SUPERORGANISM
Barbican Centre, 2023
SUPERORGANISM was a collaborative, research-led project co-curated by Marie-Louise Jones as part of ODO Collective, developed within the Barbican’s ongoing commitment to climate justice. The project explored what humans might learn from the ecological principle of the superorganism - systems in which many individual agents operate collectively, non-hierarchically, and interdependently - as a way of rethinking how cultural institutions might respond to environmental and social challenges
Positioning the Barbican Centre as both subject and site, SUPERORGANISM invited participants to consider how the complex relationships between people, architecture, infrastructure, and ecology could be reimagined through models of cooperation, symbiosis, and care. The project proposed the Barbican not as a static cultural building, but as a living system shaped by collective action, shared responsibility, and more-than-human relations
The programme unfolded through a series of internal and public-facing workshops, talks, provocations, and participatory events, engaging artists, designers, architects, activists, and visitors. These sessions created space to explore individual and collective responses to climate crisis, and to test how institutions might function as sites of cohabitation, learning, and ecological resilience
SUPERORGANISM reflects Marie-Louise Jones’ wider practice-based interest in regeneration, care, and systems thinking - extending sculptural and material inquiry into the social and organisational realm. Through collaboration and participation, the project foregrounded collective imagination as a tool for reshaping urban futures in the context of climate responsibility
With thanks to Blast Studio, Maymana Arefin, Cyrus Khan, CXC, Jenna Mason, Giorgio Mattia, Beth Bryan, Rebecca Gould, Will Gompertz, and all workshop participants and visitors
More information on the public programme can be found via the Barbican Centre
Barbican Centre, 2023
SUPERORGANISM was a collaborative, research-led project co-curated by Marie-Louise Jones as part of ODO Collective, developed within the Barbican’s ongoing commitment to climate justice. The project explored what humans might learn from the ecological principle of the superorganism - systems in which many individual agents operate collectively, non-hierarchically, and interdependently - as a way of rethinking how cultural institutions might respond to environmental and social challenges
Positioning the Barbican Centre as both subject and site, SUPERORGANISM invited participants to consider how the complex relationships between people, architecture, infrastructure, and ecology could be reimagined through models of cooperation, symbiosis, and care. The project proposed the Barbican not as a static cultural building, but as a living system shaped by collective action, shared responsibility, and more-than-human relations
The programme unfolded through a series of internal and public-facing workshops, talks, provocations, and participatory events, engaging artists, designers, architects, activists, and visitors. These sessions created space to explore individual and collective responses to climate crisis, and to test how institutions might function as sites of cohabitation, learning, and ecological resilience
SUPERORGANISM reflects Marie-Louise Jones’ wider practice-based interest in regeneration, care, and systems thinking - extending sculptural and material inquiry into the social and organisational realm. Through collaboration and participation, the project foregrounded collective imagination as a tool for reshaping urban futures in the context of climate responsibility
With thanks to Blast Studio, Maymana Arefin, Cyrus Khan, CXC, Jenna Mason, Giorgio Mattia, Beth Bryan, Rebecca Gould, Will Gompertz, and all workshop participants and visitors
More information on the public programme can be found via the Barbican Centre
Photo credits: Hyder Dewachi, ODO collective