10th Futurological Symposium 2023 on Free Cultural Spaces - Towards the symbiocene

The Right to Have a Place Like Ruigoord & the Universal Value of Free Cultural Spaces
On 24-25-26 July, the 10th Futurological Symposium 2023 on Free Cultural Spaces will take place in Paradiso and in Ruigoord. The symposium is organised by the team Free Cultural Spaces Amsterdam (FCS Amsterdam), which is part of the network of ± 275 Free Cultural Spaces across Europe and a growing number of venues and festivals around the world. Every two years we organize an international Futurological Symposium aimed at meeting and exchanging knowledge about a specific urgent theme.

This year’s theme, Towards the Symbiocene?, elaborates on the topics of two previous editions, ‘Degentrification: Countercultural Contestations of Space in the City’ (2017) and ‘Reframing Environmentalism’ (2019).

We are currently living in the Anthropocene, the epoch in which humans are the most dominant factor in the evolution of Earth’s environment, with disastrous consequences both for humans and for nature.

It’s now the time, says Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, for a new era in which humans stop exploiting the natural world for their own benefit and instead live in harmony with it: the Symbiocene. Albrecht calls for an immediate transition from the ecocidal Anthropocene (the human epoch) to an ecocentric Symbiocene (a more-than-human future). In the Symbiocene, we realize that we ourselves are part of nature and that causing harm to nature is harming ourselves, because all forms of life are deeply interconnected and interdependent.

The key question is: “How to enter a future that fosters the mutual benefit for all living beings and ecosystems”. The aim of the three-day symposium is questioning alternatives for exiting the antropocene and to present and discuss inspiring ideas and perspectives towards the symbiocene with free cultural spaces as a testing ground.
Next to that the symposium aims to make a statement on the importance of free cultural spaces in the transition to this entangled life. Free cultural spaces are spaces of imagination, and often play a pioneering role in living in harmony with each other and working together toward a sustainable future for the planet.

These are places where mutual, real solidarity with life and all forms of life can become manifest (Sumbiophilia, ‘the love of living together’) and continually provide a breeding ground for indispensable imaginative power. 
Ruigoord, the village that has been an ode to the imagination for 50 years, is also a textbook example of synergy between an industrial area on the one hand and a cultural/nature area on the other. Yet after half a century, even Ruigoord still has to fight for its survival as a sanctuary. The right of free cultural spaces to exist is still not self-evident.

This is why the last day of the symposium is dedicated to the presentation of a declaration that the previous nine symposiums have been working toward: the Universal Value of Free Cultural Spaces, which is based on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples established by Unesco.

This Declaration and ‘the Amsterdam statue of Liberty’, designed by multi-artist Aja Waalwijk, will be presented as a gift to the Mayor of Amsterdam after a playful demonstrative march from Paradiso to the Stopera (26th July).

The three-day programme is packed with lectures, discussions & workshops by scientists, ecologists, urban/rural planners, economists, lawyers, philosophers and a couple of visionary thinkers, such as: Glenn Albrecht (Aus), Elin Kelsey US), Eric Swyngedouw (Can), Shirley Krenak (Bra), T.J.Demos (US), Suzanna Skalska (NL), Floris Alkemade (NL), Oliver Szasz (G), Golnar Abbasi (NL), Vasilis Kokkoris (Can) and many more.
Also representatives of various cultural free spaces from around the world will show how they relate to the Symbiocene such as Christiania (DK), Gängeviertel (G), Uzupis (Lit), Jeremiah Wolf (US), Institut for X and many more.

The symposium is part of the 50th anniversary of cultural free port Ruigoord

Outline Progam:

July 24 and 25, Church of Ruigoord & a workshop location:
11:00-14:00 Presentations
14:00-14:45 Break
14:45-17:00 Presentations
17:00-19:30 Break, dinner
19:30-22:00 Presentations

July 26 in Paradiso
11:00-14:00 Presentations
14:00-14:45 Break
14:45-17:00 Presentations
From 17:00 Playful demonstrative march to the Stopera 

The detailed program will go online soon via www.fcsamsterdam.nl
Don’t miss this extraordinary event and take part in it !
The Amsterdam Free Cultural Spaces team:
Patrick van Ginkel, Aja Waalwijk, Myra Driessen, Hans Waalwijk, Hay Schoolmeesters, Ernst Du Pon, Jefta Hoed, Olivier Jansen 

