Elvia Wilk will write about contemporary artists who work with nonhuman entities as collaborators or creative partners. Can collaboration with nonhumans—whether mealworms, machines, or geological formations—be mutually beneficial rather than exploitative? This framework is a provocation to rethink art’s political and ecological responsibilities in a time of mass extinction. Toward this end, Wilk will consider the ethics of collaboration more broadly, to reflect on how all art is embedded within larger ecosystems.
Elvia Wilk is a writer and editor living in New York. She often focuses on art that engages emerging technologies, feminist practices, and questions of ecology. Her writing has appeared in publications including frieze, Artforum, Bookforum, Granta, n+1, the White Review, BOMB, Mousse, Flash Art, Art Agenda, Lit Hub, Monopol, the Architectural Review, and Metropolis. She has held editorial positions at uncube magazine, transmediale, and Rhizome, and is currently a contributing editor at e-flux Journal. Her first novel, Oval, was published by Soft Skull press in 2019. She is a 2020 fellow at the Berggruen Institute.