Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes is an artistic research project that explores landscapes not only as material and physical spaces but also as collective ideas and political terrains. It seeks to emphasize landscapes as symbiotic entities and ever-evolving archives in conflict, where stories, memories, and power structures collide, and mutual relationships of both human and non-human interactions evolve.
The project is inspired by queer ecologies. A term introduced by Catriona Mortimer-Sandilands and Bruce Erickson that challenges rigid, hierarchical views of „nature“ by drawing from queer theory and ecological thought. It critiques dominant narratives that frame „nature“ as stable, binary, or heteronormative and instead highlights fluidity, interconnectivity, and transformation. Mirroring the diverse and often non-conforming experiences that are found in queer communities, it enables us to see „nature“ as a vibrant and interconnected agent, where every organism and element contributes to a larger sphere. It helps us to recognize that (ecological) relationships are not fixed or hierarchical and allows us to understand that there is an ongoing negotiation and transformation in and around us.
The collaborative work of artists, researchers, and folks directly involved with landscapes provide the bedrock of the Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes. The project understands environments and encounters within them through the expertise of embodied and situated knowledges from the perspectives of caregivers, workers, residents, and storytellers, articulating ways of understanding rooted in lived experience, local history, and their material conditions. By using tools such as artistic research, experimental approach, and open dialogue, the Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes seeks to create spaces that reimagine the relationship to landscapes and elevate them as powerful entities that are capable of expressing their own narratives of resilience and transformation.
The Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes was initiated by Kim Bode in 2017. It is a project that stands against all forms of discrimination, acknowledging that exclusion and violence stem from capitalist and colonial legacies, genocides, extraction and appropriation, and that these have shaped the dominant central European narratives and ways of relating to landscapes. That is why the project is seeking to structure the practice otherwise. The core principles are grounded in inclusivity and equity and work across shared interests, collaborative and collective work, research, and interventions. The Bureau of Transitioning Landscapes project tries to create accessible and open spaces for knowledge-sharing, a multiplicity of voices, lived experiences, and critical perspectives. The process is often unusual, odd, and messy, and embraces complexities and mistakes, understanding them as essential to transformation. Rather than seeking to impose fixed narratives or solutions, the project remains committed to an ongoing practice of unlearning.