A decade of futurological symposiums:
The 1st and 2nd Free Cultural Spaces Futurological Symposium took place in Ruigoord in 2011 and 2012. Participants included the Culturele Stelling van Amsterdam (Cultural Defence Line of Amsterdam).
In 2013, in celebration of Ruigoord’s 40th anniversary, this became an international event with representatives of Free Cultural Spaces from the Netherlands and abroad.
From 2013 onward, a decision was made to hold subsequent symposiums with a variety of themes in other transnational locations:
• Festivalisation, Boom Festival, Portugal, 2014
• Collectivity and Individuality, Homogenous and Heterogenic Groups, Christiania, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2015
• Autonomy and Freedom, The Republic of Uzupis, Vilnius, Lithuania, 2016
• De-gentrification, Countercultural Contestations of Space in the City, ADM, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2017
• Reframing Environmentalism, Nieuw en Meer, Ruigoord and Vrij Paleis, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2018
• 100 Years of Christiania, in celebration of Christiania’s 50th anniversary, Three days of investigating the past, present and future of Christiania in particular, and of Free Cultural Spaces in general. Copenhagen, Denmark, 2021
• Towards the Symbiocene?, Ruigoord and Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2023

Symposium participants:

Adrian Ivakhiv (Can)
Adrian Ivakhiv is Professor of Environmental Thought and Culture at the University of Vermont, where he co-leads EcoCultureLab, a collaboratory for ecology, arts, and the future. His books include Shadowing the Anthropocene: Eco-Realism for Turbulent Times (2018), Ecologies of the Moving Image: Cinema, Affect, Nature (2013), Claiming Sacred Ground: Pilgrims and Politics at Glastonbury and Sedona (2001), and the co-edited Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies (2023). His current projects include the monograph The New Lives of Images: Digital Ecologies and Anthropocene Imaginaries in More-than-Human Worlds and the anthology Terra Invicta: Ukrainian Wartime Reimaginings for a Habitable Earth. He co-edits Media+Environment journal and is currently a Fulbright Scholar (Germany/Ukraine) and Cinepoetics Fellow at Freie Universität Berlin. He blogs at Immanence: Ecoculture, Geophilosophy, MediaPolitics (blog) and UKR-TAZ: A Ukrainian Temporary Autonomous Zone (blog.

Aja Waalwijk (NL)
How to produce and maintain free space is a serious question. As a visual artist, word artist, performer and (co-)organizer of cultural events, Aja Waalwijk has been active since 1976/77 in various cultural free zones in Amsterdam. He co-founded several galleries or autonomous zones for the arts and made an initial inventory of Free Cultural Spaces (FCS) as part of the ‘Amsterdam Takes It’ manifestation in 1984. He was co-organizer from 1978 on of Aktion Freiraum which resulted in participation of the Amsterdam Balloon Company (ABC) at Documenta 8, Kassel (1985) and started sculpture routes during events of the ABC in the Netherlands and abroad. In 1992 and 1993 he initiated two thematic festivals at Ruigoord involving representatives of indigenous peoples. Around 2000, Aja Waalwijk participated in the Trans-Industrial art group TI-Prod, founded the Nomadic Museum and, as co-organizer of the ‘Urban Tribes Meeting’, initiated the ‘Urban Tribes Manifesto (2008) between Ruigoord (NL) and Christiania (DK ). He participated in the establishment of ‘The Cultural Defense Line of Amsterdam’ (2010), was the initiator and co-organizer of 9 symposiums FCS in the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal and Lithuania from 2011. He also published articles on the subject and installed totem poles and direction indicators between FCS. In 2013 he published the booklet ‘The Emerging Network of Autonomous Zones’. It goes without saying that for him free cultural spaces play an important role not only in the artistic, but also in the social side of the concept of freedom. Networks for future development of artistic and cultural exchanges between FCS are seen by him as fundamental for collaboration on a transnational level. For a world where freedom of expression in public space is becoming increasingly difficult, the Declaration Concerning The Universal Value of FCS will hopefully lead to governments developing a different view of free spaces, whether they are nomadic, appear in festival form or as a product of unexpected uses of space.

Aetzel Griffioen (NL)
Political philosopher Aetzel Griffioen (1981) is a political philosopher, chief coordinator of Rotterdam Vakmanstad and editor of Tijdschrift de Helling. At Zuid, he and his colleagues are working on a continuous eco-social learning line from primary education to MBO, aimed at sustainable craftsmanship (m/f) and he teaches philosophy at primary school. As a researcher, he focuses on ecological pedagogy, communality and the circular economy.

