“Mangrove Ecologies” examines the ecology of mangroves as both fascinating biotopes and living metaphors, exploring how their intricate ecosystems can inform more harmonious relationships between humans and their environment. Our interdisciplinary approach unites artists, scientists, craftspeople, designers, and technologists, incorporating various  knowledge systems and trans-species perspectives to channel new streams of reflection for understanding and cooperation. Drawing from mangrove ecosystems, where root systems blur the boundaries between land and sea, evoking both refuge and flight, both rootedness and errance, we explore how complex systems adapt and thrive through continuous tidal cycles.

These environments host a rich tapestry of life—from microscopic organisms in muddy substrates to birds nesting in the canopy. Mangrove root systems create natural labyrinths where land and sea converge, their networks of aerial roots, pneumatophores, and underground rhizomes showcasing nature’s adaptability while nurturing diverse communities in these liminal spaces.

Building on the work of scholars like Donna Haraway and Anna Tsing (2019), we investigate how ecological resilience emerges through connection rather than isolation. These living networks exemplify dynamic systems where life, water, and nutrients flow through complex patterns, creating refuge for countless organisms within their intricate architecture. This framework inspires our vision for regenerative modes of being that embrace both resistance and transformation, rooted in the strength of interconnected systems.

Several scholars and philosophers, particularly from the Caribbean and Latin America, use the mangrove as a metaphorical interlude for relationality and identity. Heavily influenced by Deleute and Guattari’s idea of the rhizome, Martiniquan scholar Édouard Glissant (1980) centered the mangrove in his work to describe identity beyond rigid categorizations, viewing culture as continuously changing––a feature distinct to the Afro caribbean experience, but also other regions in the world characterized by transculturation. Colombian anthropologist Arturo Escobar discusses ‘mangrove worlds’ as a broader reflection on epistemologies of the so-called Global South*, representing them as premised on a ‘relational ontology’ that is:

enacted minute by minute, day by day, through an infinite set of practices carried out by all kinds of beings and life forms, involving a complex organic and inorganic materiality of water, minerals, degrees of salinity, forms of energy (sun, tides, moon, relations of force), and so forth. There is a rhizome ‘logic’ to these entanglements, a ‘logic’ that is impossible to follow in any simple way, and very difficult to map and measure. (2016:18)

The complex navigation of identity – where identity is no longer singular––and lack of vocabulary to define identity has inspired this project. Mangrove ecologies illuminate how identity is not a singular, rooted construct, but a fluid, multidimensional and liminal experience—meaning we are all of multiple—we are all of many.

The project’s title “Mangrove Ecologies” and its subtitle Life between Ebb & Flow further develops the ideas of both interconnectedness and multiplicity, centering identity itself as a tidal movement. Kenyan feminist scholar Selina Makana (2018) explains that collaboration across material and immaterial borders is usually rooted in structural realities—”disjunctures between the sites of face-to-face encounters with people whose stories we want to tell, and the institutional locations from which we produce knowledge about them” (2018:369). Not a solution to this tension, but possibly an alleviation of it, is understanding this energy as an ebb and flow movement of different subject positions, accounting for nuances in the way we encounter each other, capturing both power imbalances and equities occurring in mutual work and revealing the complex ways of being in the world.

Beginning with this project that cultivates connections between Switzerland and Kenya, we sought to explore ways of linking geographically distant places. How might a marine ecosystem connect to a landlocked country? What common ground exists between an ancient Swahili village and a historical Swiss town? Our investigation of mangroves proved to be more than just a study of nature’s border-blurring lessons—it revealed an ecology of entanglement. This ecology, through its roots, unveils kinship; through its tides, it exposes and conceals histories of trade, memory, displacement, and creolization. It also demonstrates the delicate balance between adaptation and resistance, where continuous shapeshifting creates new subject positions and spaces. Like the tide itself, these spaces constantly shift and decenter the self, ultimately grounding it in the rhizomatic collective. As living systems, mangroves provide a conceptual framework for understanding the Anthropocene that transcends human-centered perspectives and linear notions of progress.

