Emanuele Coccia: THE MUSEUM FOR CONTEMPORARY NATURE

A lecture at METU by Emanuele Coccia, a Paris-based Italian philosopher and Associate Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales

Date and time: Tuesday, 22 September 2026, 10:00–11:30 a.m.

Venue: HIH, Building “I”, Infopark sétány 1, 1117 Budapest

What would happen if the Louvre, the encyclopedic museum par excellence, included the river Seine and the Tuileries gardens adjacent to it? What would happen if we encountered fish and butterflies, and flowers and squirrels in museums?

The talk aims to consider extending the museum to include all living beings. It is not only a question of rethinking the status of living beings in their forms as works of art but also the very idea of the museum itself. Following the trajectory of the avant-garde, the city may thus become the site where new forms of life and relations are elaborated. In this framework, art no longer represents reality but activates its potential for metamorphosis, rendering visible what a society cannot yet think. The Museum for Contemporary Nature, regarded as the avant-garde of the living, thus becomes the laboratory of a biological and cultural future.

About the speaker

Emanuele Coccia is an Italian philosopher whose work focuses on different conceptions of life and the role of images in art, fashion and society. He is Associate Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris and the author of the internationally acclaimed The Life of Plants: A Metaphysics of Mixture.

The lecture will be held in English.

Participation is free of charge, but registration is required.

More information about the speaker:

Emanuele Coccia – The Mondrian Initiative

The event is jointly organised by the French Institute in Budapest, Budapest Metropolitan University, and the College of Philosophy (FILKO).