ETHICS: 'Secondary experiences' train us to empathize with people who are in situations we ourselves have no experience with. Martha Nussbaum believes that fiction such as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky can do this.
AESTHETICS: In Kiøsterud's eco-philosophical text, 'beauty' becomes a riddle as much as a solution, a question as much as an answer. Is it possible to find beauty on nature's own terms – a beauty you cannot own?
PLAY: The exhibition by Francis Alÿs at Copenhagen Contemporary neither explains nor defines what play means. Rather, it is an archive of toys and forms lines of connection between people across the places we come from.
NATURE: The attempt to control nature's wildness locally has created uncontrolled effects globally. Do we have to freeze and sweat more in the future, or is civilization far wilder?
Two of the films featured at this year's Belgian DocVille Festival remind us of the constant violations of laws and regulations, and the injustice that affects both animals and humans.