More-than-HumanMore-than-Human

Het Nieuwe Instituut invited writer Dirk van Weelden to outline the reasons, background and context for our spring 2022 programme. In this piece, he explains how the programme's three very different projects - The New Garden, the Zoöp and the Pluriverse exhibition - respond to the climate crisis by rethinking the role not only of design and designers, but of humanity itself.

Spring is a mystery. In the cycle of the year, it's the season that reveals the real wonder of nature. It's a given that the bloom of summer is followed by the depletion and decay of autumn. But the fact that all life reappears again, young and vigorous, as if from nowhere, after a winter period of dormancy, retreat and waiting - that remains a source of wonder. It's the realisation that we are dealing with a power beyond us.

Some call it spring fever, that vague unrest, something to joke about in the café while undoing a button or two. For others, it's an experience to make time and space for, because it's simply inspiring and even hopeful. They go on a pilgrimage to see the cherry blossoms or the bulb fields, take the first long walk through the woods with a picnic, or visit the local farm with the kids to see the newborn lambs. They celebrate religious festivals, which you can think of as representing their awe at the power of life.

The regenerative power of life is always an inscrutable, primal force. Both scientifically and technologically, the complexity and scale of that primal force exceeds anything that humans are capable of. We still understand and know her only partially, probably imperfectly. We can go on exploring and discovering ad infinitum. We do not really control life on Earth with our clumsy and short-sighted interventions. That goes for the oceans, forests and mountains, even our own bodies.

After 200 years of looting, destruction, overpopulation and pollution, we have managed to create deserts and drastically change the climate. There has even been a mass extinction of species. Perhaps the one per cent, the richest people, can escape the consequences of the climate crisis for the time being. Billions of others will suffer the disruptive, catastrophic effects. Even if climate change can be limited, the damage to the ecosphere will be enormous, and the impact on the human world immense. Yet life on Earth will continue to adapt and regenerate undisturbed, if only in the form of new microorganisms that live by breaking down plastics in river sludge, viruses awakening from melting permafrost, or proliferating exotic plants. Humans have nowhere to go: if they can't escape to Mars with Elon Musk, they are part of the ecosphere of planet Earth.

Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam is a cultural institution whose programme provides a platform for architecture, urban planning, design and digital culture. Audiences - made up of professionals, tourists, schoolchildren, students and neighbours - can watch exhibitions showcasing the amazing ingenuity with which humans have built, decorated and designed an artificial world in the natural one - from cities and palaces, cars and chairs, to media and communication systems. And of course, all the history, knowledge and ideas behind them.

What is a crisis? It's a situation in which a system threatens to collapse, so that everyone who is part of it experiences that things cannot go on like this, that something has to change, otherwise major disasters will happen that will affect everyone. That's the case in a marriage, a company or a government. The realisation that the impact of our building, production and consumption on the ecosphere has led to a crisis has now dawned on most. The ecosphere is another word for planet Earth, as a composite of atmosphere, nature and all human activity, which we call culture for convenience. That mix turns out to be toxic. Not just for some animals or plants, but for the whole ecosphere. The consequences of all this are also harmful to us, and in the long run life-threatening.

It is only logical that Het Nieuwe Instituut has for years paid so much attention to the work of architects, researchers and designers who are concerned with the question: if things have to be done differently, then how? How do we build and produce? How do we deal with waste and water? How do we accelerate the necessary energy transition? How do we cool our cities?

From the disciplines that the institute represents, eye to eye with the climate crisis there are three basic positions that you can take. The first position means that there is not much wrong with the existing relationship between people and the planet, and that the technology, industry and politics we already use are able to avert the crisis. Long live the startups with home-delivered organic meal packages! More electric cars! And scattering lime and sulphur clouds in the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and cool down the Earth is a great idea.

