The current dark ecological context has prompted resurgence in debate about the concepts of hope, despair, responsibility and urbanism. Both Bonnie Ora Sherk's The Farm (San Francisco 1974-1980) and Mierle Laderman Ukeles' work at the New York Sanitation Department (1976-present), revision human/more-than-human relationships and interactions, conceiving of an urban community as made up a multiple species and people. Their work provides models for radical coexistence, breaking down reductive urban/nature and nature/culture binaries. Recontextualising these formative performance works in light of contemporary developments and an intersectional ecological analysis, I argue they act as key sites for addressing critical issues of urbanisation and ecology. We are living in the urban century as global patterns of urban migration mean that more than half the world's population now live in cities. Given this growth, cities represent vital landscapes for ecological thought. However, the longstanding ontological distinction between the city and the natural world has led to the growth of cities in ways that do not always support long-term human and non-human life, health and wellbeing. My concept, the bio-urban, invokes the ecological vibrancy of the city and considers humans (and nonhuman species) in urban habitats as active participants of ecology, from an ecomaterialism position. I utilise the bio-urban as a conceptual framework to draw together expanded practices of performance from Sherk and Ukeles, to challenge the false urban/nature dichotomy and replace the clichéd image of eco performance as a reverential walk through a ‘green and pleasant land'. Both artists take an intersectional approach to urban ecology, which nuances and informs the bio-urban. In ‘dark’ times of ecological uncertainty, performance can be a site to challenge destructive thinking, bringing to light invisible relationships, blindspots, imaginative utopias and alternative possibilities for what it means to coexist today.

中文翻译：

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在 Bonnie Ora Sherk 的 The Farm 和 Mierle Laderman Ukeles 的 Flow City 中表演生物城市

当前黑暗的生态环境促使关于希望、绝望、责任和都市主义概念的辩论重新开始。Bonnie Ora Sherk 的 The Farm（旧金山 1974-1980）和 Mierle Laderman Ukeles 在纽约卫生部门的工作（1976 年至今），修正了人与人之间的关系和互动，构想了一个城市社区起来了多个物种和人。他们的工作为彻底共存提供了模型，打破了简化的城市/自然和自然/文化二元对立。根据当代发展和交叉生态分析重新定义这些形成性的表演作品，我认为它们是解决城市化和生态关键问题的关键场所。我们生活在城市世纪，因为全球城市移民模式意味着世界上一半以上的人口现在居住在城市。鉴于这种增长，城市代表了生态思想的重要景观。然而，城市与自然世界之间长期存在的本体区别导致城市以并不总是支持长期人类和非人类生活、健康和福祉的方式发展。我的概念，生物城市，唤起了城市的生态活力，并将城市栖息地中的人类（和非人类物种）从生态唯物主义的立场视为生态学的积极参与者。我利用生物城市作为概念框架，将 Sherk 和 Ukeles 扩展的表演实践结合在一起，挑战虚假的城市/自然二分法，取代陈词滥调的生态表现形象，作为穿越“绿色宜人的土地”的虔诚步行。两位艺术家都对城市生态采取了一种交叉的方法，这种方法对生物城市产生了细微差别并为其提供了信息。在生态不确定的“黑暗”时代，表演可以成为挑战破坏性思维的场所，揭示无形的关系、盲点、富有想象力的乌托邦以及今天共存意味着什么的替代可能性。