Following the success of the first edition, we have once again programmed a School for MultiSpecies Knowledges. This project is a collaboration between Irina Shapiro (expert on alternative pedagogies in the field of art and design education) and Alice Smits (Director Zone2Source). Based on proposals submitted via an open call we selected a learning community of 7 participants: Marjolijn Boterenbrood, Junying Wu, Christine Hvidt, Bethany Copsey, Natascha Hagenbeek, Lea Novi, Mariken Overdijk & Astarti Athanasiadou.

The School for MultiSpecies Knowledges invites practitioners in the field of artistic research and art education to activate their practices in a situational exploration at Zone2Source, a testing ground for art and ecology in Amsterdam’s Amstelpark.

Amstelpark is now a public zoöp

Zone2Source, together with the Zoonomic Institute and the municipality of Amsterdam, established on October 4, 2025 Zoöp Amstelpark as a testing site for multispecies politics. The Amstelpark will be a place for collective learning to experiment with alternative scenarios of how politics, law, design, planning, etc., will look like, if we make the interest of all living organisms part of our decision-making processes. But what are the implications of this proposal for the way one learns, evaluates and shares knowledges in the Zoöp? What kind of embodied pedagogies are needed to attune ourselves differently to our living environment? And what can we learn from the many different ways human and more than human lives create worlds on a shared planet?

The 2nd School for MultiSpecies Knowledges assembles a learning community, consisting of seven practitioners, who, through practice-led artistic research, will gather and experiment over the course of six months with new learning temporalities, activities, and methods of evaluating them. Ultimately, the group will develop proposals for the collective learning we need to implement if ecology is at the heart of everything we do. The School for MultiSpecies Knowledges seeks to develop learning principles for citizens, young and old, that enable transformative shifts towards relational ways of belonging in a multispecies city.

School’s duration

Starting in October 2025, the project will unfold over several stages, with a total duration of six months. The initial phase of the School will include two intensive working days in the 2nd week of October to settle in the park and introduce ourselves to one another. The research will begin within two weeks after the introduction with ‘a conversation with the park’—an engagement moment with visitors, so our initial interaction with the public and the diverse voices of the park will shape the research. During this phase, the participating artists will test their ideas in a setting of public engagement. To conclude this phase, the group as a learning community will evaluate and develop the core principles of the curriculum to enhance their learning. The durations and intensities of the remaining stages will be determined based on the community’s self-evaluation and reflection.

School’s test ground and home base

Zoop Amstelpark will serve as a learning ground for citizens and politicians alike to build on new practices and systems for multispecies politics for a city that is home to billions of living organisms. The School for MultiSpecies Knowledges will form as a site to experiment with artistic pedagogies and build on a curriculum of tactics in which education moves beyond information transfer towards participatory and transformative engagement. The School for MultiSpecies Knowledges has only learners – no experts, students, or facilitators. Instead of a learning based on a curriculum, our journey focuses on collaboratively developing an art-led curriculum for regenerative multispecies co-living. We do not avoid ‘politics of learning’ and pose questions regarding its conditions, tactics, goals, evaluation criteria, and approaches to arts-based learning. The participating artists of the School will be able to connect to the ongoing artistic projects in Zone2Source, exploring relevant topics. Zone2Source offers the Rietveld House as a co-working space for participating artists.