‘As Donna Haraway reminds us, to be a one, you must be a many. Future Assembly will need to recognise our status as assemblies, from the microbial gut-brain to the human dependence on the hospitality of our shared planet. Just as we give standing to the fictive entities of corporations and the protected entity of the human child, can we not give standing to the life forms on which we humans are utterly dependent? Oceanic phytoplankton that make our atmospheres; arboreal canopies that breathe in our CO2; the mycorrhizae that knit soil together – I voice them and give them standing. With Future Assembly, we’re constructing a place for kinship with the fellow companions who sustain our planet as habitable for all these unlikely energy forms that are alive – mineral, animal, microbial, photosynthesising giant. These entities need protocols of respect and relation by which we account for the more-than-human that makes life possible.’
– Caroline A. Jones, professor of art history
‘As architects, we need to learn how to truly collaborate with our many more-than-human companions. Our spatial contracts and capacities must be extended to reflect our planetary responsibilities in a better way. Scientific inquiries have deepened our knowledge of the more-than-human entanglements. Let us use our imagination to transform what we know from science, into a strategy that holds space for every species on this planet and respects the world’s many temporalities and modes of existence.’
– Sebastian Behmann, architect and co-founder of Studio Other Spaces
‘What are a tree’s interests? A puffin’s needs? What does a waterfall want? And what, in a world defined by humans and our tenacious belief in human exceptionalism, are their non-human rights? It is urgent to ask such questions, since the climate crisis affects everything on the planet – humans, animals, plants, and inanimate objects. We must attempt to dissolve the boundaries of our individual existences and recognise our many entanglements with all living and non-living entities. In doing so, we can forge a collective space to explore sustainable, more-than-human futures – a space for future assemblies.’
– Olafur Eliasson, artist and co-founder of Studio Other Spaces
‘In an increasingly multi-polar – and polarised – world, how do we embrace a pluralism that goes beyond culture, race, class, religion, or politics? Are we courageous enough to decentralise power, such that the dignity and rights of our more-than-human family might legitimately supersede our own? When trees have voice, are we willing to concede the argument? As the United Nations celebrates its birthday, perhaps the central question is, have we as a species finally come of age?’
– Hadeel Ibrahim, activist
‘We can tackle the climate crisis, the health crisis, the economic crisis – and its close cousin, the poverty crisis – only if and when we also acknowledge that a system built on inequality on the basis of race, gender, social class, and species cannot be sustained if we are to survive and thrive along with our non-human neighbours. Perhaps when we care more for non-human forms of existence, we will acknowledge our own inherent value. Either we all have rights, or none of us do.’
– Kumi Naidoo, global Ambassador for Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity
‘Fifty years ago we sent a man to the moon – and back. There is no reason why we cannot apply the same level of investment, risk-taking, and innovation to our greatest social problems. But first we must treat them with the same level of urgency – doing it “not because it is easy, but because it is hard”.’
– Mariana Mazzucato, professor and founding director of the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London
‘I have spent the whole of my adult life championing and defending the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Now, having listened to the wisdom of indigenous friends, I see that we have to go further and recognise the dignity and rights of all species. This will not diminish us as humans; it will enhance our role as guardians of a holistic approach to the sustainability and future of the world.’
– Mary Robinson, chair of the Elders and adjunct professor of climate justice at Trinity College