Bruno Doedens (NL)
Through Landscape Architecture, -Art & -Theatre, Doedens explores the reciprocal relationship between art and landscape; looking at how visual arts, film, music and literature enrich and shape the dynamic forces of nature. The work features both audience and nature as viewer and participant in an organic collaboration. The complexity and vastness of the magnitude of the projects surprices and astonishes in the same way landscape does. Doedens projects are of unimaginably large scale and dimension.
slem.org

Caroline Hummels (NL)
Caroline Hummels is professor Design and Theory for Transformative Qualities at the department of Industrial Design at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Her activities concentrate on designing and researching transforming practices. With her team and external stakeholders, including the Provence of North-Brabant, Philips Design, RISE, Rijkswaterstaat, Enpuls and ZET, she leverages emerging technologies through which they jointly change practices to navigate transforming societies towards sustainable futures.

Lakota Wisdom Keeper Cheryl Angel (Verenigde Staten)  
Cheryl is een inheemse leider en eerbiedwaardige (Sioux) Lakota Elder. Ze stamt af van de Sicangu-stam uit South Dakota. Ze ondersteunde Sacred Stone Camp tijdens de bezetting van Standing Rock. Ze is Water Protector, het heilige en het meest belangrijke ‘Mniwiconi’, Water is Leven in Lakota. Cheryl Angel heeft de afgelopen zes jaar veel gereisd om contact te maken met de inheemse bevolking en niet-inheemse vrouwen en mensen die leven in duurzame gemeenschappen. Vooral Mexico is een rijke bron van inspiratie geweest, waar ze de beste manieren heeft gevonden om het ‘Water Protector’ werk naar een hoger niveau te tillen. In Rapid City is ze de matriarch van 9 jonge familieleden. Momenteel ze is bezig met de lancering van een campagne over de diefstal van de Black Hills, een nationale kwestie.

Chris Julien (NL)
Chris mixes research and practice in the fields of innovation, ecology and culture, with a focus on epistemology and governance. His dissertation research combines new materialisms and eco-thinking to constitute a field of ecological governance. He is active in, and a spokesperson for, Extinction Rebellion. He works on social innovation and regenerative culture with a.o. the Urban Ecology Lab of Waag. Next to this, he sits on various board of cultural organisations. He has published in MATTER: Journal of New Materialist Research, the More Posthuman Glossary and in Krisis: Journal of contemporary philosophy (forthcoming).
medium.com/@ChristopherFJulien/pragmatics-of-resistance-7edd0b22efc9

Christiania - Britta Lillesøe (DK)
Britta Lillesøe (1944) is a self-taught Danish actress. She lives in "Laden", a central location in ‘Freetown Christiania’ (Copenhagen, Denmark), formerly a military base. In 1972 she co-founded the theatre group Solvognen, wrote and produced several radio programmes and is initiator, co-author and actor in a large number of Christiania performances. Besides she is Initiator of Christiania's Cultural Association 1996, that is active in many a cultural area and field. Besides, she coordinates many conferences, hearings, lectures and so forth.
www.vestfilm.dk/christiania/britta/lillesoe.html

Edwin Gardner (NL)
Edwin Gardner is co-founder of Amsterdam based futurology practice Studio Monnik and de Chrononauten en de Atlas van het Lange Nu an almost weekly Dutch newsletter about our historic-futuristic research, future scenarios and speculative peculiars. Together with fellow futurist Christiaan Fruneaux and graphic novelist Jan Cleijne he is working on a richly illustrated guide titled Alles komt goed, Amsterdam 2093, Indrukken uit de Gewortelde Tijd (to be published with Concerto Books). The publication will show an inclusive and regenerative Amsterdam could work at the the end of this century, and what it could like. Through anecdotes and impressions about how people work, learn, live and find meaning in a possible and, according to them, a desirable future. During the symposium Edwin will show how Amsterdam, in their book, has changed after The Cooperative Revolution, The Second Domestication and The Great Rewilding. A world in which Skinfarmers, Mysceliummasters, Biohackers, Materialbrewers and Ecosystem engineers collaborate through Guild-platforms and Cooperative networks. 
de Chrononauten en de Atlas van het Lange Nu 

