The symposium “Ambient Agency — Unraveling Fields of Force with Awai,” organized by the Ecological Memes collective, was held in Wilde in October 2025 to foster the emergence of new questions and alternative possibilities.

The central concept aimed to redefine “agency” by questioning the limits of modern socioeconomic systems based on dualism (the separation of human and nature, matter and spirit) in order to explore a non-anthropocentric definition of action within our environment.

The concept of “Awai” (あわい): Inspired by this Japanese concept, which refers to the intermediate space, the interval, or the in-between, the event aimed to rethink the way we connect with and disentangle ourselves from natural and cultural forces.

Featuring works by Flora Weil, Hideki Umezawa, and Koichi Sato

Listening session hosted by Tomoko Sauvage

Speakers at the Ambient Agency conference:

Sasha Engelmann, Geographer • Artist
Flora Weil, Designer • Researcher • Artist Libby Hoffenberg, Artist
Saori Ogura, Researcher • Photographer
Shuhei Tashiro, Moderator — Anthropologist
Noriko Matsuda, Associate Professor of Architectural and Urban History at Kyoto Prefectural University,
Yasuhiro Kobayashi, Founder of Ecological Memes,

Gin & Tea by HOLON, Horie with Katsuhiko
Photos by Ecological Memes