Climate change

In this podcast we talk to curator and researcher José Luis Espejo about the unusual progression of his academic immersion, but above all we focus on the key role played by the blubber of toothed cetaceans at different points in recent human history. A descent into the hidden layers of early modernity that connects biology, chemistry, economics, military engineering, and lighting technology. We talk about sperm whales and dolphins, about boats, lamps, and trade treaties, and about the echoes of this history, which resonate in the midst of the current climate crisis. But mostly we talk about blubber, about our relationship with ecosystems, and about the unsustainable exploitation of marine, fossil, and human resources.

In this podcast, we ask Brazilian architect, researcher, and writer Paulo Tavares to respond to Audre Lorde’s enduring question: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Drawing on examples from projects such as Trees, Vines, Palms and Other Architectural Monuments, and reflecting on what he calls “a moment of shift” in today’s political climate, Paulo develops his notion of “critical proximity” as well as his understanding of architecture as a political field. We also interrogate ourselves about what a sustainable museum should be, while tackling systemic epistemic deficiencies and the politics of narrative.

We dig up some unreleased fragments of our conversation with architect, artist, and curator Paulo Tavares. Reflections that address the role of museums as spaces that shape public discourse, their involvement and relationship with ecology, sustainability, and the climate crisis, and how they can avoid falling into greenwashing rhetoric.

In this podcast, Filmmaker, urbanist, educator, and cultural practitioner Tareq Khalaf opens a conversation on the agrarian ways of life and the deep-rooted significance of land in Palestinian identity. He reflects on memory, absences, legacies, collective labor, fig harvests, resistance, and radical pedagogies. The conversation also examines the insidious strategies of slow violence at the heart of the settler-colonial project, revealing occupation and its spatial regime—shaped by fragmentation, land confiscation, settlement expansion, conservation policies, and food politics—as a form of environmental erosion and disaster. We also delve into the emotional and psychological toll of life under occupation, and the vital role of imagination, community, and collective expression in sustaining identity and hope, especially in the face of efforts to normalize deeply abnormal conditions.