Elin Kelsey (US)
Elin Kelsey, PhD is an award-winning author, speaker and thought-leader for the evidence-based hope and climate solutions movement. Her newest book for adults, Hope Matters: Why Changing the Way We Think Is Critical For Solving The Environmental Crisis was published by Greystone Books (2020). Passionate about bringing timely evidence of hope and multi-species resilience to the public, Kelsey is a popular keynote speaker and media commentator. Her influence can be seen in the hopeful, solutions-focus of her clients, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and other powerful institutions where she has served as a visiting fellow including the Rachel Carson Center for the Environment and Society, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Cairns Institute and Stanford University in the Graduate School of Education. As an Adjunct Faculty member of the University of Victoria School of Environmental Studies, and, Western Washington University’s School of Environment, she is helping to forward a solutions-oriented paradigm for educating environmental scientists and social scientists. Her first film, Breathe, was commissioned by Amnesty International in 2021. 
www.elinkelsey.org

Emma van der Leest (NL)
Emma van der Leest is an award-winning bio-designer, researcher and lecturer specializing in material design and circular economy. She is also founder of BlueCity Lab, an experimental prototyping laboratory in the former subtropical swimming paradise Tropicana in Rotterdam. Her goal is to lower the threshold for anyone interested in working with microorganisms and waste streams in the development of new materials. Over the years, Emma has worked on a number of materials from microorganisms (a collective term for anything living and invisible) that are exhibited worldwide. Emma is tutor and (former) interim pathway leader at Ecology Futures Master program at Master Institute of Visual Cultures from St. Joost Academy (Avans). Previously she also taught at Central Saint Martins in London and the Design Academy in Eindhoven and had a research position at the Willem de Kooning where she also started to develop a biolab.She won the Bio Art & Design Award 2019 with the Fungkee Supercoating, a 100% natural coating extracted from fungal strains. In 2022, Emma made her curatorial debut with the exhibition 'Nature Loves Technology' at Floriade.
www.emmavanderleest.com

Erik Swyngedouw (Can)
Professor Swyngedouw is a recognized leading international expert in environment-society relationships and the analysis of the capitalist space economy, with an emphasis on socio-environmental conflict, water politics, political economic crisis and urban political movements. He is author of “Social Power and the Urbanization of Water” (Oxford University Press, 2004). He also co-edited “In the Nature of Cities” (Routlede, 20006). He recently co-edited (with Japhy Willson) The Post-Political and its Discontents: Spectres of Radical Politics Today (Edinburg University Press, 2014). His book with MIT-Press, Liquid Power, focuses on water and social power in 20th century Spain and was published in April 2015.
research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/erik.swyngedouw

Esmee Geerken (NL)
Esmee Geerken is a Dutch artist and Earth scientist, with a main expertise in biomineralization and paleoceanography. After defending her dissertation entitled Elements in foraminiferal shells as recorders of past climates in December 2019, Esmee now combines her interdisciplinairy background in an artistic practice influenced by geology, chemistry and philosophy. Her work playfully questions our perception of the obvious – the curvature of the Earth, and the peculiar – how organisms (like us) build their shells.
Esmee is specifically interested in building as a way to enact the environment, at multiple spatial scales. In her current project Building as Being, Esmee is in search of the sweet spot between order and chaos, by means of ordering elements into (complex) shapes. From the microscopic realm of crystals precipitating from solutions to growing urban ecologies. How are these blobs of order –crystals, bodies, identities, minds, stories, cities, 'precipitating' from their environments? How to enhance and constrain the permeability of boundaries – membranes, shells, skins and houses, that create insides within outsides?
esmeegeerken.com

Floris Alkemade (NL)
Floris Alkemade (1961) is an architect and urban designer, who graduated in 1989 with an honorable mention in Architecture at Delft University of Technology. Subsequently, he worked for eighteen years with Rem Koolhaas and was one of the six partners of the renowned Office for Metropolitan Architecture.
In 2008 he founded his own design agency FAA and later also BAU+, operating from Sint-Oedenrode, Brussels and Paris. From 2015 to 2021 he held the position of Government Architect and in 2018 he was chosen as Dutch Architect Of The Year. As his essay The Future of the Netherlands also speaks – subtitled The art of changing direction – he builds a hopeful and coherent story from the design creative perspective about the many necessary changes that await us. From the imagination a longing for the future.

