Who is We?Who is We?

In a series of interviews, Het Nieuwe Instituut unpacks the themes underpinning _Who is We? - _the Dutch contribution to the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

Debra Solomon on Multispecies Urbanism

Host Saskia van Stein enters into conversation with Debra Solomon on Multispecies Urbanism, Solomons contribution to Who is We? Multispecies Urbanism 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.

Music by Mistah Isaac
Editing by Daniël van de Poppe

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Afaina de Jong on The Multiplicity of Other

Afaina de Jong and host Saskia van Stein talk about The Multiplicity of Other. Through this concept de Jong presents a world of habits, customs, and values that should be part of dominant culture but are not. Instead of ignoring, controlling, or excluding it, embracing difference can enrich our cities.

Music by Mistah Isaac
Editing by Daniël van de Poppe

listen

Caroline Nevejan on Values for Survival

Caroline Nevejan and host Saskia van Stein talk about _Values for Survival, _the parallel public research programme contextualising Who is We? Nevejan and a large group of scientists, designers, and policymakers present a programme relating to the themes of the Dutch pavilion with a focus on current spatial issues in the Netherlands.

Music by Mistah Isaac
Editing by Daniël van de Poppe

listen

Debra Solomon on Multispecies Urbanism

Host Saskia van Stein enters into conversation with Debra Solomon on Multispecies Urbanism, Solomons contribution to Who is We? Multispecies Urbanism 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.

Music by Mistah Isaac
Editing by Daniël van de Poppe

listen

Afaina de Jong on The Multiplicity of Other

Afaina de Jong and host Saskia van Stein talk about The Multiplicity of Other. Through this concept de Jong presents a world of habits, customs, and values that should be part of dominant culture but are not. Instead of ignoring, controlling, or excluding it, embracing difference can enrich our cities.

Music by Mistah Isaac
Editing by Daniël van de Poppe

listen

Caroline Nevejan on Values for Survival

Caroline Nevejan and host Saskia van Stein talk about _Values for Survival, _the parallel public research programme contextualising Who is We? Nevejan and a large group of scientists, designers, and policymakers present a programme relating to the themes of the Dutch pavilion with a focus on current spatial issues in the Netherlands.

Music by Mistah Isaac
Editing by Daniël van de Poppe

listen

Episode #1

Debra Solomon is an artist, researcher and educator. In 2017 she introduced the term 'multispecies urbanism' to describe urban development driven by the priorities of urban ecosystems and natural world stewardship as giving primacy to the care for the natural world. Multispecies Urbanism promotes policy innovations that engage citizens as part of a resilient urban habitat founded on environmental justice for all species. In Soil in the City: the socio-environmental substrate Solomon explores this new paradigm in which urban nature is a rightful stakeholder, engaging with civil society reciprocally.

In 2010 she founded Urbaniahoeve to produce public space urban food forests with locals and to develop urban food forest design and stewardship training in the Netherlands and Italy. Over the last decade, Solomon and Urbaniahoeve have explored public space urban soil-building, food and ecosystem production, climate crisis mitigation, biodiversity and habitat re-generation in action research projects that animate urban greens and their soils. Projects include a 55-hectare urban food forest in Amsterdam Zuidoost, and a demonstration food forest in Amsterdam Noord whose topsoil and biodiversity have been described by soil scientists at Wageningen University soil scientists as a 'paradise on Earth'. Solomon is a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam in the departments of Urban Planning and Designing Urban Experience.

Episode #2

Afaina de Jong is an architect and contemporary thinker with an international and intersectional discourse that explores the boundaries of architecture, art, and culture. Integrating theory and research with design, she believes that architecture is not only to be perceived, but also experienced and interacted with. After working with renowned international firms, De Jong established the creative studio AFARAI in 2005. An Amsterdam-based architectural studio, that specialises in spatial design and strategy, with a deep connection to represent people and cultural movements that are not traditionally represented in architecture. Using form, language, colour, pattern, and narratives that are 'other', the studio works towards a more holistic and inclusive urban space.

_The Multiplicity of Other _reconstitutes the dominant architectural paradigm in the current condition of contemporary urban life to explore the 'other' - the female, people of colour, and LGTBQ communities - with interdisciplinary and intersectional viewpoints on all levels. The Multiplicity of Other develops values, theories, and methodologies for a new design paradigm. For its presentation in the Dutch Pavilion, an important part of De Jong's contribution focusses on the creation of Space of Other, spatialising the complexity of the concept and values of the project, and questioning the prevailing modernist rationale and universal 'white space' of the Rietveld pavilion. De Jong has been an active educator at institutions including the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft, Sandberg Institute, and ARTEZ. She has lectured at Columbia University GSAPP in New York, KTH in Stockholm, and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. De Jong is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) at the University of Amsterdam. De Jong is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research at the University of Amsterdam.

Episode #3

Caroline Nevejan introduces in the research program as part of the Dutch contribution for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, City Science, a new way of working in which research, design, and policy work together structurally in the city. As Amsterdam's Chief Science Officer, she inspires and connects various research programs between city, municipality, universities, and colleges. She initiates and directs research based on questions from officials from various boards in the City, and from university researchers in alpha, beta, and gamma sciences. The definition of the research agenda, the formulation of research questions, the design, the methodology, and means of validation and valorization are determined by the integral and accumulative reality of the city. In this way, various partners in Amsterdam are building a sustainable knowledge infrastructure around the major challenges of our time such as equal opportunities, climate adaptation, a healthy living environment, smart mobility and digitization.

