The Spring Symposium on Habitats Through The Perspectives of Art and Science 2025 seeks ways and opportunities to connect artistic and scientific perspectives on more-than-human actors through presentations, lectures, field trips, and workshops. The symposium will bring topics of the presence of vegetation, avian and insect fauna into art; it will open questions of value of nature, ecosystem services, and rights of nature. In its more local focus, the symposium will thematize the diversity of habitats of Brno and its surroundings, from urban wastelands to old-growth forests, predominantly from the perspective of botany and ornithology. The symposium will host researchers from Masaryk University and Czech Globe, conservationists from Czech Society for Ornithology and Rezekvítek alongside Czech and international visual artists and curators.

Program:
29 May 2025 (program in Czech, with optional English translation)
-> 10:00 Field trip to former Černovice sand quarry with biologist and conservator Ing. Vilém Jurek. Meeting at the bus stop Staré letiště.
-> 15:00–17:00 Presentations at FFA BUT, Údolní 53, Brno, Building U1 / Room 202
15:00 Mgr. et MgA. Tea Záchová (OGL Liberec) – Music as vast as the universe, as wide as noon: presentation about the Czech-Norwegian exhibition on disappearing birds in OGL Liberec
15:30 MgA. Michal Kindernay (FFA BUT) – Downstream of the sound: Acoustic Landscape Mapping
16:00 Mgr. Kryštof Horák (Czech Ornithological Society, MUNI): Birds of Brno (ornithological lecture)
16:30–17:00 round table

30 May 2025 (program in English, you can watch online here)
-> 9:00–17:00 Presentations at FFA BUT, Údolní 53, Brno, Building U1 / Room 201
9:00 Mgr. et MgA. Barbora Lungová (FFA BUT) – Introduction
9:15 Mgr. Jakub Kvizda (FHS UK): Spectral hogweeds: figuring a way out of necropolitics
9:45 Wild Garden Utopia (Kitti Gosztola, MFA, Ph.D. and Bence Pálinkás, MFA., Ph.D.)
10:15 Trajna + Ivana Papić: Invasive plants as agents of regeneration: creative practices for local communities
10:45–11:00 coffee break
11:00 MgA. Adam Vačkář (FFA BUT): Giant hogweed as a tool of imagination in visual art and of Interdisciplinary cooperation
11:30 doc. RNDr. Zdenka Lososová, Ph.D. (FS MUNI): Cities as a human contribution to the diversity of nature
12:00 Mgr. Art. Paula Malinowska (AFAD): How Did Daphne Turn into a Plant (2022), Ballad of the Waves that Rotated the Earth (2024), Branching Light and Flickers of a Dawn – film screenings and an artist talk
12:30 round table
13:00–14:00 lunch break
14:00 MgA. Lucia Bergamaschi (FFA BUT) and MgA. David Přílučík: Art and rights of nature
14:30 MgA. Tamara Spalajkovič (FFA BUT), Ing. arch. Kateřina Singer (FA BUT), Ing. arch. Marek Hlavička (FA BUT): Case study of post-cultural landscape of Planýrka, Brno
15:00 Ing. Jiří Schneider, Ph.D. (Mendelu): When a scientist presses the camera shutter - data collection or art?
15:30 Mgr. Davina Elena Vačkářová, Ph.D. (Czechglobe): Nature–society interactions through the lens of ecosystem services
16:00–16:30 round table

31 May 2025 (in Czech, with optional English translation)
-> 7:50 Field trip to the Malhotky National Natural Monument – departure by 8:12 train from the main station, direction Staré Město u Uherského Hradiště to Nevojice; meeting 7:50 in the main hall. The tour will be guided by botanist RNDr. Libor Ambrozek. From Malhotky, we will walk through Nevojice to Ždánice forest hills towards the destination U slepice (Hen’s Hill) to observe old-growth oak and beech forests.
-> Workshop with MgA. Tomáš Hrůza: Hen and Crude Oil: what existed first? In a performative walk along the hills of The Ždánice forest, we will focus on the topic of geological memory of the place and of deep time sensations. We are going to explore hen steps and tune them with the frequency of the pendulums of the oil derricks. After the walk, there will be the possibility to take the train from Nesovice or Nemotice to Kyjov – Boršov Meadows where you might spend the night in your own tent.