Glenn A Albrecht (Aus)
Glenn A. Albrecht is an Honorary Associate in the School of Geo-sciences, The University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He retired as Professor of Sustainability, Walter Murdoch University, in mid-2014. He continues to work as an environmental philosopher and published a book, Earth Emotions, with Cornell University Press in 2019. Earth Emotions was published in French and Spanish in 2020.
In numerous publications and public talks over the last two decades, Dr Albrecht has developed the theme of the psychoterratic (psyche-earth), or negative and positive emotional states connected to the state of the Earth. New concepts, developed by him, are now becoming well established in the international scholarly literature, new research theses and as inspiration for many creative people in the arts and music.
He currently lives at Wallaby Farm on Wonnarua Land in NSW. He describes himself as a 'farmosopher', combining thinking and writing with growing food and protecting a haven for wildlife. While he is best known for creating the concept of solastalgia, or the lived experience of negative environmental change, his most recent work develops the meme of the 'Symbiocene', a future state where humans re-integrate with the rest of nature.  A book of that title should be completed and published by 2024.
Exiting the Anthropocene and entering the Symbiocene 

Golnar Abbasi (NL)
Golnar Abbasi is a an artist/architect, researcher, and publisher. Her work consists of a hybrid of practices such as research, writing, curating, organising, independent publishing, teaching, making, and spatial intervention. She is a founder and editor of Sarmad, a platform dedicated to politics of image and practices of image-making; and a co-founder of the collective of cognitarians/makers WORKNOT! devoted to discuss precarities of living practices today through spatial interventions as well as research. Her work is also concerned with notion(s) of spatiality, coloniality, practices of resistance, and construction of histories.
She teaches at Willem de Kooning Academie (Social Practices), Piet Zwarte Instituut (MIARD), and the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft, along with exploring experimental pedagogical practices within the framework of Sarmad. Her work has been shown in Venice Biennale of Architecture, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Architecture Banal, among others.

Henk Oosterling (NL)
Henk Oosterling is associate professor of philosophy and director of the Center for Philosophy & Arts at Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) at Rotterdam. Oosterling was born in Rotterdam in 1952. He became a university lecturer and researcher specializing in dialectics and French philosophy. From 1989 to 1996 he conducted research into interculturality with Heinz Kimmerle.

Henry Mentink (NL)
Chairman UNO-foundation, owner of the Veerhuis, Varik, Netherlands. Mentink is an enterprising and idealistic person and knows how to excite people to think about a different society. For many years he has been experimenting in the field of new economy and society.
On the 22nd of April 2022 he started a big project to submit the Whole Earth for the World Heritage List. To promote this he walked with a wheelbarrow to the UNESCO in Paris in 45 days. In his working life he build the first professional fair trade shop in the Netherlands and set up the first carshare company (MyWheels).
www.veerhuis.nl

Indira van ‘t Klooster (NL)
Indira van ‘t Klooster has been director of Arcam (Centre of Architecture Amsterdam) since 1 November 2019. At Pakhuis de Zwijger she presents Architecture Now, on current themes in architecture. Author of Reactivate! Innovators of Dutch Architecture. In the past year she has been exploring with many parties how a city model with digital layers can be a tool in the use of data for the big design questions for the future. Indira is moderating the symposium on the 24th and 25th July in Ruigoord.
Indira van 't Klooster in het Parool

Jem Bendell (UK)
Jem Bendell is professor of sustainability leadership and founder of the Institute for Leadership and Sustainability (IFLAS) at the University of Cumbria (United Kingdom). He has written about monetary economics and the need for 'Deep Adaptation' in response to environmental crises. 
‘Deep Adaptation’ is a concept, agenda, and international social movement. It presumes that extreme weather events and other effects of climate change will increasingly disrupt food, water, shelter, power, and social and governmental systems. 
He regularly comments on current affairs and approaches that may help humanity face climate-induced disruption. In 2019 he founded the Deep Adaptation Forum to support responses to hypothetical societal disruption from the perceived dangers of climate change.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Adaptation

Jeremiah Wolf (US)
Jeremiah is a descendent of the Mohawk nation and the eastern doorkeepers of the great league of peace. They are a confederation of nations known as the Iroquois confederacy which follows the great laws of peace. He belongs to the wolf clan and is a brother of the wolf. As an ambassador of peace and friendship he teaches and educates the ancient traditions of his forefathers with music and dances of the longhouse and their legacy to protect and preserve our natural environment. 
Jeremiah Wolf (1972) Birthplace Syracuse (New York).  Current residence, Los Angeles lives on a reservation in the United States. Campaigned with success against companies polluting the river on which the people of his reservation depend. Was spokesperson for his living community during the presentation of the declaration for free cultural spaces November 27, 2022 at the ADM site in Amsterdam North.
www.nederland-irokezen.nl

