COYOTE has been invited by the curator Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez to take part to Contour Biennal 9: Coltan as Cotton in Mechelen, Belgium. Contour 9 has been designed in three phases aligned to various Moon phases. Their project COYOTE: From root ∞ to transplant has followed the entanglements between the concepts of grounding and transplanting and their historical, territorial, and political paths through a series of meetings, workshops, drifts and collective exercises with local groups of agricultural ecologists.

Full moon

Under the spell of the full moon, COYOTE proposed collaborative and immersive experiences to deepen, expand and transform their ongoing research on agricultural practices and their respective vocabularies and imaginaries in the city of Mechelen and its surroundings.

Environments: language as magic as language

Environments is an open-ended environmental lexicon in the form of a collection of visual signs as propositions for thinking, speaking, feeling, acting and remaining in an increasingly devastated and contaminated world. During Contour’s full moon cycle, COYOTE has exhibited fragments from their open-ended environmental lexicon as a just-in-time fanzine, where the audience can freely assemble issues from pages made available beforehand, as well as new pages produced along the workshop.

Environments: workshop

For the first day of Contour’s full moon cycle, COYOTE proposed a one-day experimental drawing and writing workshop, focused on expanding their environmental lexicon as a tool for an environmental activism, with willing participants in Mechelen. The workshop hosted local speakers, such as circular agriculture advocate and local agronomist Louis de Bruyn and activist Eline Arlt from Youth for Climate Mechelen.

Environments: critical meal

For the second day of Contour’s full moon cycle, COYOTE proposed a critical meal: a shared dinner prepared in collaboration with Voice of Mechelen. This event looked to draw on the relationships between eating and place, ingredients—their origins and trajectories—, roots and transplants, ecology and politics. The meal counted with the support of local participants dedicated to different forms of circular agriculture in Mechelen, and striving to grow LEF produce (Local, Ecological and Fair). The meal also featured a brief introduction by local agronomist Louis de Bruyn.

Waning moon

Night is high, the sky has darkened. Pleased that the moon glow is kept from showing, Coyote howls to a black night. Imbued in darkness, the animal traces back its steps and sniffs the imprint of the past, spelling it back into the pressing present.

Under the influence of the waning moon, COYOTE re·members and re·assembles the many facets of their research in Mechelen with a performative and polyphonic conference. By bridging together seeds and transplants, forms and protests, tales and letters, hopes and howls, COYOTE resumed and expanded on their work around the Youth for Climate Movement, the community of organic growers in Mechelen, and Louis de Bruyn’s circular agriculture.

Through words, sounds, images and signs, COYOTE activated and enlarged Environments, their open-ended environmental lexicon as an attempt to think, feel, act and remain in an increasingly devastated and contaminated world. Each member of the collective engaged in a short individual presentation, juxtaposing and sequencing together the manifold aspects of their travels to and from Mechelen through this year of thirteen moons.

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