On October 4, exactly one year after Zone2Source, a testing ground for art and ecology in the Amstelpark, signed the founding contract for Zoöp Amstelpark together with the Municipality of Amsterdam, we are launching the plans for a children’s council.

What is Zoöp Amstelpark?
A Zoöp is a form of organization in which you learn to take into account not only the interests of humans but of all living organisms when making decisions. Zone2Source decided to turn Zoöp Amstelpark into a learning space for the entire city to experiment and invited the municipality – in the context of 750 years – to work together to make the Amstelpark a place where we learn what living together (design, planning, legislation, politics) means for a city with billions of inhabitants (everything that lives) instead of a million people.

Why are we doing this?
We are learning more and more that people have made destructive decisions over the past hundreds of years because they did not take into account what the earth and all the life that grows and lives on it needs. Now we must look for a completely different way to shape our role on a planet where we live alongside so many species on which we depend (we breathe the oxygen emitted by plants, we drink the water from rivers and the rain). And what better place to experiment and learn than a park, where we come into contact with so much other life in the city? Together with children, adults, artists, and policymakers, we are experimenting with alternative forms of co-existence in which truly all life matters.

Speakers with the Living
A Zoop has Speakers with the Living who bring the interests of all beings (people, plants, animals etc) into decision-making. Zoöp Amstelpark, as the first public Zoop (an arts organization, university, vocational college, and municipality are participating), has a Council of Speakers for the Living. Currently, there are two, but we want to expand this with diverse people from all kinds of different backgrounds. Children are the future and must be given an important voice in it. Therefore, we are establishing a Children’s Council for Zoöp Amstelpark, where you will explore and learn, together with others, how to become a Speaker with the Living, and in doing so, be a guide for others to inhabit the world in a better way.

What does the children’s council look like?
Zoöp Amstelpark Children’s Council will consist of 9 children aged 8 to 12. For six months (January–June 2027), they will have a say in a part of the Amstelpark.

The central question of the Children’s Council is:

“How can children be guides to interact with the living world in a better way?”

Over the course of six months, the children are given authority over a section of the park.
Here, they investigate together the well-being of all living organisms: trees, plants, people, animals, water, soil, and other forms of life. The Children’s Council begins with an introduction to listening to and experiencing trees, plants, and animals, during which we primarily explore and experience all relationships between organisms, including ourselves. The children conduct their own investigations using all the senses with which we experience the world as a body: seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing. They record their experiences and discoveries on a three-dimensional map, make audio recordings, hold dialogues, ask questions, and come up with ideas on how to encourage park visitors to relate differently to the world around them.

“How can we develop the park into a place of learning where we can practice and work together towards a better society for all life?”

The Children’s Council is therefore not only a place where children learn about nature and biodiversity. It is also a place where their perspectives and ideas are taken seriously and where they can actively contribute to thinking about and acting on the future of humanity on a shared planet. Everyone can participate, we do everything together, and it is not just talking but especially about active discovery and giving shape to experiences and ideas in all kinds of creative ways. There are no physical or language barrier, though dutch is the main language, everyone is welcome!

Want to join?
Are you a child aged 8–12 and do you want to join the Children’s Council, or are you curious to find out what we will be doing? Or are you a parent/guardian and do you want to know more? Then come to the exploratory workshop on October 4th from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM, or send an email to info@zone2source.net for more information.

The Children’s Council is developed by Emer Beamer (designer participatory learning), Semuel Sahureka (founders and spokesperson of the Saka Mese Nusa AllifURU foundation), artist and Speaker with the Living Theun Karelse and Zone2Source director/curator Alice Smits.