The second position sees that an adjustment must take place in the relationship between the human world and the natural world, by changing technology and the economy in such a way that the impact of people on nature is minimised. Building, producing and consuming must be more economical, less toxic, less wasteful, renewable and, if necessary, with less growth in prosperity. Nature should remain untouched as much as possible. The wilderness is a sacred and vulnerable phenomenon, which people quickly destroy: a plea for a clean, intelligent separation of man and nature.

The third position, which the institute is opting for under the leadership of new director Aric Chen, poses fundamental questions about the problem of the harmful and self-destructive way in which human culture is part of the ecosphere. Doesn't the crisis arise, in fact, from this contradiction between nature and culture? We know that humans are mammals and developed from the same evolutionary processes as whales and lichens, don't we? Isn't it an illusion to talk about wilderness, when plastic is found even in the ice in Antarctica? What if all plants and animals, including those in the primary forest or in the ocean, are affected by human-induced climate change? The ecosphere of planet Earth is a diverse and complex system, but undeniably it is a functional whole, and human activity has become a crucial factor in the stability and quality of that system.

The climate crisis has been caused by people behaving as if they were outside nature, as if the earth, the sea, the mountains and rivers and all non-human forms of life were their property and raw material - to do with as they want, without regard for the consequences or a feeling for the relationship to the whole. This turns out to be a mentality that leads to the consumption and depletion of resources and the destruction of natural systems until only lifeless deserts remain, with polluted air and poisoned water. Humans have dangerously damaged the planetary ecosystem on which they themselves depend. It isn't difficult to see that makeshift solutions are not enough and that leaving nature to nature has become impossible.

But on what do you base the search for an alternative to the short-sighted, immense over-exploitation caused by the Western industrial model? This spring, the institute is presenting three projects about the sources, ideas and practical explorations that are useful responses in the light of this question: The New Garden, the Zoöp project and the exhibition In Search of the Pluriverse.

Less grandiosity, more modesty: that's the best response to the climate crisis. The climate crisis shows that the world view in which humans can behave like a superior, godlike species is outdated and dangerously destructive. If anything is to be learned from the climate crisis, it's that the violent projection of a single world view, with a lone ideology of what constitutes nature, knowledge, efficiency and wealth, is a disaster. Instead, we must do justice to the discovery that the planet is a functional whole formed of radically different worlds, life forms, kinds of knowledge, culture and experiences. And that we do not yet understand all that much about this coherence, this global whole of complex and profound dependency relationships of which we are a part, and even worse: that we are not able to act on what we do understand.

Our captivity in that one dominant system, based on science, technology, industry and the free market, is evidently the problem.

We must take off the blinkers that reduce the world to a warehouse of raw materials for unlimited profit, prosperity and convenience. Then, it isn't appropriate to expect that another pair of blinkers, in the form of a 'visionary method' - whatever that entails - will provide a solution. There is no 'solution', but there is an infinite variety of different and beneficial solving practices.

It seems that we would do well to adopt a modest and ready-to-learn attitude, and above all to look practically and experimentally for ways of building, producing, living together and consuming that obey nature's most important rule: to make room for the regenerative force of life, so that all life forms have the opportunity to be an optimal part of the whole. This means that designers and architects are not only looking for maximum human efficiency and convenience, or for minimum impact on nature, but also for maximum mutual energisation between life forms, landscape, knowledge and design. Such an ecological mindset is based on the radical interdependence of the atmosphere, and mineral and living nature, including everything that humans build and do.

Science, technology, economics and politics should serve life on Earth, not just the convenience, prosperity and assertiveness of humans. Because, first of all, of well-understood self-interest, which has been revealed through trial and error, and recognised on the basis of scientific insights. But not only this, but also because of something that has always been kept outside the practice of modern design: wisdom, meaning insight into and a sense of relationships, interests, experiences and histories that do not coincide with one's own interests and perspectives as a designing human being.

