We are delighted to share that in January 2026, our large new research consortium ‘JUST ART’ on art research and climate justice took off. Bringing together artists, researchers, campaigners and communities in rural and urban regions across the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in the coming six years, the consortium (led by the University of Groningen and financed by the Dutch Research Council NWO) will research creative ways of understanding the intersectional dimensions of climate (in)justices, so that people feel empowered to act.
At Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Katja Kwastek and Kyveli Mavrokordopoulou, board members of the Environmental Humanities center, will be leading one of the five thematic lines (in cooperation with the Hogeschool van Amsterdam), dedicated to ‘JUST PRODUCTION’, exploring artistic and arts-based approaches to foster regenerative practices.
The theme encompasses two sub-projects.
The first, soil ecologies, will engage with and develop artistic research approaches which engage with soil ‘from the ground up’ – taking it as a prime site of multispecies conviviality, and highly sophisticated regenerative system.
The second, regenerative entrepreneurship, collaborates with entrepreneurs to foster the implementation of regenerative practices in the production of life-sustaining goods.
Both sub-projects use creative methods to understand how the arts, in collaboration with, and through more-than-human agents, can nurture ecological and social regeneration.
Stay tuned, as we will be linking to the two PhD positions offered within the project at the VU Amsterdam in the coming days, and share more info about our societal partners and first steps soon. For further PhD vacancies, see the project link above.
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