What's So Scary About a Falling Tree?

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©Karolis Pilypas Liutkevičius

“If we are looking for models of self-sustaining communities, we need to look no further than an old-growth forest. Or the old-growth cultures they raised in symbiosis with them,” says Robin Wall Kimmerer, an acclaimed author and teaching professor of Environmental and Forest Biology in her book “Braiding Sweetgrass”.

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This book presents the scientific biology facts about the vegetation and enriches them with experiential knowledge of North American autochthonous wisdom gained by observing natural life and their surroundings for generations. This book also became an inspiration to us to look more closely at what could be called the wisdom of plants. Also, it inspired us to look into the plant and human relations in our cultural heritage. We raise the question: what is the place of plants in our society now?

Dr. Radvilė Rimgailė-Voicik is a botanist and a researcher at Life Sciences Center, Vilnius University. ©Martyna Šulskutė
Dr. Radvilė Rimgailė-Voicik is a botanist and a researcher at Life Sciences Center, Vilnius University. ©Martyna Šulskutė
Dr. Radvilė Rimgailė-Voicik. ©Martyna Šulskutė
Dr. Radvilė Rimgailė-Voicik. ©Martyna Šulskutė
©Martyna Šulskutė
©Martyna Šulskutė

The botanist, a researcher at Life Sciences Center, Vilnius University, Dr. Radvilė Rimgailė-Voicik became our guide to the community of vegetation for this episode. The sociologist from Vytautas Magnus University, Dr. Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė is our guide to human society, which by definition is the aggregate of people living together in more or less ordered communities.

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©Martyna Šulskutė
©Martyna Šulskutė
Dr. Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė is a sociologist at Vytautas Magnus University. ©Martyna Šulskutė
Dr. Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė is a sociologist at Vytautas Magnus University. ©Martyna Šulskutė
Dr. Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė. ©Martyna Šulskutė
Dr. Jurga Bučaitė-Vilkė. ©Martyna Šulskutė

What if we were to broaden these boundaries to other species? Living in a capitalist economy, our culture is innately anthropocentric, constantly expanding our influence and power over the natural world, controlling the resources, and deciding about the habitats of others. What would we gain from another type of expansion? Expansion of perception, including other kingdoms of life, into our society?

©Martyna Šulskutė
©Martyna Šulskutė
©Martyna Šulskutė
©Martyna Šulskutė

One week after COP27, which is the most important annual meeting of world leaders addressing the global climate crisis, we invite you to listen to a constructed dialogue between a biologist and a sociologist to find out how we got to where we are today and if changes are possible.

©Martyna Šulskutė
©Martyna Šulskutė

The episode is a part of the festival “LT.art Vienna”.

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