Book Launch – Flourishing Foodscapes: Designing City Region Food Systems

Posted on September 23, 2018 by Han Wiskerke

On Thursday 27 September 2018 Valiz and the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture will host a programme dedicated to the launch of the book entitled ‘Flourishing Foodscapes – Designing City Region Food Systems’.

About Flourishing Foodscapes

Flourishing Foodscapes is a book about the the social and spatial organization of networks and systems of food provisioning. It explores, highlights and discusses strategies and designs for creating future-proof city region food systems by addressing the social, economic, and ecological vulnerabilities and sustainabilities of current and future foodscapes, as well as how the spatial qualities of the rural and urban landscape and its use need to adapt and change. A key argument in the book is that food not only has to do with nutrition, but that it links up with and influences a multitude of domains; from health to (eating) culture and from employment to climate change. It has a major impact on the city (especially on consumption and distribution, and, to a lesser extent, on production) and on rural areas (mainly production), but also the relations between city and countryside, close by as well as far apart. Thinking about food-related problems and challenges is becoming increasingly important. These issues influence our planet and way of life, but also our everyday existence.

Flourishing Foodscapes transcends the field of bottom-up initiatives and private projects. If we really want to design more sustainable food systems, we will have to think more structurally about changing food provisioning at different levels of scale. Flourishing Foodscapes links research, case studies and spatial design and takes a step towards a more comprehensive approach to food issues, building on inspiring practices, projects and designs from all over the world.

Programme Book Launch

The book presentation will take place on Thursday 27 September 2018, from 17.00 to 19.30 at the Academy of Architecture (Waterlooplein 211-213, Amsterdam). The programme is as follows:

17:00–17:05 Opening by moderator Saskia van Stein (director Bureau Europa)
17:05–17:10 Welcome by Madeleine Maaskant (director Academy of Architecture)
17:10–17:30 Introduction to the book by the editors and main authors Han Wiskerke (Professor of Rural Sociology, Wageningen University) and Saline Verhoeven (landscape architect and researcher)
17:30–18:00 Reactions tot the book by Froukje Idema (Programme Manager Food, municipality Ede); Martin Woestenburg (rural sociologist and journalist); Arnold van der Valk (Professor emeritus of Spatial Planning and co-founder of the Food Council of the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam)
18:00–18:25 Discussion led by Saskia van Stein
18:25–18:30 Presentation of the first copy to Hanneke Kijne (Head of Landscape Architecture at the Academy)
18:30–19:30 Snacks and drinks

This programme is free of charge, but if you plan to attend please register via avb-webredactie@ahk.nl

Request for a master student in the ‘Reestdal’ (Drenthe)- new call

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Ina Horlings

The PeerGrouP is a location-art group that specializes in site-specific theatre and visual arts in the northern provinces of the Netherlands. The PeerGrouP consists of a lively mix of theatre makers and artists who are inspired by the landscape, the location and the local inhabitants. The quality of food, ecology, practical knowledge of the landscape, community spirit and the supply of energy are recurring themes within the PeerGrouP’s projects.

The PeerGroup is looking for artists and researchers willing to participate in their P.A.I.R. (Portable Artist in Residence) project. The P.A.I.R.-project promotes artistic social commitment while focusing attention on man and his surroundings. This year the P.A.I.R. theme is Landscape Population: the landscape and its meanings in relation to the inhabitants and other users will be looked at on different levels. The P.A.I.R. will be visiting the Wolden in the ‘Reestdal’, near the village De Wijk, in the north of the Netherlands (Drenthe) from the second half of September till the end of October to meet local inhabitants and to investigate their surroundings. On 13th of September also an art-route initiated by inhabitants will be opened in this area.

The Rural Sociology Group and the Peer Group are looking for a master student interested in landscape, place, values and population, who is enthusiastic to do his/her internship or thesis in this site-specific project, starting preferably around July-September. The student-researcher will actually stay in the P.A.I.R. (see photo) in September in the ‘Reestdal’ and participate with inhabitants. The P.A.I.R. will then partly be a ‘Reestdal-library’ and partly accomodation for the student-researcher. Preliminary research questions are:
– What is ‘sense of place’ for the local population in the Wolden?
– Which meanings to people give to the landscape? What do people appreciate? What are important cultural markers in the landscape?
– Do inhabitants experience local identities? Which stories can be told related to the landscape?
– How are meanings, identities and sense of place linked to underlying values of people?
– How can meanings identities and sense of place be translated to recommendations for practice and policy? (people’s participation, community cohesion, networks)
Methods that can be used are e.g. social (deep) mapping, visualization methods, appreciative inquiry, integral theory. The student researcher will carry out ‘on-site’ participatory research on the sense of place and values of the local population in this area. The research will be supervised by the RSO group (Ina Horlings) and the Peer Group (Henry Alles). If you are interested, please send a mail as soon as possible to Ina Horlings (lummina.horlings@wur.nl).

