March 21st April 5th / July 11th – 26th 2024
I run a novel programme called NCAD FIELD at undergraduate level and also co-organise course work there at postgraduate level. FIELD integrates theories and practices around the Urban Commons, Critical Ecologies and Rhizomatic pedagogy. Crucially it is located on a brown field site that through active and ongoing pedagogical practice is being reappraised as a Novel Ecology and a space of responsible co-creation and usership with respect to human and more than human worlds. My secondment to Stroom was focused on critically appraising the work we do in the FIELD from afar, to investigate comparable sites and practices in the Netherlands and to create a network to build future collaboration and capacities.
March 21st – April 5th 2024
The first visit was set around Easter. This was to make introductions and refine research interests with respect to Stroom, Den Haag and beyond. The idea of the first visit was to get to know Stroom, meet the staff, research in the Library and then branch out into broader context on the basis of these exchanges. Crucially I focused on visiting sites relatable to the FIELD that are tethered to institutional contexts and function more than being passive gardens or green spaces. These included the artist landscapes of artist Annechien Meier, the Edible Estate Permaculture garden developed by artist Nils Norman as part of a multiyear project with Stroom, and the Garden Department at the Gerrit Rietveldt in Amsterdam. Contacts and visits were also made to Utrecht and Eindhoven.
July 11th – July 26th 2024
I returned in July with two core questions:
A. How seasonal, cyclical and environmental time does / or does not plot onto linear progressive institutional time and the practices undertaken within them (whether this be in an educational or another institutional context). The follow up question to this is how adaptations to work with seasonal time might help institutions to become more resilient, ecologically responsive and indeed happier spaces for human and More-Than-Human constituents.
B. To identify and chart a series of outdoor spaces used by institutions and the usership and practices supported by these spaces. Also, whether if these spaces are fully integrated and valued within the operations of the institution or are they considered ‘extra’, ‘volitional’, ‘temporary’ sites to the life of the institution.
Returning in Summer had the advantage of seeing outdoor sites in full bloom, but also perhaps during a lull in activity due to Summer holidays. I revisited sites from before to monitor them in high season, and also affirm relationships. This included engaging with Annechien Meier’s new project establishing a roof garden on a modernist building in Den Haag and also emergent artists who are developing a Queer Ecology space. The key outcome from this period was the FIELD being included in the nascent Art Research Gardens Network led by Anna Colin of Goldsmiths, London. Together with partners in 6 other locations we have applied for a Curiosity Award, which would facilitate movement between all partners to ‘go see’ and participate as guests and hosts in return. Having FIELD within this network which includes the Van Eyck Academy, Gerrit Rietveldt, Goldsmiths and partners in Tangiers and Limoges. I am still evaluating my research in Den Haag. I am framing this nascent network as a living archive of outdoor pedagogical sites. The ‘living’ aspects connotes their dynamism as biodiverse natureculture intersections but also their precarity as some of the spaces are under resourced, contingent on the lead of driven individuals and also subject to future ‘development’.