Over the past three millennia, sea level varied little more than 0.1 m. Today we are in the early stages of a new inundation, with an expected sea level rise of more than 2m in the next century. An extensive land being within the first metre rise in the 21st century.
An Anthropocene Territory is one that emerges, engages sea level rise and transforms existing living spaces, and thus needs to be outlined, its figure determined amidst multiple other forces and cycles, bearing both human and non-human signatures.
The project is to trace an assemblage of overlapping and interaction processes that shape the Scheldt, thus interconnecting different indicators, inscribing feedback, dependencies, and tipping points into the general understanding of the connections of the Port of Antwerp, its metropolitan region, and the complex dynamics of the Scheldt and its waters.
We combine Earth Observation and other imaginal technologies to indicate how contemporary practices across a number of disciplines share the same tools and concepts for safeguarding what is most important. Our project for an innovative collaboration tool allowing users to contribute and discover shared knowledge, validate findings, and co-develop insights about Earth processes is enhanced by AI. By connecting EO and non-EO data with annotated context, it makes it possible to outline new Anthropocene Territories, not only as intrusions in static and controlled spaces, but as an instrumented, informed analysis of how humans are reshaping planetary systems—making it a vital resource for research, education, and policy.
Anthropocene Territories fundamentally alters the perception of territory, moving it away from the climate stability of the Holocene Epoch. From a static, bounded and appropriable space governed by external laws or states towards a dynamic, interconnected, responsive and self-regulated system that demands a rethinking of sovereignty, belonging and political organization.
Artist information/bio
Established by architects John Palmesino and Ann-Sofi Rönnskog, Territorial Agency promotes comprehensive territorial transformations in the Anthropocene by integrating science, architecture, art, advocacy, and action. Grounded in spatial and territorial analysis using remote sensing technologies, they represent complex transformations of contemporary inhabited territories.
Territorial Agency is a leader in architecture’s relationship to the Anthropocene, with projects like ‘How heavy is a city?’, ‘Anthropocene Territories’, ‘Oceans in Transformation’, ‘Sensible Zone’, ‘Plan the Planet’, ‘Museum of Oil’ and ‘Anthropocene Observatory’. They won the STARTS PRIZE 2021, are curating the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2025 and are members of the high-profile interdisciplinary Anthropocene Working Group.
This project is commissioned and hosted by GLUON within the framework of the project STARTS4WAter II - Ports in Transformation with the support of the STARTS program of the European Union and VITO