Lisa Doeland (NL)
Lisa Doeland (1982) is a philosopher. She lectures at both Radboud University and the University of Amsterdam in ethics and in contemporary issues, such as ecology, green ideology, the Anthropocene and the Apocalypse. In her PhD research she explores the myriad ways in which we are haunted by these things we (call) waste. Drawing on the work of philosopher Jacques Derrida and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan she traces the “spectre of waste” and sketches a hauntology of waste, that forces us to rethink being (ontology) – to be is to haunt and be haunted – and allows us to critically reflects on (eco)modern myths and fantasies, such as recycling without remainders within a circular economy. She is the author of Onszelf voorbij. Kijken naar wat we liever niet zien (2018) and Apocalypsofie. Over recycling, groene groei en andere gevaarlijke fantasieën (2023).
www.ru.nl/en/people/doeland-l 

Marian Stuiver (NL)
Marian Stuiver is head of the Program Green Cities at Wageningen University and Research in Wageningen, the Netherlands.
Author of the book the Symbiotic City (2022) in which Marian bundles ideas from scientists to rethink our relationship to nature in order to shape greener, healthier, more livable and socially just cities. 
Expertise: Urban ecology, just transitions, governance, anthropology.
https://bit.ly/3qjfYLv

Oliver Szasz (G)
Oliver Szasz is Head of Study Program Design Management, Co-Founder Culturesphere and co-founder of non-profit initiative Symbio(s)cene. He is professor for digital media and communication design at Macromedia University and is responsible in his position as Head of Study Program Design Management for the international Design Management master program in Munich.
He has an academic background in Sociology, Philosophy and Political Science, a diploma in Communication Design from Augsburg University, Germany and a Master of Arts M.A. in Design Studies from University of the Arts (CSM), London UK. In 2018 he co-founded Culturesphere - a company that strives to connect the creative power of art with the corporate world in order to foster new ways of thinking, to enrich creative atmospheres and to enhance innovation capacities within organisations.

Paul Behrens (UK)
Paul Behrens is an author and Associate Professor at Leiden University. His research and writing on climate, energy, and food, has appeared in scientific journals and media outlets such as the BBC, Thomson Reuters, Politico, Nature Sustainability, Nature Energy, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Food and Nature Communications. His popular science book, The Best of Times, The Worst of Times: Futures from the Frontiers of Climate Science (Indigo Press, 2020) describes humanity’s current trajectory and possible futures in paired chapters of pessimism and hope. Paul won International Champion in the Frontiers Planet Prize in 2023.

Peter van der Wel (NL)
During a long walk on the beach in the summer of 1989, Peter realized that a better world starts with more knowledge of the future. After all, you can no longer change the past, not even the present, but you can still change the future. At that moment he decided to delve even further into an old love of his: futurology. Since then he has been engaged in researching the future, with the motto: better foresight for a better future. As a futurologist, he has been giving inspiring and surprising lectures and presentations for more than 30 years now.
vanderwel.net/

Philipp Blom (G)
Philipp Blom (1970) grew up in Hamburg and in Detmold. After studying in Vienna and Oxford, he obtained his doctorate in history. During his time at Oxford he published the novel The Simmons Papers. From 1997 to 2001 Blom lived with his wife Veronica Buckley in London, where he first worked as an editor in a publishing house and then as an author. Philipp Blom's books combine historical research, philosophical exploration and occasionally fiction. Against the background of current upheavals such as global warming and digitization, his book Was auf dem Spiel steht (2017) also increasingly focuses on current and future topics.
www.philipp-blom.eu

René ten Bos (NL)
René ten Bos (1959) is a Dutch philosopher and columnist. He is professor of philosophy at the Faculty of Management Sciences at Radboud University (Nijmegen, Netherlands).He is known as an idiosyncratic thinker. Contrary and provocative, he sets aside common ideas and offers a broad and critical perspective in an accessible way. From 2017 to 2019 he was ‘Ambassador of philosophy in the Netherlands’ (so called ‘Denker des Vaderlands’ in Dutch); an honorary title granted for two years. Ten Bos published several books. Among those ‘'Wandering in(to) the anthropocene' (being the translation of the Dutch edition ‘Dwalen in het antropoceen’) in 2017, and ‘Meteosphie (being the translation of the Dutch edition ‘Meteosofie’) in 2021.
renetenbos.nl

Shirley Krenak (Bra)
Indigenous activist. Since she was 13 years old, she has responded to Mother Earth's call to be a representative of Indigenous rights and especially to fight for the preservation of the environment and ancestral spirituality. Now, at the age of 40, she dedicates herself wholeheartedly to the fight for indigenous women's rights. Shirley has also been involved in the KIVA Ceremonies in various countries and continents for years and was present at Ruigoord last september , together with Cheryl Angel, for the beautiful teaching and Water Ceremony.
Recently she wrote a book called "Borun Rhua Kuparak" (The Indian Who Turned Into a Jaguar), published by the Irmas Paulinas Editions. Shirley is presently working as a writer and lecturer.