Since 2015, the outdoor space around the institute, between the ponds and the surrounding streets, has been designed as The New Garden, by ecological gardener Hans Engelbrecht and artist Frank Bruggeman. Over the years, a wild urban garden has emerged, with concrete elements separating different zones or biotopes. The garden is a mixture of so-called 'urban garden' plants and partly planted, partly spontaneously germinated native species. Invasive exotics have even been planted, allowing, with alternating mowing and pruning, for a more interesting experience. During construction, part of the soil was excavated to add some landscaping, but also to expose the old nutrient-poor soil that used to be here before the city expanded, in the form of the wet meadows of the Land of Hoboken estate. The alternation with the nutrient-rich soil offers even more variety in vegetation and thus in soil life, insects and bird population. The ponds and garden have shown an explosion of biodiversity. The New Garden is intended as a wild but friendly and safe-feeling city garden. In recent years, the institute has taken initiatives to involve the homeless people, loitering young people, and local residents who all use the garden in activities. Here too, it is a matter of trial and error, of learning to understand different perspectives and relationships, of intervening and leaving alone.

In an interview, Hans Engelbrecht said that the number one thing to learn is how, in their growth and development, the plants react to each other, the environment and human presence in the garden. He added that this type of knowledge is extremely difficult to capture and transfer, because it is deeply practical and local in nature.

If you put the social outlook, the design aspect of the garden as part of the institute, and the ecological reality of The New Garden together, it becomes understandable why this special outdoor space will become an important part of the Zoöp project that will be launched in the spring. What is a zoöp, or zoöperative? The simplest way is to start with the related word cooperative, which we know as an organisational model in which, for example, farmers benefit from cooperation and economies of scale. Zo__ë is the Greek word for life. So, a cooperative of the living: humans, microbes, birds, plants, algae and animals. Where does this plan come from? Klaas Kuitenbrouwer of the institute worked on the exhibition Dissident Gardens in 2018, part of which was devoted to the enormous enthusiasm that exists for NASA's plan for terraforming Mars. The idea suggests ​​founding a new beginning, a kind of Garden of Eden, based on growing insight into that strange planet and a knowledge of its terrestrial ecology. You could say it was a plan to learn to work with nature.

Why, Klaas thought, could we not generate a similarly hopeful enthusiasm for the idea of ​​terraforming on Earth? A new beginning, based on collaboration and growing insight, could look for regeneration instead of maximum exploitation. At the same time, a mountain, a nature reserve, and a river were recognised as legal entities in New Zealand by the Supreme Court. Based on ancient agreements with the Indigenous Maori, and the recognition of their philosophy as inhabitants of that area, the mountain, forest and river were given the right to be represented before the law. Just like a person, a municipality or an oil company.

In the Netherlands, there are no Maori, and there is no old treaty that gives an Indigenous philosophy the authority to legally enforce the right of a river to be recognised as a legal entity. But what is possible within the existing laws is the idea of ​​adding a Speaker for the Living, someone who takes care of the quality of life of life forms other than humans, to the board of a school, a company or a cultural institution. This would add a decisive ecological element to the policy and operations of such an organisation. Ecology is then no longer a PR issue, or the hobby of a few esteemed employees, but is anchored in the administrative authority structure.

The institute will become the first zoöp in the Netherlands in April 2022, and since the start of the project 20 organisations have already announced their intention to become one too. This will create a network of zoöps, consisting of very different institutions, such as an experimental regenerative farm (Bodemzicht), a huge museum (the Victoria & Albert in London), or, for example, an architectural firm, a school and a construction company.

How does a zoöp work? The Speaker for the Living sits on the board of directors or executive committee on behalf of the Zoönomic Institute, which ensures that the same procedure is followed by all zoöps. This means there are certified zoöps, and so knowledge can be better shared when setting up the zoöp network. This method follows what the inventors call a zoönotic cycle. There are four steps that repeat every year. The first step is to make an inventory of all life forms in, around, above, below and at the location where you work. In the case of the institute, the location is The New Garden, the roof and the ponds, but also the depot, the canteen and the offices. In step two, the mutual relationships between the living are mapped out. Who observes who, who influences whom? This is a complex job, but it makes it possible to take step three: gaining insight into what benefits the ecological integrity of the zoöp, and what harms it. The word integrity indicates coherence, but also has an ethical connotation: to which things should we say yes, and to which should we say no, in order to increase the quality of the cooperation of the living here? This provides insight into the interventions and decisions that the zoöp can make.