Nevejan is also special chair of Designing Urban Experience at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) at the University of Amsterdam and gives shape to this research programme in collaboration with the City of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Afaina de Jong and Debra Solomon are also part of this research group.

host

Saskia van Stein, host of this interview series, is an independent curator, moderator, and as educator head of the MA department The Critical Inquiry Lab at Design Academy Eindhoven. The Critical Inquiry Lab is a two-year Master's program, an inquisitive trajectory with artistic research at its core. She was artistic and managing director at Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design, Maastricht, 2013-2019. Van Stein worked as a curator at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (now Het Nieuwe Instituut) in Rotterdam from 2002-2012. Van Stein's deep-seated interest in the discourse of exhibition-making and the politics of representation explores different formats and methods of knowledge production and performative display. Through a broad cultural perspective, Van Stein examines issues related to contemporary urgencies and how they manifest at different levels. She contributes to the development of cultural discourse, and she is a member of various advisory committees such as architectural journal OASE and The Independent School for the City as well as being chair of several juries.

Episode #1

Debra Solomon is an artist, researcher and educator. In 2017 she introduced the term 'multispecies urbanism' to describe urban development driven by the priorities of urban ecosystems and natural world stewardship as giving primacy to the care for the natural world. Multispecies Urbanism promotes policy innovations that engage citizens as part of a resilient urban habitat founded on environmental justice for all species. In Soil in the City: the socio-environmental substrate Solomon explores this new paradigm in which urban nature is a rightful stakeholder, engaging with civil society reciprocally.

In 2010 she founded Urbaniahoeve to produce public space urban food forests with locals and to develop urban food forest design and stewardship training in the Netherlands and Italy. Over the last decade, Solomon and Urbaniahoeve have explored public space urban soil-building, food and ecosystem production, climate crisis mitigation, biodiversity and habitat re-generation in action research projects that animate urban greens and their soils. Projects include a 55-hectare urban food forest in Amsterdam Zuidoost, and a demonstration food forest in Amsterdam Noord whose topsoil and biodiversity have been described by soil scientists at Wageningen University soil scientists as a 'paradise on Earth'. Solomon is a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam in the departments of Urban Planning and Designing Urban Experience.

Episode #2

Afaina de Jong is an architect and contemporary thinker with an international and intersectional discourse that explores the boundaries of architecture, art, and culture. Integrating theory and research with design, she believes that architecture is not only to be perceived, but also experienced and interacted with. After working with renowned international firms, De Jong established the creative studio AFARAI in 2005. An Amsterdam-based architectural studio, that specialises in spatial design and strategy, with a deep connection to represent people and cultural movements that are not traditionally represented in architecture. Using form, language, colour, pattern, and narratives that are 'other', the studio works towards a more holistic and inclusive urban space.

_The Multiplicity of Other _reconstitutes the dominant architectural paradigm in the current condition of contemporary urban life to explore the 'other' - the female, people of colour, and LGTBQ communities - with interdisciplinary and intersectional viewpoints on all levels. The Multiplicity of Other develops values, theories, and methodologies for a new design paradigm. For its presentation in the Dutch Pavilion, an important part of De Jong's contribution focusses on the creation of Space of Other, spatialising the complexity of the concept and values of the project, and questioning the prevailing modernist rationale and universal 'white space' of the Rietveld pavilion. De Jong has been an active educator at institutions including the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft, Sandberg Institute, and ARTEZ. She has lectured at Columbia University GSAPP in New York, KTH in Stockholm, and the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence. De Jong is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) at the University of Amsterdam. De Jong is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research at the University of Amsterdam.

Episode #3

Caroline Nevejan introduces in the research program as part of the Dutch contribution for the 17th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, City Science, a new way of working in which research, design, and policy work together structurally in the city. As Amsterdam's Chief Science Officer, she inspires and connects various research programs between city, municipality, universities, and colleges. She initiates and directs research based on questions from officials from various boards in the City, and from university researchers in alpha, beta, and gamma sciences. The definition of the research agenda, the formulation of research questions, the design, the methodology, and means of validation and valorization are determined by the integral and accumulative reality of the city. In this way, various partners in Amsterdam are building a sustainable knowledge infrastructure around the major challenges of our time such as equal opportunities, climate adaptation, a healthy living environment, smart mobility and digitization.

Nevejan is also special chair of Designing Urban Experience at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) at the University of Amsterdam and gives shape to this research programme in collaboration with the City of Amsterdam and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Afaina de Jong and Debra Solomon are also part of this research group.

host

Saskia van Stein, host of this interview series, is an independent curator, moderator, and as educator head of the MA department The Critical Inquiry Lab at Design Academy Eindhoven. The Critical Inquiry Lab is a two-year Master's program, an inquisitive trajectory with artistic research at its core. She was artistic and managing director at Bureau Europa, platform for architecture and design, Maastricht, 2013-2019. Van Stein worked as a curator at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (now Het Nieuwe Instituut) in Rotterdam from 2002-2012. Van Stein's deep-seated interest in the discourse of exhibition-making and the politics of representation explores different formats and methods of knowledge production and performative display. Through a broad cultural perspective, Van Stein examines issues related to contemporary urgencies and how they manifest at different levels. She contributes to the development of cultural discourse, and she is a member of various advisory committees such as architectural journal OASE and The Independent School for the City as well as being chair of several juries.