Portret van de invulling van de functie van 'wijkcoördinator' bij Grounds/New Grounds, Rotterdam, als voorbeeld van een werkwijze om het contact tussen en culturele instelling en de samenleving gestalte te geven.
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Increasingly, discussions on sustainability, in particular in relation to energy transition, are finding their way to the regional and local political arena. Although for analysing transition pathways on these sub-national scales, conceptual frameworks such as the multi-level perspective may be helpful, some issues remain relatively unaddressed: the relevance of citizens and their social networks and the precise interactions between place, the local context, and external conditions. This paper aims to better understand energy transition processes on the local and regional scale by analysing the case of the Dutch island of Ameland. Since 2006, Ameland has been on a sustainability pathway towards self-sufficiency, in particular in terms of reducing CO2 emissions. In this case study, we conducted in-depth empirical analysis, using a mixed-methods approach, including document analysis and ethnographic techniques. In a five-stage development process, a combination of place-related niche development, regime developments, and the involvement of citizens have created a protective space for several socio-technological innovations to emerge. The unique combination of specific local conditions, in particular political and cultural, and external influences, national policy, and ‘enlightened’ companies have shaped ideal conditions for Ameland to become an inspiring example of innovation in regional transition processes.
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Energy transition is key to achieving a sustainable future. In this transition, an often neglected pillar is raising awareness and educating youth on the benefits, complexities, and urgency of renewable energy supply and energy efficiency. The Master Energy for Society, and particularly the course “Society in Transition”, aims at providing a first overview on the urgency and complexities of the energy transition. However, educating on the energy transition brings challenges: it is a complex topic to understand for students, especially when they have diverse backgrounds. In the last years we have seen a growing interest in the use of gamification approaches in higher institutions. While most practices have been related to digital gaming approaches, there is a new trend: escape rooms. The intended output and proposed innovation is therefore the development and application of an escape room on energy transition to increase knowledge and raise motivation among our students by addressing both hard and soft skills in an innovative and original way. This project is interdisciplinary, multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary due to the complexity of the topic; it consists of three different stages, including evaluation, and requires the involvement of students and colleagues from the master program. We are confident that this proposed innovation can lead to an improvement, based on relevant literature and previous experiences in other institutions, and has the potential to be successfully implemented in other higher education institutions in The Netherlands.
This project develops a European network for transdisciplinary innovation in artistic engagement as a catalyst for societal transformation, focusing on immersive art. It responds to the professionals in the field’s call for research into immersive art’s unique capacity to ‘move’ people through its multisensory, technosocial qualities towards collective change. The project brings together experts leading state-of-the-art research and practice in related fields with an aim to develop trajectories for artistic, methodological, and conceptual innovation for societal transformation. The nascent field of immersive art, including its potential impact on society, has been identified as a priority research area on all local-to-EU levels, but often suffers from the common (mis)perception as being technological spectacle prioritising entertainment values. Many practitioners create immersive art to enable novel forms of creative engagement to address societal issues and enact change, but have difficulty gaining recognition and support for this endeavour. A critical challenge is the lack of knowledge about how their predominantly sensuous and aesthetic experience actually lead to collective change, which remains unrecognised in the current systems of impact evaluation predicated on quantitative analysis. Recent psychological insights on awe as a profoundly transformative emotion signals a possibility to address this challenge, offering a new way to make sense of the transformational effect of directly interacting with such affective qualities of immersive art. In parallel, there is a renewed interest in the practice of cultural mediation, which brings together different stakeholders to facilitate negotiation towards collective change in diverse domains of civic life, often through creative engagements. Our project forms strategic grounds for transdisciplinary research at the intersection between these two developments. We bring together experts in immersive art, psychology, cultural mediation, digital humanities, and design across Europe to explore: How can awe-experiences be enacted in immersive art and be extended towards societal transformation?
Onderzoek naar de vormgeving van het leerecosysteem Coolhaven Collab, een culturele proeftuin, in het kader van Rotterdamse cultuurbeleid 2021-2024. In het kader van de regioplannen in het cultuurbeleid is er plaats voor regionale proeftuinen. In de regio Rotterdam bestaat de proeftuin uit het project Campus Coolhaven. In Campus Coolhaven werken Maastheater/Maaspodium, Grounds/WMDC, Jeugdtheater Hofplein, Codarts, het Albeda College (MBO theater/dans /muziek) en schoolbestuur LMC (theatermavo; havo/vwo voor muziek en dans) samen. Al deze instellingen werken in Coolhaven. De ambitie is, aldus de aanvraag, “het bieden van ruimte en perspectieven aan creatief MBO-talent (16 tot 25 jarigen) binnen de podiumkunsten, dat daarmee kan doorstromen naar een diverse creatieve beroepspraktijk of het HBO kunstvakonderwijs”. Op de achtergrond speelt de observatie mee dat in de superdiverse stad Rotterdam een deel van het potentiële talent ‘onder de radar’ van de formele culturele infrastructuur blijft, en dat dat ongewenst is. In het project wordt daarom gewerkt aan het ‘slechten van drempels’ en daarbij wordt de informele culturele infrastructuur (grassroot-organisaties, bijvoorbeeld van minderheden in Rotterdam) actief betrokken. In het projectplan is € 20.000 gereserveerd voor een onderzoek naar MBO talent dat zich zowel binnen het formele circuit ontwikkelt als erbuiten in communities en het betrekken van mensen uit die communities bij het traject. Dit doen de proeftuinorganisaties door het scouten en volgen van een aantal talenten in verschillende fases, het uitnodigen van mensen uit die communities bij de instellingen voor kennismaking/workshops/ontmoetingen etc. Aan prof.dr. Evert Bisschop Boele, bijzonder hoogleraar ‘betekenis van cultuurparticipatie’ aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam en lector Kunsteducatie aan de Hanzehogeschool Groningen, is gevraagd om met een plan te komen om dit onderzoek uit te voeren.
