Rūta Žemčugovaitė: Remembering our relationality | Benjamin Freud, Ph.D.

Posted By: Benjamin Freud, Ph.D.

November 17, 2023

How might we transform our relationality with the world, as the world, especially the non-human world?

In this episode, I speak with Rūta Žemčugovaitė. Rūta is a writer, artist, and researcher, working with mycelium for regenerative futures. With a background in Psychology, she learned to facilitate trauma healing and shadow work in Costa Rica and now works with technology, mycology (and trying to build things out of mycelium), affective computing, spatial sound design, creating art, regenerative practices, and writing. Rūta is a philosopher, flirts with post-humanism, and asks how we can design with the living world in mind. We discuss:

🥥 How humans are embedded in the ecosystems around it, meaning that if we increase the thriving of the non-human, we increase the thriving of the human.

🥥 How de-centering the human opens up spaces to changing our relationality [with/as] the living world, toward more regenerative approaches to life.

🥥 How we can re-draw the boundaries of our identities and idon’thave to stick to “human.”

Check out the Coconut Thinking website.

Check out Rūta’s consultancy: https://www.sympoiesis.world/.

You may also be interested in listening to more Coconut Thinking podcasts and reading articles written by Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. for Intrepid Ed News.

ecosystems relationality

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D.

Benjamin Freud, Ph.D. is the co-founder of Coconut Thinking, an advisory that supports schools and learning organizations to co-create, co-develop, co-stress test, and co-implement ideas that nurture the conditions for emergent learning. Benjamin is also the Head of Upper School at Green School, Bali. He was previously the Whole School Leader of Learning and Teaching at Prem Tinsulanonda International School in Thailand. He was the Academic Coordinator at Misk Schools, one of the most prestigious and high-profile school in the kingdom. In 2018-2019, he was also the Head of Upper Primary and Middle School at Misk. Prior to this, he was Vice-Principal of the Middle School and High School at the Harbour School in Hong Kong. He holds a Ph.D. in History, an MSc in Education, an MBA, an MA in International Relations, and a BA in International Affairs. Benjamin was born and grew up in Paris, France. He moved to the U.S. when he was 15 and spent 11 years there in different cities before living in the U.K., Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and now Bali, Indonesia. He started his career in consulting for Internet start-ups in Silicon Valley in the late 1990s, working with people whose ambitions were no less than to change the world. This experience had a profound effect on Benjamin's outlook on education, innovation, and entrepreneurship.