This paper proposes to tackle the conceptual dualism of nature and culture from the ecosemiotic and pragmatist perspective, delving into the possibilities of restoring links between human cultural activity and ecological systems. Ecosemiotics draws attention to the ecological dimension of culture and points to the relationship between human symbolic semiosis and the degradation of ecosystems (Maran & Kull 2014). The excessive self-referentiality characteristic of the Anthropocene, as well as the constant loss of referents due to the climate crisis (Maran 2020) are reinforced by scientific practices haunted by the question of what can be known, instead of what is known of the research object (Stengers 2018, original emphasis). The resulting universalist explanations perpetuate the sense of human exceptionality. To bring back into theoretical reflection material environments and living objects in their singularity while preserving the plurality of knowledges that stem from ecosystems, a situated paradigm focusing on nonsymbolic sign relations is needed.While grounding is crucial for ecosemiotics, the empirical application of pre-existing concepts onto ecological systems reduces the analysis to a mere reflection of its own premises (Strathern 1980). In the paper I will bring to the fore theoretical perspectives that allow for situated research in semiotics: controlled equivocation (Viveiros de Castro 2004), a perspectivist reading of Umwelt theory (Despret & Galetic 2007) and milieu philosophy (Lestel 2018). Lastly, while using examples from my fieldwork-based research in ecosemiotics, I will discuss art methodologies, specifically embodied experimental video and sound practices, as means to cultivate nonsymbolic sign relations.