Make Interspecies Relations — carolinevitzthumstudio

Caroline Vitzthum

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Make Interspecies Relations (2022), letter exchange, living library platform.

Make Interspecies Relations is an online environment dedicated to ecological practices, theories, and pedagogies, exploring how we might collectively create networks of companionship across species and disciplines. Connecting and collaborating with artists, researchers, performers, food practitioners, photographers, and architects from Australia, Venice, the UK, and beyond, the project brings together diverse voices to exchange ideas and cultivate new ways of relating to the more-than-human world.

Presented with Nextdoor ARI as part of the CODEY22 Residency Programme, the project takes the form of a “living library” platform where the entanglement of people, places, and practices can grow and connect over time. The platform functions as an evolving archive, inviting contributions that expand the conversation and trace the interplay between theory, practice, and lived experience.

Make Interspecies Relations is collaboratively curated by Pierce Eldridge, Chiara Famengo, and Mattie O'Callaghan, and features contributions from Ashleigh Musk, Youngsook Choi, Merinda Davies, Rooya Rasheed, Barena Bianca Collective, Alice Oliver, Amanda Dolgã, Caroline Vitzthum, and Prometheus_Open Food Lab.

For her contribution, Caroline presents extracts from a long-term letter exchange with her friend and project co-curator, Chiara Famengo, with whom she has corresponded since 2019. Their letters follow a deliberately slow and thoughtful rhythm, building a shared collection of texts, reflections, and materials over several years. Together, they explore some of the project’s central concerns – what it means to create, sustain, and nourish interspecies relationships – from multiple perspectives and at different points in time.

The first letter recalls Caroline’s childhood visits to her great-uncle’s farm, interweaving precious memories of animal encounters with reflections on the role of imagination in shaping new realities. The second draws on her training at a Viennese bespoke tailoring school, considering how patience, precision, and attention to detail – qualities central to tailoring – inform the way she approaches her work and her relationship with the natural world. The third letter looks toward the future, exploring the concept of responsibility that extends beyond a human lifespan and introducing her ongoing project Speaking Sphagnum.

Acting as windows into a sustained, evolving conversation between Chiara and Caroline, these letters form the early stages of a deeper collaborative process, one that will continue to grow as part of Make Interspecies Relations.