Extinction Wars: A Climate Conversation with Hiwa K and Jonas Staal

In the face of escalating climate crises and the backdrop of warfare on multiple fronts, artists are reevaluating their roles during this global turmoil. How can they redefine their practices to address the intersection of war and ecological crimes?

In this thought-provoking conversation, artist/musician Hiwa K and visual artist Jonas Staal delve into the role of art in a world on the brink, a world where every decision has far-reaching ecological implications, and seeking innovative ways to reimagine art in an era of polycrisis.

Join them as they explore the potential of art to inspire change, raise awareness, and foster new ecologies that respond to our rapidly changing world.

Hiwa K

Hiwa K is an artist and musician living in Sulaymaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan, to which he returned three years ago, after living in Germany for almost twenty years. There, he has acquired a farm and, together with local people, studies how to promote permaculture, i.e. how to live in harmony with the environment. Permaculture is a design method based on ecology, aimed at developing sustainable systems by imitating natural processes and utilizing them to meet the needs of the individual, of human communities and of the Earth equally, in the short and long term. These systems can, for example, be related to the production of food and energy, housing, or the organization of economic activities. His self-education has left a strong impression on his works, which are the result of a continual critique of the art-education system and the professionalization of art practice, as well as of the myth of the individual artist.

Consequently, many of his works are characterized by a strong collective, participatory dimension, and have to do with the process of teaching and with learning systems, and an insistence on the idea of obtaining knowledge from everyday experience rather than doctrine. Hiwa K has been involved in various collective exhibitions, such as La Triennale in Paris and the “Edgware Road Project” at the Serpentine Gallery in London. His Chicago Boys: While We Were Singing They Were Dreaming project is continually being hosted by important international institutions, such as: Alternativa Festival in Gdansk; CASCO, Utrecht; the Serpentine Gallery, London; New Museum, New York; MACRO, Rome; M HKA, Antwerp; and MUSAC, León. He participated in Manifesta 7 curated by Raqs Media Collective, New Museum in NY, and the 2015 Venice Biennale.

Jonas Staal

Jonas Staal is a visual artist whose work deals with the relation between art, democracy, and propaganda. He is the founder of the artistic and political organization New World Summit (2012–ongoing). Together with Florian Malzacher he co-directs the training camp Training for the Future (2018-ongoing), and with human rights lawyer Jan Fermon he initiated the collective action lawsuit Collectivize Facebook (2020-ongoing). With writer and lawyer Radha D’Souza he founded the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (2021-ongoing) and with Laure Prouvost he is co-administrator of the Obscure Union. Exhibition-projects include Museum as Parliament (with the Democratic Self-Administration of Rojava, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2018-ongoing), We Demand a Million More Years (Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, 2022) and Extinction Wars (with Radha D'Souza, Gwangju Museum of Art, 2023).

His projects have been exhibited widely at venues such as the V&A in London, Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, M_HKA in Antwerp, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Centre Pompidou-Metz and the Nam June Paik Art Center in Seoul, as well as the 7th Berlin Biennale, the 31st São Paulo Biennale and the 12th Taipei Biennale. Publications include Nosso Lar, Brasília (Jap Sam Books, 2014), Stateless Democracy (With co-editors Dilar Dirik and Renée In der Maur, BAK, 2015), Steve Bannon: A Propaganda Retrospective (Het Nieuwe Instituut, 2018), Propaganda Art in the 21st Century (The MIT Press, 2019), and Training for the Future Handbook (With co-editor Florian Malzacher, Sternberg Press, 2021). Staal completed his PhD research on propaganda art at the PhDArts program of Leiden University, the Netherlands.

Climate Conversations

Presented by the World Weather Network, Climate Conversations brings together extraordinary international artists, designers, architects and writers with leading climate scientists, policy makers and activists, for one-to-one conversations about the climate crisis and biodiversity loss. Each conversation focuses on topics of shared interest between speakers from different cultural and disciplinary perspectives, and fosters pluralistic approaches to global challenges.

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