The Garden of Eden, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens, The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man (1615), detail. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Enroll now as seats are limited:
Min. seats: 5 | Max. seats: 30 | Language: English
Explore how animals are represented in popular media and advertising, shaping our perceptions and ethical attitudes.
Discover new perspectives on interspecies justice, interdependence, and ecological coexistence.
Challenge established ideas about nature, conservation, and human–animal relations.
Understand the historical roots of human domination over nature and its contemporary consequences.
Develop critical thinking skills through individual and collective analysis of essays, poems, and artworks.
Strengthen your writing skills through assignments and dedicated feedback sessions.
Online Course ANIMAL ENCOUNTERS: A Critical Inquiry into the Politics of Human-Animal Relations by Dorine van Meel
A fundamental separation between “man” and “nature” has shaped western thought throughout its history. Nature came to be imagined as external to the human world: passive, knowable, and ultimately available to be tamed, mastered, possessed, exploited. The concept of nature and its domination plays a role in the hierarchical organisation of human beings according to race and gender, but also informs the notion of “man” as placed above the animal. Modes of life based on the domination and exploitation of nature persist today in an ecological crisis that has reached a planetary scale.
In this course we will focus on the separation between the human animal and the nonhuman animal, asking how and why humans have come to understand themselves as fundamentally different from – and often superior to – the other-than-human world. Together, we will look into some of the ideas that have shaped this relationship, while also considering people, movements, and cultural practices that have challenged the human-nature divide.
Through key texts, cultural expressions, and writing as a form of inquiry, we will consider what it might mean to rethink our relationship with other animals in order to trace the contours of a world where social and ecological justice might become possible.
Your BAI Online Course Instructor
Dorine van Meel (1984, NL) is an artist based between Brussels and Amsterdam who’s practice manifest as video installations, performances and publications Her work addresses various socio-political questions, using poetic language to expose current structures of power while also considering modes of resistance.
Van Meel’s solo work has been shown at the South London Gallery (London), the Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art(Berlin), W139 (Amsterdam), Extracity (Antwerpen), Transmediale (Berlin), Nottingham Contemporary (Nottingham) and KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin).
Her interest in discursive practices, feminist methodologies, and self-organised forms of collaborations is reflected within the collective projects she initiates, including “The Southern Summer School” organised with Nelmarie du Preez at BAK in Utrecht, “Gentle Dust” organised with Rianna Jade Parker at Jupiter Woods in London and at the Berlin Biennale and “Decolonial Futures” an extra-curricular educational programme organised between the Sandberg Institute and Framer Framed in Amsterdam and Funda Community College in Soweto (SA).
From 2023 to 2025, she directed Planetary Poetics, a two-year master’s programme at the Sandberg Institute organised i.c.w. Framer Framed, supporting artistic research into ecological crises and climate justice. She is currently teaching at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, where she is also a researcher at the platform Urgent Ecologies.
Save the dates in your calendar
The live sessions for this course will be given on Tuesday January 05, 12, 19 and 26, 2027, each day from 4 – 6 pm (Berlin time). You will also receive an email reminder for each video conference before it takes place.
Recording of Live Sessions
We record the live sessions so that they remain available for a logged in course participant until one week after the last session. Please check before booking a course the technical requirements as listed below.
Access to content
You will get access to the course content and lessons in our learning management system once you are enrolled.
Technical requirements
We will use the Zoom Meeting application for the live sessions. You need a stable internet connection. There are two ways to access the live meeting:
1. Via the Zoom app
Before joining a Zoom meeting on a computer or mobile device, you can download the Zoom app here: https://zoom.us/download
or on: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/zoom-cloud-meetings/id546505307
Otherwise, you will be prompted to download and install Zoom when you click our join the zoom meeting link.
2. Via Google Chrome Browser on https://zoom.us/join
If you are using Google Chrome to join a meeting, you will see a dialog box to launch the Zoom application.
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362593-Launching-Zoom-from-a-web-browser
Here you find more info: https://youtu.be/hIkCmbvAHQQ
We will provide the Zoom Meeting ID before each meeting. BAI will record the live sessions.
For Windows, macOS, and Linux:
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362023-System-requirements-for-Windows-macOS-and-Linux
In addition to the Online Program, the Berlin Art Institute offers an international Studio Program, a Residency Program, Portfolio Courses, a Spring Academy, a Summer School, an Arts Incubator, a Friends Program, and the presentation and exhibition display 404 | BAI.
If you have any questions, please contact us at ecourses@berlinartinstitute.com
