Nieuwe Instituut

There is unexpected life in places you will probably never see. Under water, on the seabed of the North Sea, and even on deserted oil rigs. How can we support that life? And what happens in other parts of the world when we build wind turbines here at sea?  

If you take a closer look at life, you will see that humans are not the only ones on the planet. There are millions of other beings, animals and plants trying to make a living. They have been doing it for a while and perhaps know a thing or two more than we do. 

In the second episode Wineke will visit the climate farmers of Bodemzicht and the artist Julian Abraham “Togar” who was inspired by their mission. Climate farmers Anne van Leeuwen and Ricardo Cano Mateo founded their regenerative farm Bodemzicht in the eastern part of The Netherlands only two years ago. Their aim is to improve conditions for all life, starting by creating a living soil, learning by doing, and sharing the process with others. The artist Togar came to The Netherlands at the beginning of the pandemic from Indonesia, for a residency at the Rijksacademy in Amsterdam. He was inspired by his visit to Bodemzicht to create an audiovisual work using a continuous conversation to stimulate new perspectives on human and non-human interaction. 

Can machines help us to look at life from a different perspective? And what do we need to change in our organizations and companies if we take the interests of other life forms just as serious as our own human ambitions?  

There is unexpected life in places you will probably never see. Under water, on the seabed of the North Sea, and even on deserted oil rigs. How can we support that life? And what happens in other parts of the world when we build wind turbines here at sea?

In the third episode Wineke dives into the North Sea with marine researcher Fiona Middleton and socio-environmental researcher Darko Lagunas. Darko is part of the Embassy of the North Sea: a group of artists, researchers, lawyers and activists that want the North Sea to become a real actor by listening to the political voices of things, plants, animals, microbes and people in and around the North Sea. Fiona Middleton studies marine life everywhere. Wineke talked to her on the phone to discuss her research of a cluster of five decommissioned oil rigs just off the coast of the Netherlands.  

If you take a closer look at life, you will see that humans are not the only ones on the planet. There are millions of other beings, animals and plants trying to make a living. They have been doing it for a while and perhaps know a thing or two more than we do.

In the second episode Wineke will visit the climate farmers of Bodemzicht and the artist Julian Abraham “Togar” who was inspired by their mission. Climate farmers Anne van Leeuwen and Ricardo Cano Mateo founded their regenerative farm Bodemzicht in the eastern part of The Netherlands only two years ago. Their aim is to improve conditions for all life, starting by creating a living soil, learning by doing, and sharing the process with others. The artist Togar came to The Netherlands at the beginning of the pandemic from Indonesia, for a residency at the Rijksacademy in Amsterdam. He was inspired by his visit to Bodemzicht to create an audiovisual work using a continuous conversation to stimulate new perspectives on human and non-human interaction.

Can machines help us to look at life from a different perspective? And what do we need to change in our organizations and companies if we take the interests of other life forms just as serious as our own human ambitions? 

On international Earth Day, 22 April 2022, Het Nieuwe Instituut became the world’s first Zoöp. A revolutionary first step to make the interests of non-human life part of its organisational decision-making. In this first episode Wineke explores the Zoöp Het Nieuwe Instituut and meets with Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, researcher and curator at Het Nieuwe Instituut, who was one of the co-founders of the idea of a zoöp. And talks to Theun Karelse, an artist with a broad interest in landscape and technology. Together with the artist Ian Ingram he shares an interest in robots and technology as a way to interact and communicate with nature and from this they started to work on their project Deep Steward. This is an AI programme that develops its own logic for categorising the living environment it observes through a camera.  

In de derde aflevering van Groen in de stad gaat theater- en radiomaker Naomi Steijger in gesprek met ontwerper Petra Blaisse, conservator Ellen Smit en met gebruikers en omwonenden over de aanleg en geschiedenis van het Rotterdamse Museumpark.

Groen in de stad

Met de invoering van de lockdown – een maatregel ingezet tegen de verspreiding van het coronavirus – zijn wij meer dan ooit bewust van de ontspannende en helende kracht van groen om ons heen. Het idee dat ‘natuur’ een positief effect heeft op onze fysieke en mentale gezondheid is niet nieuw: veel van het (in Nederland) aangelegde groen is gebaseerd op dit idee. In de serie podcasts Groen in de stad, onderdeel van het programma Dwars door het archief, gaan radiomakers op onderzoek uit om antwoord te vinden op de vragen: hoe zijn tuin- en landschapsarchitecten en stedenbouwers door de jaren heen met het concept omgegaan? Wat waren hun opvattingen en hoe kijken we daar nu tegen aan?

Meer informatie: hnix.nl/groen-in-de-stad-3 

While Erik and Miek are hiking, Sophie joins Rutger at his morning routine of baking bread. It took him more than a year to get it right: to build a productive relation with the sourdough culture that helps him bake the bread. As a bonus Rutgers shows the ‘barn in a barn’ that he has been building for the past two years .We give you two words: pig manure and resilience.

Rutger Emmelkamp is an artist, teacher and program maker. He connects art, historical and deep ecology theory with film, literature, theater and crafts. In parallel, Rutger has been teaching in various art disciplines for more than ten years and was appointed head of the Jewellery Department at the Rietveld Academie Amsterdam in 2013 – a position he resigned from to dedicate his artistic practice and making skills to Knockvologan in 2017. 

We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’ It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy!

For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating, go to the web magazine: pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl

Early Birds Miek and Erik go for a walk and enter a magical world. Eaten alive by the midges they talk about how much we don’t know and how Miek finds words for things she sees: by looking at them over and over and over again. As a bonus Miek reads the poem ‘Oaks at Knockvologan’ bij local poet Derek Crook.

Miek Zwamborn is an artist, novelist, book maker and translator. Whilst carrying out field research, she travels through time and space. By intertwining her observations with local history and scientific research on flora & fauna, she creates stories in which drawings, sculptures, raw material and books play a crucial role. She published among others a poetic anthology on seaweeds, The Seaweed Collector’s Handbook (Profile, 2020). 

We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’. It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy!

For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating, go to the web magazine: pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl

Finally: after a warming up that took us longer than expected, we take you to the weather beaten, Scottish Isle of Mull. And how better to arrive than meeting our hosts Miek and Rutger. Two Dutch artists who decided to move to the southern tip of the island. There, surrounded by sea, sheep, bog and a nature reserve, they worked the past five years to build, stumble, fall, getting up and getting connected. We meet them at a moment when surviving slowly turns into thriving. The ‘dance of daily life’ becomes smoother and their artist in residency program Knockvologan is gaining momentum. These two are not going anywhere, they are here to stay. But, have they arrived yet?

We were inspired and overwhelmed by Mull and everything the island contains and shared with us.  This is one of 13 talks. We edited it like ‘a string of pearls’ It works best to jump from one pearl to the next, starting at the beginning… Enjoy!

For more context and information about our search for the pluriverse and the upcoming exhibition we are curating, go to the web magazine: pluriverse.hetnieuweinstituut.nl

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