kii, Japan. Buddhism, persecuted by the
Meiji regime, most notably enabled his scientific enquiry, while honzōgaku (Chinese natural
studies), Chinese historiography, and Confucianism facilitated the reasoning process.
What interconnected all of these was what the author argues as queer nature: the basis oftruths whose ontological and experiential qualities resembled the microbe slime mould.
Similar to this microbe that captured his imagination, the process of knowing with queer
nature defied the ontological dichotomies and hierarchies fundamental to the social
Darwinian theory of evolution. Experientially, it attracted the knower’s attention, induced
their desire for intimacy with strange and curious others, and propelled greater intellectual
enquiries. The paper thus demonstrates a queer theory of intellectual history rooted inmodern Japan, whose intellectual lineage derived from Sino-Asia instead of the West.

Readable Worlds. Practice-based Mesology in Craft
and Graft
Yoann MOREAU
École des hautes études en sciences sociales, France

Yoann Moreau is a freelance anthropologist and professional playwright. He is
the author of Living in the fluidity. An Ethnographer on the Stilts in the Brazilian
Amazon River (2001) and Living with Disasters (2017). Since 2016, he lives in
Yagisawa (Izu Peninsula, Japan) where he is experiencing mesography, afieldwork dedicated to the making of ambient worlds (fūdo, 風土). Most recently,
he has published "Our Diplomatic Bodies" (2019), "Riding the Earthworm.
Rhythmic Inferences among the Living, in Japan" (2020), and "Through themilieu (fûdo), a craftsman's path" (2021).

Abstract
The Japanese word waza (技), usually translated as "technique" or "skill", helps to highlightthe distinction between know-how and know how. The hyphen makes all the difference: ifanyone can quickly learn and know how to make a pottery, it takes time, practice and a
specific complexion to acquire a know-how in pottery. Between knowing how to dosomething and acquiring a specific know-how in a field of practice, there is a huge gap, ofthe same nature as the one between environment and ambient world. In both cases, it is amatter of coexistence, confidence, and meaning.

Capturing Nature: The Depiction and
Representation of Nature by Optical Instruments
ONO Tadashi
École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie, France

Born in Tokyo, after studying ecology and botany at Shinshu University in Japan,
he graduated from Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie in Arles,
France, where he has been teaching since 2017. His photographic work
questions modern civilisation through fieldwork on built environment and its
history. He has been working since 2011 on the transformation of the landscapeof Tohoku, the northeastern region of Japan, devastated by the tsunami, as wellas the representation of public space after the political event in2013 in Gezi Park, Istanbul. His works have been exhibited at the Bibliothèque
Nationale de France, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo and theRencontres Internationales de la Photographie d'Arles, among others.
Abstract
Photography is the epitome of a medium born of the Western intellect. In creating
photographic artworks, one confronts the significant role of vision in the objectification ofnature in modern times. In Chinese characters, the phrase "view of nature" (which is also
used in this symposium abstract) implies "observation"—meaning to look carefully so as tounderstand—as well as “view”. Observation is an important act that precedes discovery andcreation, and in post-Renaissance history, scientists and artists have all been excellent
observers, relying especially on the power of optical instruments for precise observation.
This paper examines the depiction of nature using light and lenses over the past 500 years,
focusing on the representation of plants and vegetation through the following three themes.
(1) Representations of Nature in the History of Painting (15th-18th centuries)
The scientific analysis of light phenomena by Euclid in the 4th century B.C. and Alhazen in
the 11th century led to the study of lenses, and the first optical instruments were born in
Venice in the late 13th century. From the end of the 16th century to the 17th century,
microscopes and telescopes were invented in the Netherlands, and various phenomena in
the natural world, from cellular tissues to celestial bodies, were observed and recorded. In
the 17th century, the camera obscura became portable and influenced the painting processof Vermeer and many other artists. It can be said that the visual world based on opticalsystems had already been established 200 years before the invention of photography.
2) Representations of nature after the invention of photography (19th-21st centuries)
Photography, which was unveiled at the Academy of Sciences and Fine Arts in Paris in 1839,
was not so much the invention of a new vision as it was the invention of a chemical techniqueto transfer an image projected inside the camera obscura onto a metal plate. Nevertheless,the precision and realism of the photographic image deprived painting of its role as a recordof the world, creating a more immediate representation of the world that was unique tophotography. In the latter half of the 20th century, especially in the United States, many
photographers attempted to represent the natural landscape while synchronizing theirconcepts with contemporary art and the ecological view of nature after the "Silent Spring”(Rachel Carson, 1962).
3) The presenter's own representation of nature in environmental, urban, and social spaces.

