Who is We?Who is We?

Multispecies Urbanism, Debra Solomons contribution to the exhibition in the Dutch pavilion in Venice, puts forward a just urban development driven by giving primacy to reciprocal relations between humans and more-than-human. Multispecies Urbanism describes the methods, values, and domains in which the natural world's inhabitants acquire agency, and in which humans become participants in multispecies communities.

Since 2014, Debra Solomon has been working on her Radical Observation methodology, which she describes as ​'a series of awareness exercises for developing inter-relationalities with natural-world ecosystems'. She applies this methodology in her academic practice and in collaboration with the gardening communities of the Voedselbos Amsterdam Zuidoost and the DemoTuinNoord, with whom she works in order to gain a deep understanding and familiarity with the ecosystem.

On 20 April 2020, at six different locations in the ecological zone of the Voedselbos ('food forest') Amsterdam Zuidoost, the community of practice performing exercise XXIII produced plant, insect and bird inventories; picked up litter; monitored how many of the different plants they had planted last year were blooming; and harvested sweet and nutritious dandelions, which they used in different ways. This exercise was written in April for the practical community of Voedselbos Amsterdam Zuidoost. In that period, community members worked at a 1.5-m distance from each other because of the Covid-19 measures.