Thus–what mangroves might offer us is a form of planetary diplomacy—new modes of collaboration and exchange that require integrating transdisciplinary efforts, as no single approach can tackle contemporary challenges. This integration helps us develop innovative ways to balance human and nonhuman interests, relentlessly questioning and fostering curiosity for the rhizomatic nature of all species, and the broader web of living and nonliving entities that collectively shape our world.

Lamu Island, the principal research location of this project, lies in the Lamu archipelago along the Kenyan coast of the Indian Ocean. Through centuries of colonial and outsider influence, the island has developed complex cultural identities while maintaining resistance to both Arabization and Westernization. This dynamic of transculturation, balancing adaptation, symbiosis and resistance, aligns with Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui’s (1992) concept of ‘Afrabian’ –– a term that challenges traditional continental boundaries by recognizing how Swahili culture transcends the confines of Africa to the continent. Lamu stands as a compelling example of “elsewhereness” a unique liminal space that exists between defined boundaries through encounter and creolization, fostering innovative forms of existence and community.

This historic island functions as a perfect microcosm of transculturation and multitude. Its resilient spirit is beautifully reflected in its mangrove forests, where land and water merge in a fluid, borderless ecosystem of continuous negotiation and transformation. These mangroves, with their complex root systems, serve as both nurturers and constraints––much like cultural borders themselves––creating spaces that simultaneously challenge and cultivate growth. They illustrate how the postmodern world has disrupted the previously assumed seamless connection between place and identity, forming intersections where new worlds emerge and where transformative coalition politics and solidarity take root.

These liminal spaces, which appear as punctual spaces of true “elsewhereness”, transcend learning and education as mere critique –– instead, they represent fertile ground for radical imagination, dreaming and liberation from rigid categories.

* Prita Meier adopts the term of “elsewhere” to reflect upon the “in-between” materialized in Swahili architecture, pointing at a culture of neither here nor there.

Inspired by Lamu’s mangrove forests, “Radio Mikoko+” (Mikoko meaning mangroves in Kiswahili) is a multisensory installation created by artists David Muiruri (KE), Joseph Kamaru (KE), Ann Mbuti (CH/GER), Yassine Rachidi (CH/MAR) as the culmination of this research project. Their collaborative work, “Radio Mikoko+,” takes visitors on a journey from the historic Lamu Island to Basel, exploring the poetics of relation, memory and creolization across continents.

“Radio Mikoko+” is an ongoing artistic research project rooted in the settlements of Lamu. Drawing inspiration from the rich cultural tapestry of the archipelago, where outsiders have become insiders over centuries and the rhythms of tides have dictated patterns of maritime trade, the project works with shared goals: to amplify sound, shifting narratives, and entangled cosmologies of its people. Through a series of workshops conducted by each of the four artists in March 2025, local residents of Lamu were invited to storytelling exercises, material experiments, field recordings and mapping techniques, weaving their perspectives into the very fabric of “Radio Mikoko+”.

While channeling the spirit of Lamu and its mangroves, the exhibition at the botanical garden aspires to open a gateway to “elsewhereness” –– new worlds where we move beyond the singular self and become of many, weaving our roots and relationships in the intertidal.

Support & Acknowledgements

Mangrove Ecologies is made possible through the generous support of public and private partners who believe in transdisciplinary collaboration and ecological imagination. We extend our sincere gratitude to everyone who has contributed time, knowledge, and resources to this growing initiative.

Mangrove Ecologies a shared initiative by Kuchanua, Planisphere & Lamu Youth Alliance

Main Partners: Pro Helvetia – Synergies, Swisslos
Research Partners: Ecal + Epfl Lab, University of Basel – Critical Urbanisms,

Support: The African Arts Trust, CORA Institute, To:org Foundation

Exhibition Support: Creaplot, Labor Rothen, Puro Mate, Feldschlösschen