Ziran / Nature – Art, Nature, and Ethics

This book is the result of intellectual and physical journeys that artists, scholars, teachers, and students from China and Germany have undertaken together, in order to gain a better understanding of the connections between old Chinese philosophy (with an emphasis on Daoist writings), traditional Chinese painting, and contemporary art practices. The texts collected here give an introduction into concepts that are more than 2000 years old, yet still raise relevant questions about our current relationship to nature—both to nature in the sense of environment and ecology, and to our inner nature and its connection to the world we live in. The answers each of us gives to these questions also inform our way of life, the way we act in society or politics, and of course our art. They are important to anyone trying to find a position in a world that is about to shift from a cosmos that was “naturally so” (ziran 自然) to an increasingly manmade world, controlled and designed for the sole benefit of human beings.