Request for a master student interested in place, landscape and population

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Ina Horlings

The PeerGroup is looking for artists and researchers willing to participate in their P.A.I.R. (Portable Artist in Residence) project. The P.A.I.R.-project promotes artistic social commitment while focusing attention on man and his surroundings. The P.A.I.R. will be visiting three different locations (Veenkoloniën, Donderen, de Wolden) in the north of the Netherlands (Drenthe) to meet local inhabitants and to investigate their surroundings. In the past three years, the PeerGrouP realized three P.A.I.R.-projects every year. In 2012, the P.A.I.R.’s fourth year, the theme is Landscape Population. The landscape and its meanings in relation to the inhabitants and other users will be looked at on different levels.

The Rural Sociology Group and the Peer Group are looking for a (preferably Dutch speaking) master student interested in landscape, place, population and art, who is enthusiastic to do his/her internship or thesis in this site-specific project, starting preferably around August. The student-researcher will actually stay in the P.A.I.R. (see photo) for a while in September, in the area of the Wolden (near Meppel) in the north of the Netherlands, while doing participative research.

Possible research questions are for example:
– What is ‘sense of place’ for the local population in the Wolden?
– Which meanings to they give to the landscape?
– Do inhabitants experience local identities? Do they have story-lines related the landscape?
– How are meanings, identities and sense of place linked to underlying values of people?
– How can meanings identities and sense of place be translated to recommendations for practice and policy? (people’s participation, community cohesion, networks)

Places are constituted by sedimented social structures and cultural practices, endowed with meaning and the constitution of identities, subjectivities and difference. In other words: culture sits in places. ‘Sense of place’ refers to an individual’s connection with a place (location, building, landscape) and to their experience of place, including different senses (sight, hearing, smell, movement, touch, imagination, purpose and anticipation). It is both individual and inter-subjective, closely connected to community as well as to personal memory and self. Sense of place has many components such as place attachment, place identity, place commitment and dependency, belongingness or rootedness or community connectedness and community cohesion. We will focus here on ‘Sense of landscape’. Sense of place is rooted in underlying values, about what people perceive as important for their quality of life. People value places and express agency and take leadership in shaping their own place. On the local level people reflect on and negotiate the conditions of engagement/participation, rooted in underlying values. If people become more aware of their source of passion, values, feelings and sense making, this can enlarge our ‘cultural repertoire’ and lead to a more inspired use of our environment.

The student researcher will carry out ‘on-site’ participatory research from a development and/or historic perspective on the sense of place and values of the local population in the Wolden in Drenthe, in the early autumn of 2012. The student will potentially cooperate with students from other educational institutes (AOC’s).The research will be supervised by the RSO group (Ina Horlings) and the Peer Group (Henry Alles). If you are interested, please send a mail before March to Ina Horlings (lummina.horlings@wur.nl).

Places to care for (2) Westerkwartier

Posted on March 17, 2009 by Petra Derkzen

landschap_zevenhuizen The modernization of Europe’s agriculture and rural areas has been uneven, also in the Netherlands. As Han argued (13 of March) rural regions subject to the Dutch spatial modernization project have become non-places, striped from ‘constraining landscape’ interchangeable, not worth to care for. Those areas which escaped this process are now heralded for re-discovered values beyond economic rationalization. The neighboring area to the Frisian Woodlands, the area Westerkwartier, located in the province Groningen is also one of those areas which escaped modernization through spatial reconstruction. Collective farmers opposition and rejected spatial plans in the 70s led to a voluntary and much diluted plan in 1989 which preserved farming and landscape structures.

Landschape and Identity

In the southern Westerkwartier, the small-scale landscape with hedgerows, belts and alder trees is a strong symbol of local identity. The landscape reflects the soil structure with sandy ridges in north-west direction where many villages are located and in between lower peat moors and peat-clay soils. A poor soil in terms of farming and historically it was an area where living conditions were tough and where people sought their own diverse ways of sustaining their livelihoods often effectively resisting state intervention. From a modernization perspective the area/landscape was seen as ‘lagging behind’, from a local perspective the landscape symbolized resistance and a headstrong mentality.

Over the last decade the landscape received more and more attention and care by collaborations between farmers in agri-environmental trusts (Agrarische Natuur Verenigingen) and between those trusts and the Forestry Commission (Staatsbosbeheer). Ways have been explored to combine a viable farming practice with preservation of landscape and biodiversity. The meaning of the landscape slowly received another symbolic layer; that of an asset to be explored for cultural and educational purposes and for diversifying the local economy.

Action Research

Students from Wageningen University, amongst others, have contributed to this development through a project called “Brug Toekomst”. Based on a local problem definition, master students of Wageningen University and the colleges of Van Hall Institute and Larenstein conducted research based on questions articulated in a local group/ network which emerged as a consequence of the project. Over the five years around 50 students visited the area for action research, leaving behind many reports and recommendations. But more importantly, the project evolved into a Community of Practice, a learning community in which different types of knowledge, experience and energy developed on the basis of equality. On the 2 of April a book, in Dutch, will be presented in the area which tells the story of this five year project and the local dynamics around it.