CHRYSALIS. ARTISTS IN LABS

This hands-on workshop with artist Margherita Pevere researcher Germán Joosten explores the ecology of urban ponds in Berlin. The event takes place in the framework of the project CHRYSALIS. Artists in Labs, organised by Art Laboratory Berlin and in cooperation with AG Jeschke from FU Berlin, the POUNDER project and the Leibniz institutions IGB and ALR, with the generous support of the Lotto Stiftung Berlin. The workshop will take place around the Kreuzpfuhl in Berlin Weissensee.


Margherita Pevere and Germán Joosten invite the audience to join the life cycle of Berlin’s ponds and small lakes. Acting as biodiversity hotspots and regulators of temperature, these small water bodies play a key role in urban ecology. Among their dwellers is Daphnia – commonly known as water flea – a small invertebrate which feeds on phytoplankton (microscopic algae), thus keeping phenomena like algae blooms in check. Its life cycle is fascinating: it reproduces mostly through cloning itself, but when things get rough, it can adapt to the environment, switch to sexual reproduction, and produce eggs that remain dormant in the sediment until better conditions arise. Daphnia can reveal much about the health, history, and possible futures of the small urban water bodies. Through hands-on sessions and speculative storytelling, workshop participants will assume a pond’s more-than-human perspective and explore Berlin as seen by its small aquatic inhabitants.

The event takes place in English, but we are happy to answer any questions in German.

Known for her otherworldly work with living matter, ecology and biotechnology, Margherita Pevere is an artist and researcher addressing taboos like death, sex, and vulnerability. Her practice embraces object-making, installation, performance, and writing, which she waves seamlessly thanks to her transdisciplinary background. Her project Lament on wildfire ecologies was awarded the COAL Prize Transformative territories mention 2024 and she was shortlisted for the Falling Walls Awards Category Art and Science 2023 for the body of work around her concept ‘arts of vulnerability’. Among the projects she co-initiated there are the exhibition Membranes Out of Order and the performance duo Fronte Vacuo. She holds a doctorate in artistic research from Aalto University.  

Born and educated in Argentina, Germán Joosten is an environmental anthropologist whose work explores socio-ecological conflicts and the narrative futures of human-environment relations through transdisciplinary collaboration with diverse stakeholders. Currently he works as guest scientist at the Jeschke Lab | Ecological Novelty, FU Berlin, and is a researcher in the PONDER project at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB). He earned a Doctorate in Natural Sciences in 2023 at the National University of La Plata, where he previously completed a Diploma in Biology and worked as a Teaching Assistant and Research Assistant. His doctoral thesis examined the Western Qom and the Pilcomayo River. In 2023 he joined the Bundestag’s International Parliamentary Scholarship and currently conducts postdoctoral research at ARL focusing on stakeholder engagement and scenario development.