Krenak Wisdom Keeper Shirley Krenak (Brazilië)
‘Inheemse activist’, is de beste manier om Shirley Djukurnã Krenak te introduceren. Sinds haar 13e heeft ze gehoor gegeven aan de oproep van Moeder Aarde om een beschermer te zijn van inheemse rechten en - bovenal - om een beschermer te worden van Moeder Aarde en voorouderlijke spiritualiteit. Vandaag, op 42-jarige leeftijd, zij wijdt zich volledig aan de strijd van inheemse vrouwen, geërfd door haar traditionele naam, Djukurnã: ‘een vrouw die altijd bereid is, omdat zij de draagster is van de geest die nooit oud wordt’. Ze behoort tot het Krenak-volk, gelegen aan de oever van de Watú (rio Doce), in het oosten van de deelstaat Minas Gerais. Veel van haar traditionele kennis verkreeg zij door de wijsheid van haar vader, Waldemar Ytchó Ytchó Krenak. Ze reist ook de wereld rond om de verwoesting van haar rivier Doce onder de aandacht te brengen.

Sjors Roeters (NL)
Sjors Roeters (1991) is editor of Vrij Nederland. In recent years he has immersed himself in the world of capitalism, the problems it causes and the resistance against it. He traveled through Europe looking for alternatives to capitalism. He translated his insights into his recent book Billionaires under the Guillotine.'
“Capitalism is destroying the earth, more and more people are saying. Some therefore do not speak of the Anthropocene but of the Capitalocene. Because the destruction is not done by humanity as a whole, but mainly by the capitalist system. For example, the richest 1 percent, the capital-owning class, emit more CO2 in 100 days than the 1.2 billion people on the African continent in an entire year. But what are we actually talking about when we talk about “capitalism”? What exactly would be wrong with the capitalist system? And are there really alternatives that could replace capitalism?”
www.vn.nl/auteur/sjors-roeters/

Suzanne Dhaliwal (UK)
Suzanne Dhaliwal is a Climate Justice Creative, Campaigner, Researcher, Lecturer in Environmental Justice and Trainer in Creative Strategies for Decolonisation.
Voted one of London's most influential people in Environment 2018 by the Evening Standard. Suzanne has led campaigns and artistic interventions to challenge fossil fuel investments in the Arctic and Nigeria that violate the rights of Indigenous peoples, and of those seeking justice in the wake of the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster. Her corporate and financial campaigning spans over a decade.  She has written multiple articles on the subject, most notably in the Guardian. 
She was recently a consultant for Indigenous Climate Action and the Indigenous Environmental Network to develop traditional and social media strategies and communications capacity. 
Suzanne was practice tutor in Ecology Futures at the St. Joost School of Art & Design and lectures at universities globally. She is currently a consultant with the National Observer working on digital communications for COP26 and the new podcast Race Against Climate Change. 

Suzanna Skalska (P/NL)
Zuzanna Skalska’s core expertise areas include Up-Front Innovation, Industry’s Cross-fertilization, SignalS of Change and Strategic FutureS Thinking. In that context she is a founding partner of ‘360Inspiration’ (a platform for transdisciplinary business and design trend research) and managing partner and co-founder of FutureS Thinking Group (an approach to design processes stemming, intended to help organization to find their vision, future possibilities and purpose). 
Her research and consulting activities concentrate on 8 crucial industry fields: CE, DAP, Home, Healthcare, Mobility, FMCG/Retail, Urban and Finance. She operates as a Strategic Trends advisor for Up-Front Innovation to businesses, public institutions and NGOs.
360inspiration.nl

T.J.Demos (US)
T.J. Demos (1966) is an art historian and cultural critic who writes on contemporary art and visual culture, particularly in relation to globalization, politics, migration and ecology. Currently a Professor in the Department of History of Art and Visual Culture (HAVC) at UC Santa Cruz, and the founding director of the Center for Creative Ecologies, he is the author of several books, including Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today (Sternberg Press, 2017), Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology (Sternberg Press, 2016), The Migrant Image: The Art and Politics of Documentary during Global Crisis (Duke University Press, 2013), and Return to the Postcolony: Spectres of Colonialism in Contemporary Art (Sternberg Press, 2013). Beginning of June 2023, he published Radical Futurisms, Ecologies of Collapse, Chronopolitics, and Justice-to-Come.