Plécher the Living: Research Hypothesis for the
Future of Traditional Ecological Techniques in the
MorvanCaroline DARROUXLa Maison du patrimoine oral de Bourgogne, France

Caroline Darroux is a French anthropologist and director of the Maison duPatrimoine Oral de Bourgogne, member of the French national ‘Ethnopole’ label,part of the regional Morvan Ecomuseum, also hosting a comprehensive regional
resource centre. Assisted by a young team of cultural mediators, social sciences
researchers and professional and non-professional artists, she promotes ascientific as well as an artistic approach. The current research project La
Fabrique sociale orale investigates oral transmission techniques so as to enablehumans to reconnect with each other and build up communities in a renewedsocial structure linked to the Earth.

Abstract
The Maison du Patrimoine Oral de Bourgogne is a centre for ethnological and artistic
research located in an underpopulated rural area in France. Here we consider humansciences as a possibility for a better living between humans and non-humans. Recognized
as an ‘Ethnopole’ by the French Ministry of Culture, the centre focuses on oral transmission
and orality and develops hypotheses and action research in order to re-connect
communities in a troubled world.
Through reed toys, dandelion stem trumpets, imitation of bird songs, cattle tiaulage andother forms of oral expressions, we can unfold a rich environmental experience in a sparsely
populated area. These skillful and artifact-producing actions are part of the practices thatbring humans and non-humans together through orality.
Multiple techniques of plaiting and twisting plants are central elements for experiencing our
territory. Those weavings are usually solitary practices and use dead material. But one
technique is collective and keeps plants alive: the pléchie. This technique of interweaving
living branches, often considered as mere folklore or cultural heritage and confined to itsrole as a fence, may also be thought as an art, leading in a subtle way the other species toreconsider the human-animal-plant relationship.

De-colonizing Nature
Sander VAN DER LEEUW
Arizona State University, USA

An archeologist and historian, Sander van der Leeuw pioneered the Complex
Adaptive Systems approach to socio-environmental challenges, technology andinnovation. He held teaching positions in Amsterdam, Leyden, Cambridge andParis (Sorbonne), was founding director of Arizona State University’s School of
Human Evolution and Social Change and dean of its School of Sustainability. He
is Fellow of the AAAS, Honorary Fellow of RIHN (Kyoto, Japan), External Fellowof the Santa Fe Institute, Corresponding Member of the Royal Dutch Academyof Arts and Sciences. In 2012, he was awarded the title "Champion of the Earthfor Science and Innovation" by UNEP.
His most important publications are:1998 S.E. van der Leeuw (ed.), The Archaeomedes Project - Understanding thenatural and anthropogenic causes of land degradation and desertification in the
Mediterranean. Publications of the European Union. Open Access2009 D.A. Lane, S.E. van der Leeuw, D. Pumain, & G. West (eds.), Complexity
Perspectives on Innovation and Social Change, Springer
2019 S.E. van der Leeuw Social Sustainability, Past and Future: Undoing
Unintended Consequences for the Earth’s Survival, Cambridge University Press,
Open Access
Abstract
In many parts of the world, over the last three centuries, a Euro-American mindset andworld view has imposed itself as a result of colonialism and globalization. The particularitiesof that mindset have been an important contributor to the current sustainability conundrum.
In order to deal with that conundrum, I argue that it is necessary simultaneously to achieve
decolonization. The paper looks at the historical background of the present situation, andthen points to fundamental differences between the Euro-American and the traditional
East-Asian perspective. Adopting that perspective again would be an important
contribution to the change in mindset that is necessary. But to do so is difficult, as it is moredifficult to unlearn ideas that have been acquired, than it is to learn new ideas. Moreover,there is no easy fixed point against which to leverage the current world view in order tochange it. I argue that in this domain, Japan has an important role to play because it hasretained much of the East-Asian perspective on Nature and the World underneath its more
recent adoption of a Euro-American material way of life.

