Floating University is a self-organised space located in the city of Berlin, where professionals from a wide range of disciplines come together to collaborate, co-create and imagine the possibilities of the future. The association was consolidated in 2018 with the mission to open up, maintain and curate the territory in which it is located. Since then, it has been offering non-disciplinary, radical and collaborative programmes to the public. Floating University is organised in working groups that address different fields of knowledge and action: from the maintenance and development of the place to gardening, the cultivation of collaborations and the healing of neighbourhood connections.

From the 4th to the 6th of July, the programme ’THE NIGHT OF IDEAS: We are the RIVER / Wir sind der FLUSS’ will take place in Berlin with the aim of reflecting on the ‘legal uprising’ of the elements of nature.

Since Christopher Stone, in 1972, had the idea of changing the status of trees, from “objects”, to “subjects”, in order for them to be able to go to court and defend their non-human perspectives and values, the movement for giving rights to non-human entities has grown around the world.

It is a silent revolution, where rivers, lakes, lagoons, oceans… are gradually gaining the status of “legal persons” and granted rights like in Ecuador with the Pachamama entering the constitution (2008) and the Whanganui river being legally recognized (2017) among others. How European rivers and natural entities are being voiced ? Which tools, stories, perspectives and paradigms do we manipulate to operate an ontological and legal shift?

The festival seeks to create a space for thought and collective discussion on the rights of nature establishing a framework where the arts, sciences, legal work, theoretical knowledge as well as the most manual and embodied practices help us connect with the rivers as « persons/entities”, and particularly the Spree, allowing us to reflect and imagine a more inclusive, sustainable and habitable future. The festival is co-organized by Institut français Deutschland and members of Floating e.V. in co-curation with the artist and writer Camille de Toledo.