Timothy Morton (UK)
Timothy Morton is Rita Shea Guffey Chair in English at Rice University. He has collaborated with Björk, Laurie Anderson, Jennifer Walshe, Hrafnhildur Arnadottir, Sabrina Scott, Adam McKay, Jeff Bridges, Justin Guariglia, Olafur Eliasson, and Pharrell Williams. Morton co-wrote and appears in Living in the Future’s Past, a 2018 film about global warming with Jeff Bridges. He is the author of the libretto for the opera Time Time Time by Jennifer Walshe. He is the author of Being Ecological (Penguin, 2018), Humankind: Solidarity with Nonhuman People (Verso, 2017), Dark Ecology: For a Logic of Future Coexistence (Columbia, 2016), Nothing: Three Inquiries in Buddhism (Chicago, 2015), Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (Minnesota, 2013), Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality (Open Humanities, 2013), The Ecological Thought (Harvard, 2010), Ecology without Nature (Harvard, 2007), eight other books and 250 essays on philosophy, ecology, literature, music, art, architecture, design and food. Morton’s work has been translated into 10 languages. In 2014, Morton gave the Wellek Lectures in Theory.
ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com

Tomas Čepaitis (R)
Uzupisian (Crazy) Minister Tomas Čepaitis is of Russian Origin, participated in many futurologic symposia for free cultural spaces, when he speaks for public, he carries a doll called Petrusjka, the people of the public may ask her questions which will be answered seriously. One of the important issues for Thomas is to do at least one strange thing each day, to keep the spirits high.

Vasilis Kokkoris (Can)
After receiving his PhD from the University of British Columbia (UBC) on microbial ecology and completing his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Ottawa and at Agriculture/Agri-Food Canada on fungal genetics, Vasilis Kokkoris obtained a position as assistant professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His work centers on microbial ecology and genetics, focusing in particular on one of the most widespread symbiotic organisms on our planet known as mycorrhizal fungi. This group of soil fungi form a resource trade symbiosis with the roots of almost all plants on our planet. Plant roots and fungal hyphae create complex interconnected networks. As a result, underground mycorrhizal highways spread for hundreds of meters, beneath our feet. Vasilis's research and photomicrography, which demonstrates the unique aspects of their cell organization, have won multiple global awards and have brought attention to the unseen soil microbial world.
www.vasilis-kokkoris.com

Wolf Trepte (G)
Wolf Trepte Is a so called multicultural artist. One of his works of art is/was an everlasting and transitory in the same time mosaic of scatted sand, pigment and woodwall, called ‘sandjewel’ (‘Sandjuwel’ in German). He is a longtime activist in and for several Free Cultural Spaces and Places, from Berlin via Doel, Ruigoord, Christiania to Mongolia and other hot-spots. He is involved with The (Friends of the) Green Horse Society for Mongolian Modern Art. Over the years he delivered catching speeches at festivals, gatherings and symposia. In his garden plot, „Little Mongolia“ Wolf is experimenting with low dosed fertilizer without artificials. He is specialized in fruit trees and berrys. Wolf thinks, that one life is almost to short to find out the miracles of Permaculture. He wants to talk about Permaculture as a neccessary opposition to the planned agricultural desasters.

Yentl Schattevoet (NL)
Yentl Schattevoet (1988) studied (among others) religious Studies at Radboud University (Nijmegen, Netherlands), works at Pagan Ways and is founder of Wylderness (www.wyldernys.com/). For the latter she creates content on occultural religion, spirituality and magic, grounded in academic knowledge and spirited by higher wisdom. Here, her fascination for alternative religion and spirituality, contemporary Paganism and the Western Esoteric Tradition glimmer. To live a meaningful and magical life is a goal in itself.
www.facebook.com/YentlSchattevoet/?locale=nl_NL

Zoénie Liwen Deng (NL)
Zoénie is a concept and project developer at Waag's Open Wetlab and Open Design Lab. She focuses on the intersection of art, technology, and science. She is also interested in the use of biomaterials and ways in which technology and art can influence our ideas and practice of democracy.
In addition to her work at Waag, Zoénie is a part-time theory teacher at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, in the Department of Social Practice. She completed her Ph.D. in socially engaged art in the ChinaCreative project funded by the European Research Council, at the Department of Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam in 2020. Zoénie previously obtained her master's degree in Cultural Studies from Goldsmiths University in London. She has curated various workshops and served as a co-editor of the experimental publication of the workshop called "The Book of Failure."
waag.org/nl/project/more-planet/