In the 1990s, scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak distinguished between “the Global” and “the Planetary”. She argued that “the Global” relies on the frameworks of markets, and the nation-state to transform the Earth into a quantifiable, homogenized space, organized around human interests; whereas “the Planetary” acknowledges that the Earth exists independently of humanity; humans are not its masters, but rather inhabitants living together with other species.

Bruno Latour further expands the meaning of “negotiation” through Actor-Network Theory. Planetary negotiation is not merely bargaining among humans; it is a Parliament of Things, where non-human actors may also speak and take part in negotiation.

Developed from Planetary Embassy China, the flagship 2026 program of Swissnex in China, the exhibition Planetary Negotiation: Exploring a More-than-Human Existence seeks to move beyond human cognitive frameworks and imagine new modes of symbiotic ecosystems. The exhibition space is constructed as an open，multispecies field of negotiation, unfolding across three spatial chapters — “Proposition” “Negotiation” and “Reciprocation” — and inviting diverse non-human agents to join humans in renegotiating the boundaries of ecological niches. As representatives of humanity, visitors will enter this space, encountering and rethinking the diverse forms of life featured in the artworks. The artworks are arranged in chronological order according to the evolutionary timeline of life on Earth: slime moulds, mycorrhizae, mangroves, mud wasps, and robotic dogs. A unique “Earth biography” has been written for each entity, documenting its origin, distribution, and behavioral patterns.

Throughout the exhibition, the venue will also host open workshops, continuously inviting the public to participate in this event.

Chapter 1: Proposition

Opening with Lydia Dai’s Imaginations of Future Rights of Nature, the exhibition sets its keynote by posing a provocative question: If mountains, rivers, forests, wetlands, and all things in the world were no longer merely resources subordinate to humanity, but rather entities possessing the independent rights to exist, express themselves, and sustain themselves, how might humanity rethink its ecological responsibilities and the boundaries of existence? This speculative vision of a future institutional framework sets the core theoretical tone for this exhibition.

Chapter 2: Negotiation

With this question in mind, we move into the second part of the exhibition, where we confront the complex entanglements between humans and diverse forms of life. Systems of Care in Slime Moulds, created by Sulamith Tamborriello and Jue Wang, centers on the life of slime moulds. Through long-term symbiotic experiments, it builds relations of care between humans and microorganisms, trying to reposition microscopic life on an equal footing with humankind. Yi Liu’s Entanglement: Collaborations in Uncertainty draws on anthropologists such as Anna Tsing and their research on mycorrhizae. Mycorrhizae are the partnership between roots and fungus, which exchange nutrients and sustain mutual aid in decentralized patterns; underground mycelium functions as an interspecies communication network, transmitting signals between plants. Yassine Rachidi’s Tidal Movements takes the reciprocal symbiosis between mangroves and tides as its theme, presenting—through three chapters of poetry and video across prehistory, the emergence of humanity, and the future.

As a distinct narrative rooted in the Chinese context of this exhibition, Shuai Liu’s The Nest Within Guanyin depicts mud dauber wasps nesting within cavities of traditional wood carvings. Spaces once used by humans to store scriptures and sacred relics inadvertently become breeding grounds for another species, forming cross-species cohabitation woven from faith, wood and insect life. Yue Huang’s Drift of the Uncharted introduces technical existences distinct from carbon-based life. The robotic dog in the work is a new participant endowed with independent perception and embodied presence: it acts both as a technical rescue agent of the future and a present-day witness to ecological crisis. Through a sensory perspective distinct from that of humans, it captures hidden ecological issues such as rising sea levels and climate anomalies.

Chapter 3: Reciprocation

The closing chapter, The Earth Speaks Back: A Letter from the Trea Diplomat by Franziska Burger, completes two-way communication for this exhibition. The work sends a letter to humanity from the perspective of a tree diplomat, inviting viewers—after entering a temporary symbiotic space with trees, root systems, and microscopic life— to open up communication between humans and trees through multi‑sensory means.

The exhibition does not prescribe a standard answer but invites every viewer to collectively imagine a future where all beings are equal, where we engage in mutual negotiation, and where we care for one another. When audiences leave the gallery, this cross-species dialogue does not end; it extends into every moment of our daily lives where we encounter the more-than-human existence, transforming into countless small, recurring, and reciprocal acts of symbiosis.