I’m the founder and (with Adelina Vaca) convenor of Semiofest’s series of informal online “sessions.” These events are intended not only to share best practices among, but to nurture collegiality and friendship within the global semio community.

Coming up on May 29th (at 2 pm UK time)…

FESTSCHRIFT FOR MALCOLM

Get tickets (suggested donations only) at the link above.

A “Festschrift” is a collection of essays written not about, but in honor of a distinguished scholar, and presented to them in person by their colleagues and former students. Semiofest’s FESTSCHRIFT FOR MALCOLM session will honor the pioneering contributions of Welsh semiotician Malcolm Evans via brief presentations on the current and future status of biosemiotics, semiotics for social good, semiotics around the world, and more — including life after semiotics!

Our sessionists:

• NATASHA DELLISTON is an ex-strategist/semiotician with 20 years in branding, design, semiotics and cultural change. Then, a sharp left turn: what started as a horticulture study break became an obsession with woodland intelligence and “thinking hands” — and, accidentally, a ‘forest-floristry’ business, The Wylding Floral.

• YOGI HENDLIN is a professor of environmental philosophy and public health, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biosemiotics, advising Luminous. Yogi focuses both on interspecies communication and the largest corporations on earth, with a mission to harmonize human semiotics with the rest of nature.

• KALEVI KULL is a biologist and semiotician who teaches students at the University of Tartu, Estonia. His interest is in semiotic processes in wildlife. He has been actively involved in biosemiotics conferences and editing publications for several decades. He believes that ecosemiotics helps protect biodiversity and understand the importance of a green lifestyle.

• GARETH LEWIS joined Space Doctors in 2009 and became co-MD in 2024. He is most famous for his semiotic square of chicken (2013, now sadly lost) which Malcolm Evans described as ‘part bird, part Ouija board, quite possibly a blueprint for interspecies consciousness, unquestionably the last word on chickens’. He lives in Hove.

• FIONA McNAE co-founded Space Doctors with Malcolm Evans and served as its CEO for 23 years. Since selling Space Doctors in 2024, her address book of marketing directors, business landlords and post-it suppliers has now happily been supplemented with tractor fixers, ecologists, grants organisations, community engagement specialists, symphony orchestra managers, concert halls, mezzo soloists, composers and druids.

• MARIA PAPANTHYMOU is a semiotician with a background in communication studies. She is interested in the interplay between meaning-making in social worlds, human cognition, and broader forms of cognition. Maria is also co-founder of Semiopirates, an initiative bringing together semiotics, art, and critical inquiry.

Session host: CHRIS ARNING is Co-Founder of Semiofest & Director of Creative Semiotics, an agency based in the UK and working globally. He’s tutor for the critically acclaimed course How to Do Semiotics in Seven Weeks. He is also a poet recording under the name West London in the House. Chris is inching towards finishing his book of semiotic diagrams.

SEMIOFEST SESSIONS: R/D/E | BINARIES | SEMIOTICS & UX | BODY SEMIOTICS | AI & SEMIOTICS | SEMIOTICS & CINEMA | FICTIONAL DECODERS | ON COLOUR | & more.

Also see these global semio series: MAKING SENSE (Q&As) | SEMIOFEST SESSIONS (monthly mini-conferences) | COVID CODES | SEMIO OBJECTS | COLOR CODEX | DECODER (fictional semioticians) | CASE FILE | PHOTO OP | MEDIA DIET | TATTOO YOU (semioticians’ tattoos).