The transplanter is on a quest to regenerate endangered plant communities in public urban spaces. As new gardens are constructed with soil unfit for a diverse set of plants to naturally regenerate, and highly biodiverse zones are turned into construction sites, the transplanter digs up the valueable soil to relocate and inoculate new public gardens and re-introduce otherwise endangered vegetation.
During an artist residency in Timelab, Gent I adopted a public garden which I assisted in natural regeneration in collaboration with city ecologist Geert Heyneman and the local neighborhood committee.
The walking performance starting at the adopted public garden in Gent and continues towards a construction site with high plant diversity where soil is collected. The walk brings the transplanter back to the adopted garden to spread the collected soil, and ends at the local Saturday market where the soil is ”sold” for free to bring awareness to the local neighbors of current green maintenance methods within the city.
Documentation: Doga Ceylan & Teresa Carvalheira
See more at the Transplanters website.
During an artist residency in Timelab, Gent I adopted a public garden which I assisted in natural regeneration in collaboration with city ecologist Geert Heyneman and the local neighborhood committee.
The walking performance starting at the adopted public garden in Gent and continues towards a construction site with high plant diversity where soil is collected. The walk brings the transplanter back to the adopted garden to spread the collected soil, and ends at the local Saturday market where the soil is ”sold” for free to bring awareness to the local neighbors of current green maintenance methods within the city.
Documentation: Doga Ceylan & Teresa Carvalheira
See more at the Transplanters website.
Urban green maintenance strategies in Eindhoven, Netherlands aim to maintain vegetation by removing spontaneously growing plants and categorizing such as weeds. Why do maintenance practices find some plants valuable, and others not? And if current maintenance is counter-productive to the growth of urban vegetation, what is maintenance then really maintaining? This thesis unfolds the need for maintenance practices to encourage biodiversity and argues the urgency for a change of attitude towards urban nature.
The thesis functions as a herbarium, where plant histories become the arguments themselves against current maintenance strategies in the city of Eindhoven, Netherlands, and is printed with cyanotype, a method historically used for herbariums and for the first book to be illustrated with photographs by female botanist Anna Atkins (Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, 1843).
Mentor: Nadine Botha
The thesis functions as a herbarium, where plant histories become the arguments themselves against current maintenance strategies in the city of Eindhoven, Netherlands, and is printed with cyanotype, a method historically used for herbariums and for the first book to be illustrated with photographs by female botanist Anna Atkins (Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, 1843).
Mentor: Nadine Botha
Building Dialogue
Building Dialogue is a collective role game in which players immerse themselves in a provocative scenario and are guided to question the status quo of today’s world. The aim is to offer the participants a space of reflection and practical action to tackle a given situation as a team. Building Dialogue has taken place within MU Hybrid Art House (2022), Dutch Design Week (2022), Kazerne (2023) and Design Academy Eindhoven (2022), and is created and facilitated as a collective effort by an interdisciplinary team of creatives with diverse cultural and professional backgrounds.
The collective behind Building Dialogue shares the vision of encouraging collective thinking and knowledge sharing. The collective consists of Ana Robles Perez, Ankit Kumar, Daniela Tokashiki, Freja Kræmmer Nielsen, Gal Yerushalmi, Guanyan Wu, Inga Hamelmann, Monika Gravagno, Monika Litzinger, Monja Simon, Nawon Koo, Rawan Khater, Teresa Carvalheira. My contribution lies within the development of concept, scenario, and product design, as well as performing game master.
The collective behind Building Dialogue shares the vision of encouraging collective thinking and knowledge sharing. The collective consists of Ana Robles Perez, Ankit Kumar, Daniela Tokashiki, Freja Kræmmer Nielsen, Gal Yerushalmi, Guanyan Wu, Inga Hamelmann, Monika Gravagno, Monika Litzinger, Monja Simon, Nawon Koo, Rawan Khater, Teresa Carvalheira. My contribution lies within the development of concept, scenario, and product design, as well as performing game master.
Inviting Moss
Inviting Moss is a workshop that invites locals of Woensel-West, Eindhoven to create mental and physical invitations for co-habitation. In the cracks of the urban, mosses are living and thriving.They fill the gaps that human citizens did not design or intent to be inhabited. Yet urban architecture makes home for other species, enabling humans and mosses to live side by side. But who is this fuzzy neighbour? What kinds of spaces and conditions do these mosses thrive in? And what moss teach us?
The workshop participants connect with their human and mossy neighbours by sharing knowledge about and previous encounters with moss. To locate and observe the mosses and their living conditions, the participants are guided to walk around the local playground. Together, a moss-philic composite material is created by merging powdered construction waste with organic off-cuts from the green maintenance service of Eindhoven, re-utilizing the material waste streams of the city. The material, rich in seeds and spores from the local vegetation of Eindhoven, is shaped and placed by the participants with empathy for the mosses’ living conditions and with awareness of the dangers of the maintenance workers’ weed removing tools and practices. A pattern seems to unfold as the participants choose their invitations to imitate or be placed in non-designed cracks and gaps, and stimulates a conversation on the appreciation of the imperfections in urban architecture through emphasizing on non-designed spaces’ inhabitation by other species.
Documentation: Nikola Scheibe
The workshop participants connect with their human and mossy neighbours by sharing knowledge about and previous encounters with moss. To locate and observe the mosses and their living conditions, the participants are guided to walk around the local playground. Together, a moss-philic composite material is created by merging powdered construction waste with organic off-cuts from the green maintenance service of Eindhoven, re-utilizing the material waste streams of the city. The material, rich in seeds and spores from the local vegetation of Eindhoven, is shaped and placed by the participants with empathy for the mosses’ living conditions and with awareness of the dangers of the maintenance workers’ weed removing tools and practices. A pattern seems to unfold as the participants choose their invitations to imitate or be placed in non-designed cracks and gaps, and stimulates a conversation on the appreciation of the imperfections in urban architecture through emphasizing on non-designed spaces’ inhabitation by other species.
Documentation: Nikola Scheibe