Planetary Colloquium: Frozen in Time | November, 26-27, 2024
On November 26-27, 2024, Planetary Times Winter Fellows Charlotte Wrigley (human geographer) and Christian Kosmas Mayer (artist), in collaboration with Adam Searle (human geographer), organized the Planetary Colloquium and Workshop “Frozen in Time: Interrogating Methods of Cold Storage and De-Extinction” at the Hermann Hoffman Academy in Giessen. The event brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners, including Sarah Bezan (literature scholar), Veit Braun (sociologist), Thomas Lemke (sociologist), Alexis Rider (historian of science), and Sophie J. Williamson (artist), to explore the complex intersections of time, life, and preservation.
The two-day workshop focused on the role of frozen preservation as a temporal and existential practice. As all life on Earth is bound by temperature, the warming of the planet has catalyzed the need for artificial cooling technologies. This has led to the rise of ‘cryo-banking,’ in which biological material is frozen for potential resurrection. In this context, cryobanks present a paradox: they offer a way to "buy time" against accelerating ecological timelines, while simultaneously reshaping our understanding of life and death in the Anthropocene.
The debate was introduced by artist Christian Kosmas Mayer and human geographer Adam Searle, who shared their years-long research project “The Last Bucardo: Making De-Extinction Public”. Their presentation provided insights into the Von Genen und Menschen exhibition at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden (2023), which showcased archival materials and artistic objects related to the Pyrenean ibex, extinct since the late 1990s, and its failed cloning attempt. Mayer and Searle critically examined the philosophical, artistic, and ethical implications of de-extinction as both a scientific and social practice.
The event continued with Sarah Bezan’s presentation, “The Rekindling: Fictions and Desirable Future Natures”, and Veit Braun’s talk, “Times of Extinction: Cryopreservation and Its Presents”. Bezan explored how literature imagines desirable futures through narratives of the “rekindling,” while Braun examined the category of the human body in discussions of cryopreservation. After the keynotes, the group visit the University of Giessen Systematics and Biodiversity collection (UGSB), which is equipped with explosion proof freezers (-20 and -80°C) and security measures such as a temperature-alarm system and a CO2 fire extinguishing system.
Artist Sophie J. Williamson concluded the first day with a video lecture performance, “Future Eaters”, offering a performative exploration of Siberian landscapes, their ecosystems, and entangled temporalities. Williamson’s work highlighted the fragility of permafrost regions and the uncertain futures they face, integrating perspectives from indigenous rights activists, scientists, and artists.
The second day opened with Charlotte Wrigley and Alexis Rider’s presentation, “Melting Memories or Frozen Fossils: Ice, Time, and the Arctic Archive”. Wrigley and Rider, along with Alissa Theiss, Head of the Collections at the Hermann Hoffman Academy, discussed the archive as both a scientific and social practice. Rider addressed the use of ice by naturalists and scientists to study deep time, while Wrigley explored human-made freezing technologies, such as cryobanks, as archival tools.
The colloquium’s public keynote was delivered by Prof. Thomas Lemke, who presented “Anticipating and Deferring: Elements of a Politics of Suspension”. Lemke connected two seemingly disparate research strands: the critical analysis of cryopreservation technologies and the politics of anticipation. Focusing on wildlife cryobanks and the freezing of human eggs, Lemke argued that cryopreservation technologies are embedded in a broader politics of suspension. By placing biological material in a liminal state—neither fully alive nor dead—these practices extend temporal horizons, allowing for the deferral and anticipation of futures.
The workshop concluded with an interactive session led by Wrigley and Rider. Participants selected objects from the Hermann Hoffman Academy’s collection and developed speculative histories for future audiences. These presentations were documented, as a part of Wrigley's project "Archiving Giessen", and will be sent to the Arctic World Archive, a secure subterranean vault in the Svalbard permafrost.