Who we are
Natural Contract Lab is a transdisciplinary artistic practice that weaves an active and sustained relationship with bodies of water undergoing deep ecological transformation. Our artistic interventions are hybrid and unfold differently in respect to each river as dialogue, a collaboration with, and a gesture of care. With the aim to fabulate new forms of justice, we have co-created an artistic Protocol of Reciprocal Care weaving the practices of restorative justice, rights of rivers, environmental grief, sensory ecoscenography. NCL is a body of care that invites you to join us in walking-with the river, water mourning circles, collective gestures of care, Agora’s, River guardians Schools and other actions that emerge in collaboration with the people, plants, stones, trees and other beings that guide us.
Initiated in 2021 by Maria Lucia Cruz Correia in ongoing co-creation with a transdisciplinary group, including Zenne River (teacher), vinny jones (sensory scenography/dramaturgy), Brunilda Pali (restorative justice), Lode Vranken (design/philosophy), Margarida Mendes (research/sonic guidance).
SZenne river collaborators: Saartje Monden (River guardian Pedagogies), Flore Herman (mediation dramaturgy), Matteo Deblasio (river vessel), Marzia Dalfini (designer), Thessa Kruger (intern), Jef Seghers LDR environmental lawyer (River Living Bill), Christel Stalpaert (hyphenated thinker), Laura Eva Meuris (weaver), Melanie Ganino (artistic assistant), Caroline Daish (vocal archivist)
STILL HERE: An alliance of care for Szenne river
Production: Hiros Coproduction: VierNulVier, workspacebrussels, Kanal Centre Pompidou, Sint Lucas Antwerpen School of Arts KdG, UGent: Research Centre S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts & Media) Local partners: Gemeenschapscentrum De Rinck, Centre Culturel de Soignies, Kunsthal mechelen Supported by: Vlaamse Gemeenschap, Erfgoedcel Mechelen, Zenne Archives of Rijksarchief Brussel (BE), European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ, Marie Toussaint, Member of the European Parliament (Greens/EFA).
past collaborators: Marine Calmet (rights of nature), Evanne Nowak (ecological grief), the rivers Rhone, Tejo, Zenne, Lieve, Aa and Sejoumi lake.
Our story
Our group started in 2021 when we gathered for the first time with the SZenne river in Belgium with a clear intention: “How to imagine a practice of care to support the waters under deep transformation?”. A practice that cares, listens, fails, deconstructs and fabulates. Our practice is like a bacteria, that is acting as an organism that keeps mutating and generating new forms in contact with the waters. We grow like “symbiogenesis”, ( Llynn margulis) that keeps on transforming while interacting with new ecosystems. We are a transdisciplinary group that tries to includes the river, the wind, the fish, multispecies. Yet, the river doesn’t have words to communicate, but it reaches out to us through the body and the senses. It draws our attention with colour, beauty, toxicity and movement. With sound and smell. Inviting us to open up to the ephemeral and concrete ways the river has to express itself. We are humble, we raise questions, we discover together. The river determines our route, as Anna Tsing says, “we need walking to imagine alternatives to the intertwined human and more than human catastrophes of the anthropocene ”. The last three years have been an incredible learning process, that we are enormously grateful to all those that have hosted and collaborated with us.
Our intention is to contribute to a growing movement that sees water as an emergency of today, which is asking to each of us to restore our relations with the waters, the peoples and other than humans. It is a call for collaboration, joining together our vision and hope for water.
Our river allies since 2021:
2023-2026 SZENNE RIVER, Belgium, STILL HERE, An alliance of care for SZenne River
2024- 25 MAAS RIVER, Netherlands ‘on MaasWacht’ in collaboration with TAAT and SoAP, Netherlands
2021-2023 SEBKHET SEJOUMI, Tunisia, in collaboration with Dream City festival L’art Rue and BE PART
2021-2022** TEJO RIVER**, Portugal – with the support of Alkantara Festival and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
2022-2023 *RHONE RIVER*, Switzerland – in collaboration least [laboratory of ecology and art for a society in transition]
Ongoing supporters:
VierNulVier (BE) / Workspacebrussels (BE)/ Kanal Centre Pompidou (BE)/ Sint Lucas Antwerpen School of Arts KdG(BE) / UGent: Research Centre S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts & Media) (BE) Zenne Archives of Rijksarchief Brussel (BE)/ European Forum for Restorative Justice (EFRJ) / Marie Toussaint, Member of the European Parliament (Greens/EFA)/ the Flemish authorities / Local partners: Gemeenschapscentrum De Rinck, Centre Culturel de Soignies / TAAT / SoAP
Past:
Fundacao Calauste Gulbenkian(pt), WpZimmer (BE), NTGent (BE) LEAST (CH), Dream City (TN), C-takt (BE), BePart, Creative Europe/ Leuven Institute of Criminology (BE)/ Wild Legal (FR)/ Human Rights Consortium UGent (BE)
“We walk for the river, and as we hear the water we hear ourselves. Water is our ancestor. We are bodies of water. We walk to dialogue with the river as our ally. We’re telling the water how much we care. When spending time to connect with the water we are learning to connect with ourselves, as our walk becomes an act of reciprocal care.”
— with gratitude to all the waters we have walked by natural contract lab group
naturalcontractlab.com 