The research assembly is the first public event of the two-year SALT. CLAY. ROCK. project, where the curators and participating artists will share the experiences of their first research visits and fieldwork. Additionally, activists, artists, researchers and thinkers are invited to share their insights on nuclear cultural heritage, anti-nuclear resistance, energy futures, and the ‘green transition’.

On November 18, the Berlin-based author Max Haiven invites participants to come together to imagine other futures in the sci-fi fictioning workshop Writing After Their Future, followed by Nowhere Kitchen’s collective cooking and eating session. The afternoon will start with a reading of the workshop’s sci-fi texts and a collective conversation with SALT. CLAY. ROCK.’s participating artists and invited guests on the different sites they have been investigating, as well as on their respective artistic approaches to the sites.

Afterwards, the program enters the realms of deep time in an in-depth conversation with geologist Péter Molnár, who has dedicated decades of research to the clay rock in Boda that would potentially host Hungary’s final repository. The assembly then re-surfaces to contemplate our relationship to ‘Comrade Sun’ with philosopher Oxana Timofeeva, who will introduce her notion of Solar Politics and give impulses for further discussions on energy futures. This will be the topic of the last panel with transformation researcher Andrea Vetter, architect Moritz Maria Karl, and ecofeminist thinker Theresa Deichert on the challenges of a ‘green transformation’. They will also address how nuclear energy has recently been re-cast as ‘green energy’ by those who advocate for a nuclear techno-fix to climate change.

With contributions by Ana Alenso, András Cséfalvay, Theresa Deichert, Krisztina Erdei, Ende Gelände / Kali, Gorleben Archiv / Anna Gäde, Green Youth Pécs / Júlia Konkoly-Thege, Max Haiven, Moritz Maria Karl, Péter Molnár, Csilla Nagy & Rita Süveges, Nowhere Kitchen (Pepe Dayaw de Manila), PPKK (Schönfeld & Scoufaras), Eglė Rindzevičiūtė, Katarina Šević, Sonya Schönberger, Marike Schreiber, Oxana Timofeeva, Andrea Vetter, Anna Witt, Working Group Image Archive Asse II (Susanne Kriemann, Judith Milz, Lena Reisner)

nGbK work group: Katalin Erdődi, Marc Herbst, Julia Kurz, Virág Major-Kremer, Vincent Schier

Production: Karoline Kerkai, nGbK (Germany), Dina Darabos, Kinga Kovács (Hungary)

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Assembly Schedule

10:00–13:00 (in English, without translation)
Writing After Their Future: A Sci-fi Fictioning Workshop with Max Haiven

13:00–14:00
Nowhere Kitchen: Pepe’s Pinoy Pop-Up

14:00–15:00
Welcome & Introduction to SALT. CLAY. ROCK.: collective reading of texts written during the sci-fi-fictioning workshop, followed by the curators’ and selected artists’ guided tour of the research display

15:00–16:30
Collective conversation with commissioned artists and guests on their research and their artistic approaches to the German and Hungarian sites where they will be working.
Participants: Ana Alenso (online), András Cséfalvay, Krisztina Erdei, Csilla Nagy & Rita Süveges, Sonya Schönberger, Marike Schreiber, Working Group Image Archive Asse II (Susanne Kriemann, Judith Milz, Lena Reisner)

17:00–18:00
Radioactive waste and deep time: a geologist’s perspective
Conversation with the geologist Péter Molnár (Pécs, Hungary), moderated by Csilla Nagy & Rita Süveges

18:00–19:00
Nowhere Kitchen: A Migrant Cooking Theatre of Spicy Histories and Collective Eating Ritual of Leftovers led by Pepe Dayaw de Manila

19:00–20:00
Keynote by Oxana Timofeeva: Energy and Intelligence: From Solar to Nuclear 
Followed by a Q&A led by András Cséfalvay

20:00–21:30
Conversation on energy futures and the challenges of the ‘green transition’
Participants: Theresa Deichert, Moritz Maria Karl, Andrea Vetter