“(AGAINST) ANIMAL CAPITALISM”: Two-day Symposium on the Place of Non-Human Life in Society

Non-human animals are subjected to exploitation across all areas of life, including food production, medicine, and entertainment. Today, livestock farming occupies over 75% of the world’s agricultural land and is one of the leading causes of deforestation, while more than 90% of animals are raised in intensive, industrial-scale facilities, confined in restricted spaces and cages, often without ever seeing daylight. At the same time, wild animals face the threat of extinction due to habitat destruction and die in large numbers in forest fires, as well as victims of overfishing and hunting. In short, the use and abuse of non-human animals is one of the most pressing issues of our time. Yet, the ethical problems arising within these systems of exploitation remain largely invisible to the wider public.

Part of the Public Program of the exhibition Why Look at Animals? Justice for Non-Human Life, and in dialogue with it, this symposium addresses key questions regarding the role of non-human animals in contemporary society: how do legal frameworks enable the exploitation of animals as non-sentient objects within production lines on an unimaginable scale? How is violence against animals connected to violence against humans, and how does unchecked animal labor generate value within capitalism? The symposium’s speakers propose ways to develop fairer legal frameworks and forms of governance, and discuss strategies for a justice that embraces all species.

Speakers:
Rimona Afana (researcher, lecturer, activist, multimedia artist), Charlotte Blattner (Associate Professor of Public and Environmental Law, University of Lausanne), Katerina Gregos (Artistic Director, EMST), Terike Haapoja (visual artist), Tiziana Pers (artist, activist), and Richard Twine (Associate Professor of Sociology, Co-director of the Centre for Human-Animal Studies, Edge Hill University, UK).

Remote participants:
Jo-Anne McArthur (photojournalist, founder of We Animals), Shay Salehi (artist), Syl Ko (writer, independent researcher), Dinesh Wadiwel (Associate Professor of Human Rights and Social & Legal Studies, University of Sydney).

Moderators:
Federica Timeto (Associate Professor of Sociology of Art and Critical Animal Studies, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), Gizem Haspolat (Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Yeditepe University, Istanbul), Pablo P. Castello (Researcher, Animal Law Program, University of Denver).

The symposium is curated by Terike Haapoja, extending her long-term research into capitalism’s dependence on the exploitation and “animalization” of animals, which she conceptualizes as “Animal Capitalism.” Haapoja is a Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on animal rights and the possibility of interspecies coexistence. She also participates in the exhibition Why Look at Animals? Justice for Non-Human Life.

As part of the symposium, the book Coralographies: the 7,500-year-old Coral Animalesque by David Brooks will be presented in collaboration with the Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation, alongside a presentation by the organization A Promise to Animals on animal protection and rights.

The symposium will be held in English, with interpretation into Greek.

PROGRAM

Saturday, March 28

12:00 Opening remarks – Katerina Gregos (20′)
12:20 Introductory address – Terike Haapoja (10′)

Panel 1: Making the Invisible Visible (80′)
12:30 Video contribution – Jo-Anne McArthur (15′)
12:45 Lecture – Richard Twine (35′)
13:20 Discussion (Moderator: Gizem Haspolat) (20′)
13:40 Video contribution – Shay Salehi (10′)
14:00 Break (Screening of Scar Tissue by Shay Salehi) (45′)

Panel 2: Animal Jurisprudence and Interspecies Governance (90′)
15:00 Lecture – Charlotte Blattner (35′)
15:35 Discussion (Moderator: Pablo P. Castello) (20′)
15:55 Live intervention – Tiziana Pers (10′)

16:10 Break (30′)

Panel 3: Our Ethical Responsibility (80′)
16:40 Video – Syl Ko (15′)
16:55 Keynote – Rimona Afana (35′)
17:30 Discussion (Moderator: Federica Timeto) (20′)
17:50 Artistic intervention (10′)

18:00 End

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Sunday, March 29

12:30–14:30 Closed workshop with Rimona Afana

Parallel Program (60′)
15:00 Book presentation – David Brooks, Anastasia Miliou (20′)
15:30 Book presentation With Our Eyes on Animals: An Encyclopedia for Understanding Non-Human Life, edited by Katerina Gregos & Ioli Tzanetaki (10′)
15:40 Presentation – NGO A Promise to Animals (30′)

Panel 4: Animals and Politics: Co-Resistance (100′)
16:30 Opening – Katerina Gregos (10′)
16:40 Video – Dinesh Wadiwel (10′)
16:50 Lecture – Terike Haapoja (35′)
17:30 Roundtable (60′)
Rimona Afana
Richard Twine
Charlotte Blattner
Federica Timeto
Gizem Haspolat
Tiziana Pers
Pablo P. Castello
Moderator: Terike Haapoja

18:30 End