CHAIRS & RAPPORTEURS*alphabetical order

ABE Ken-ichi is a professor at RIHN. His areas of specialization are Asian area studies andenvironmental anthropology. Based on extensive ﬁeldwork in tropical forests, he has
written and edited a number of books, including “Extreme Conﬂicts and Tropical Forests”(2007, Springer), and “Good Earths: Regional and Historical Insights into China's
Environment” (2009, Kyoto University Press). He has also collaborated with UNESCO on the“Water and Culture” subtheme of the World Water Forum and, as a member of the GIAHS
Scientific Committee, contributed to the design of the FAO’s GIAHS program.
abek@chikyu.ac.jp
Hein MALLEE is a social scientist with a Ph.D. from Leiden University, the Netherlands. His
work was initially concerned with migration and related policies in China, but as he started
working in international development, he became involved in projects on ruraldevelopment, natural resources management and poverty alleviation both in China and inSoutheast Asia. The dominant theme in this was local people’s involvement in and rights toresources. He has been a Professor at RIHN since March 2013 and a Deputy DirectorGeneral since April 2018. He is also the Director of the Regional Center for Future Earth in
Asia.
Daniel NILES is a human-environmental geographer at the Research Institute for Humanity
and Nature. His research examines how different forms of traditional environmental
knowledge remain sensible through time, and the continuing relevance of theselongstanding fields of experience in the Anthropocene. He has served as Visiting Fellow at
the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin; Visiting Researcher in the
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley; and as consultant for the
FAO and Eocene Arts. Recent publications include Le monde dans un panier: esthétique,écologieetculturematérielle (Techniques&
Culture,2021 https://doi.org/10.4000/tc.16717), The charcoal forest: sensing the agencies ofnature in Forms
ofExperienced
Environments (Cambridge
Scholars
Press,
2020, https://osf.io/m5syx/), Science and the experience of nature (with N. Tachimoto, in
Nature Sustainability, 2018), and Agricultural Heritage and Conservation Beyond the
Anthropocene in the Oxford Handbook of Heritage Studies (Oxford University Press, 2018).

TERADA Masahiro is a visiting professor of environmental humanities at the Research Institutefor Humanity and Nature (RIHN) in Kyoto, Japan. His research explores how humanity relateswith its surroundings in terms of cultural dimension, especially that of in East Asia, and inquires
the distinction between human being, living thing, and thing. From this position, he is currently
investigating the concept of the Anthropocene.
His publications include: Geo-Humanities: Becoming of the World, or Human Being, Living Thing,
and Thing in the Anthropocene, (Kyoto: Airi Shuppan, 2021, in Japanese); Anthropocene and Asia:
Investigation, Critique, and Contribution from the Environmental Humanities Perspective, ed. with
Daniel Niles (Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2021, in Japanese); Catastrophe and Time: History,
Narrative, and Energeia of History (Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2018, in Japanese); and What
You Are Waiting for on the Top of the Volcano, or Towards a New ‘Scienza Nuova’ of Humanity andNature (Kyoto: Showado, 2015, in Japanese). He is also the series editor of Narrative of Terra,
Terra Narrates (Kyoto: Airi Shuppan, 2019-, in Japanese).
He was a COE researcher of National Museum of History, Japan, a Visiting Researcher of National
Ethnology Museum, Japan, and a Visiting Scholar of Max Planck Institute for History of Science,
Germany.

COMMITTEE and SECRETARIAT■Organizing Committee
Chair
ABE Ken-ichi

Members
YAMAGIWA Juichi
SUGIHARA Kaoru
YAMAUCHI Taro
OKADA Saeko
KUMAZAWA Terukazu
KONDO Yasuhisa
Daniel NILESYOSHIDA Takehito

Professor
Director-GeneralSpecially Appointed Professor
Professor
Associate Professor
Associate Professor
Associate Professor
Associate Professor
Associate Professor■École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), France
Frédéric JOULIAN

Assistant Professor■International Affairs Subsection
FUJIKAWA Takeshi
KYUDA Ritsuko
SHIOZAKI Aya

Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN)
457-4 Motoyama, Kamigamo, Kita-ku, Kyoto, 603-8047, JAPAN
Tel. +81-75-707-2152 Fax. +81-75-707-2106
kokusai@chikyu.ac.jp http://www.chikyu.ac.jp