Ecological Translation: Rethinking Our Relationship with the Living World

A new group exhibition titled Ecological Translation opens on April 28, 2026, at the Goethe-Institut Athen, inviting audiences to reconsider how we relate to, interpret, and coexist with the natural world.

Curated by Asya Yaghmurian and conceived by Alexander Damianos, the exhibition brings together a diverse group of international artists, including Kyriaki Goni, Nona Inescu, Agata Ingarden, Bill Kouligas and Jenna Sutela, Raffaela Naldi Rossano, and Zoë Paul. Each artist approaches ecology not as a fixed subject, but as a dynamic system of exchanges, translations, and entanglements between human and non-human forms of life.

Rather than presenting nature as something separate or distant, Ecological Translation explores how meaning itself shifts across species, materials, and environments. Sound, organic matter, technological interfaces, and sculptural forms become tools for “translation” as a broader process of mediation between worlds.

The works on view reflect this multiplicity of approaches. Nona Inescu’s Auricle (Pinna nobilis) integrates shell, sound, and vibration, creating an intimate encounter with marine life through resonance and tactility. Agata Ingarden’s Mushroom Brain combines glass, sensors, and living fungal systems, proposing a hybrid intelligence that challenges human-centered notions of cognition.

Elsewhere, Zoë Paul’s ceramic and water-based sculptures evoke breathing, fluidity, and the fragile balance of ecosystems, while Raffaela Naldi Rossano’s Water Calendar traces rhythms of movement through organic materials, suggesting a poetic archive of environmental time. New commissions, such as Kyriaki Goni’s Translating Silence and the collaborative work Pond Brain’s Pond Brain by Jenna Sutela and Bill Kouligas, further expand the exhibition’s inquiry into perception, communication, and collective existence.

At its core, Ecological Translation is less about representing nature and more about learning how to listen to it differently. It proposes that understanding the ecological crisis requires not only scientific knowledge, but also new forms of sensitivity, imagination, and attention.

Running until May 30, 2026, the exhibition offers a timely and thought-provoking space where art becomes a site of negotiation between worlds – human, technological, and more-than-human – urging us to rethink what it means to inhabit a shared environment.

PROGRAMME & PARTICIPANTS

Keynote Speaker
Professor Bernhard Siegert (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar)

Commissioned Works
Kyriaki Goni
Jenna Sutela & Bill Kouligas
Nona Inescu

Speakers
Armen Avanessian
Alexander Damianos
Daphne Dragona
Adriaan Eeckels
Orit Halpern
Katerina Gregos
Iwona Janicka
Jussi Parikka
Luke Rendell
Max Ritts
Katharina Isabel Schmidt
Pratyusha Sharma
Tiziana Terranova
Yvonne Volkart
Joanna Zylinska

Artists
Abelardo Gil-Fournier
Kyriaki Goni
Nona Inescu
Agata Ingarden
Bill Kouligas
Raffaela Naldi Rossano
Zoë Paul
Jenna Sutela

Events
Elahe Rajabiani
Eleni Riga
Periklis Terlixidis
Katerina Tzortzatou

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Supported by
Goethe-Institut Athen
Finnish Institute of Athens
Italian Institute of Culture in Athens
Institut Français d’Athènes
Embassy of Switzerland in Greece
Austrian Embassy in Athens
German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)
Aegean Airlines
European Network of National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC)

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Further Information
www.ecologicaltranslation.com
Registration and full programme available online