Więcej-Niż-Arki-Noego. Tworzenie ostoi jako przetrwanie dzięki współpracy
More-Than-Noah’s-Arks: Building a Refuge as Collaborative Survival

Summary/Abstract: The article problematizes the figure of Noah’s Ark, which has dominated thinking about refuge-making at the time of the ongoing ecological crisis. The author argues that the refuge-maker does not always have to be human. Refuges can also emerge from the co-operation between humans and more-than-humans. Drawing on the findings of environmental humanities, the article closely examines three examples of “speculative gestures” (Stengers, Debaise) of recent transdisciplinary projects at the intersection of architecture, design, performance art, and eco-activism. In these projects, refuge-making becomes a strategy of “collaborative survival” (Tsing). First, the analysis of the installation Refuge for Resurgence (2021) by the Superflux collective shows how a refuge may become a site for a multispecies pluriverse. Next, the multimedia project Pending Xenophora (2020–2022) by Mari Bastashevski reveals the tensions and frictions that arise from collaboration with a specific species. Finally, the project The Anthropocene Museum (2020–ongoing) by the Kenyan collective Cave_bureau serves to demonstrate that refuge-making can involve a decolonial gesture of breaking away from the harmful ecological practices of Western modernity.

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