It's about learning to observe, and about integrating different types of knowledge and expertise, such as ecological knowledge with artificial intelligence. Because that learning process is always partial and incomplete, and because a zoöp can only function experimentally, step by step, the zoonotic cycle repeats itself every year. Each zoöp has to discover for itself how to become a zoöp in its own specific case and location. The New Garden is a useful interface that helps the institute to discover this, but also a wonderful stage to involve the public in the development of the zoöp.

In April, the institute will host a major exhibition entitled In Search of the Pluriverse. Sophie Krier and Erik Wong select, combine and present the work of more than 30 designers, artists, activists and researchers from all over the world. It's impossible to do justice here to the enormous wealth of projects, which are shown through stories in video and audio, objects, slide shows and installations. The same goes for the subtle staging that Sean Leonard has devised for the exhibition. It is possible, however, to outline a few underlying themes of the exhibition that are related to The New Garden and the Zoöp project.

The word 'pluriverse' is a contraction of the words universe and pluralistic. It is a neologism, yet not an indication of anything new: that our planet is a complex community of radically different life worlds, and not the sum of the objects that occur in one dominant life world, is actually an ancient insight. After 500 years, it is important to learn from the criticism of Indigenous communities in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania regarding the colonial subjugation and industrial exploitation of people and nature.

The exhibition presents different aspects of the search for what design can be in four sections, based on the realisation that what the world needs is a practical perspective on building, designing and organising, one which aims to promote the balanced coexistence of all life forms. This goes beyond ecological regeneration. It also embraces social and political consequences. Much inspiration comes from Indigenous traditions and the cultures of colonised communities.

The first section, which has a nocturnal atmosphere, deals with projects that focus on opening up to the worlds of non-human entities, in order to get to know and map them. Peatlands, ancient oaks, rivers, stones: the emphasis is not on quantifiable data, but on learning to see relationships, cycles and natural rhythms.

The second section (A New Day, A New Beginning), deals with presentations in which communities of people collaborate through a joint activity with the cycles in which they live. By standing up for animals together, weaving, renovating houses in a collective, experimenting with seaweed, or making good luck amulets for each other. It becomes clear that those who think ecologically see each individual as a connection point in a web of relationships, and so also link the search for new designs to group dynamics and a social dimension. It is important to note that the layout of the exhibition, conceived by Sean Leonard, was inspired by the atmosphere and culture of the communal 'yards' in the working-class neighbourhoods of Trinidad where he grew up.

Section three is called Heat of the Action and is the most political of the four. Slideshows, video, audio and installations show examples of activism that is not so much media-oriented, but that really wants to get something done. One example is a group that actively tries to prevent the destruction of textiles. Learning to understand the forces and paradoxes of political action can also be viewed as a design question. What do you say yes to, and when do you say no?

After the night, the morning and the heat of the afternoon, comes the evening, section four, where there is time for evaluation. What does it mean to design, build and organise with a truly pluralistic world view? The criterion turns out to be the following: designing with a view to the plural means focusing on designing for multiple futures that can live together - in contrast to the technocratic, colonial and industrial ideology, which enables only one desired future, at the expense of the futures of all other groups and life forms. Pluralistic design should preferably be as concrete and practical as possible: projects presented here include the regenerative farm Bodemzicht near Nijmegen, a health project in which micro-organisms are deployed in and on our bodies, and a collective that grows linen and processes it into clothing.

What is remarkable about the tenor of the exhibition is that there is so much emphasis on sensory, experimental research, in combination with a cultural and historical context. The designing and consuming individual has been dethroned. It's all about operating in an equal collective, and embedding the design process in local communities, the landscape and the ecology.