Step into the heart of Compos(t)ing Regenerative Creative Practices, a one-day interdisciplinary symposium that brought together passionate educators, scholars, artists, and designers from Willem de Kooning Academy, HKU, ATD Lectorate – Academy of Theatre and Dance, Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology, and Nieuwe Instituut.
Through a rich program of plenary conversations, thematic work sessions, and embodied experiences, the symposium investigated what regenerative creative practice means across scales, locations, and disciplines. Key questions that guided the day included:
Discussions and workshops centered on three interwoven themes:
Creative Practices, Regenerative Economies & Human-Inclusive Ecosystems, and Education & Didactics.
After an embodied start by Anthony Heidweiller and Jay-J Taukave, the day opened with a plenary conversation between institutional representatives, including CARADT Situated Art, Design, and Technology researcher Annemarie Piscaer and a video presentation by CARADT Regenerative Art and Design (RAD) Professor Delfina Fantini van Ditmar. Together with partners from WdKA, HKU, ATD, and Nieuwe Instituut, they unpacked what regeneration means within their own practices and institutional contexts.
Participants then dispersed into workgroup sessions — both indoors and outdoors — engaging in embodied explorations, artistic- and design-based discussions, and speculative actions.
Each CARADT research group — Cultural and Creative Industries, Situated Art, Design and Technology, and Regenerative Art and Design — contributed to the program. Workgroups included the following sessions by researchers from CARADT (alongside other contributors):
In her closing reflection, keynote speaker Estelle Zhong Mengual drew from her latest publication Leren Kijken, proposed new ways of looking at the representation of the living world in art, drawing on the tools of environmental humanities and the most contemporary natural sciences.
The day concluded with an Embodied End, grounding reflections in the body, led once more by Anthony Heidweiller and Jay-J Taukave.
Rather than functioning as a traditional conference, Compos(t)ing offered itself as fertile ground for questioning, testing, and digesting ideas. In a collective Compos(t)ing Session, participants shared emerging insights and entangled experiences, to help to connect and digest experiences and insights from the program.
Rounding off a sublime and validating interdisciplinary collaboration between Willem de Kooning Academy
, HKU University of the Arts Utrecht, Academy of Theatre and Dance AHK, CARADT Centre for Applied Research in Art, Design and Technology, and Nieuwe Instituut, the Compos(t)ing: Regenerative Creative Practices symposium on Thursday, April 10, was a living success. Nurtured by passionate contributors and participants, the sold-out event left a lasting and impactful imprint.
Thank you to all contributors, presenters, and participants for cultivating this vibrant, necessary exchange.
, (on WdkA Youtube page) by videographer Rutger Nijkamp‘Humans are atmospheric beings, particles, dust, in intimate cycles of exchange, actors with an incredible force.’
‘We need to become attuned actors with a deeper understanding of all the other particles.’
Annemarie Piscaer is a researcher in the Situated Art, Design and Technology research group, tutor on the New Design & Attitudes study programme at St. Joost School of Art & Design, and PhD candidate in the Doctoral Program at KU Leuven.
‘How can art and design cultivate critical expressions rooted in ethics of care and relationality to influence ecological, social, and economic structures?’
Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, PhD, focuses on ecological design and reflective practices as Professor Regenerative Art and Design. With a background in biology and design research, she explores paradigm shifts and material ethics, advancing regenerative and more-than-human perspectives
‘It is through the “not-knowing” that a stimulating and caring environment can be created to confidently share vulnerability.’
Risk Hazekamp is researcher within the Regenerative Art and Design research group and tutor for the Art & Research study programme at St. Joost School of Art & Design.
‘How can we disrupt the notion of being human while staying true to being humane?’
Wander Eikelboom (1973) is a researcher and cultural critic who studied critical humanities at the University of Utrecht.
‘How do we live together, how do we work together? How do we give shape and form to ‘being together’ in the broadest sense?’
bas van den hurk is an artist, tutor and researcher. He studied Fine Art at Academy St. Joost in Breda and Philosophy of Aesthetics at the University of Amsterdam. van den hurk teaches contemporary theory, research and practice at St. Joost, and is a regular lecturer at different academies and institutions in the Netherlands and abroad.
‘A bio lab is a place of working with living organisms, brought out of their habitat so we can learn to think outside of the Petri dish. Let’s take care of these teachers!’
At the Avans Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology (CARADT), Michaela Davidová is lab coordinator at creative research lab Material Incubator and a researcher at the Regenerative Art & Design group.
The Regenerative Art and Design (RAD) research group seeks to contribute to a new generation of regenerative designers and artists who address the pressing need for transitions that support planetary health. By taking whole systems responsibility through collaborative practices, the group aims to create transformative pathways for reimagining design futures grounded in care and ecological integrity.
Read more
Thank you for your subscription! Please check your email inbox to confirm.