Emergence from Awai

Text from Ecological Memes: We have all seen COVID-19 unravel some of the fundamental limits of our modern society. In particular, the pandemic has shown how cocooned we are in distinctly human affairs and epistemologies. Now, the urgent questions are: How can we restore our connection to other beings and ourselves? How can we be attentive to and cultivate the conditions for rich emergence beyond the human? In other words, how can we revitalize the space of awai – an ancient Japanese concept of the plural, ambiguous, and non-dualistic space between selves?

At Ecological Memes Global Forum 2021, Emergence from AWAI: Regenerating Human-Nonhuman Relations, a wide array of special guests spoke – business leaders, pioneering thinkers and innovative artists.