Date: Thursday 28 May 2026
Location: Het Nieuwe Instituut, Museumpark 25, Rotterdam
How do we continue living in a world that is already broken? On May 28, anthropologist Anna Tsing joined us for a conversation on the Patchy Anthropocene: a world made up of fragmented landscapes shaped by extraction, capitalist logic, and ecological crises. We explored how dominant economic structures exhaust ecosystems, communities, and forms of life, but also how human and more-than-human actors can develop new ways of coexistence in damaged environments.
The evening was organised in collaboration with het Nieuwe Instituut and moderated by journalist Nuria Ribas Costa. The talk was part of the exhibition FUNGI: Anarchist Designers, curated by Anna Tsing and architect and artist Feifei Zhou. The exhibition explores fungi as radical designers in a world beyond human control.
Participants
Anna Tsing
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing is a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Aarhus University. She is known for her interdisciplinary work on globalization, the environment, and the Anthropocene. Her influential books include In the Realm of the Diamond Queen, Friction, and The Mushroom at the End of the World, which have significantly impacted anthropology and environmental studies.
Nuria Ribas Costa
Nuria Ribas Costa is a Spanish Journalist and Jurist based between Rotterdam and Ibiza, her homeland. Formerly at OMA, she currently works as an independent researcher and policy analyst in the fields of urbanism and culture. She is part of urbanism agency Humankind, research group Vigla, the Center for Music Ecosystems and De Dépendance. She is interested in the relationships rural-urban, the politics of space and land and intersectionality in urbanism.