How does defamiliarization relate to that which it assumes to be familiar? This chapter explores this question in the context of toxicity, an often invisible and imperceptible power, with the aid of two case studies from landscape art. Wout Berger’ s work Giflandschap (Poisoned Landscape, 1992) is exemplary …

Transitions can be facilitated through collective networked action, moving from coordinated learning towards more forceful interventions. This coordinated effort is challenging in more extended learning and innovation networks. Creating and maintaining an overview of activities within such a network …

We live in a hearing world. Others live in a deaf world. The deaf world has its own language, the sign language, Dutch or English or . . . Frisian. The deaf world also has its memorials, made out of stone. The only deaf memorial in the Netherlands --- and likely in the whole world --- is in Amsterdam, …

The theoretical framework of this dissertation is based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach (Chapter 2). In the early 1980s, development economist Amartya Sen developed the capability framework as a broad normative framework for the evaluation and assessment …

Many cities consider their live music ecologies to be a valuable asset to urban culture. Many have adopted active live music policies, which is part and parcel of the trend of instrumentalization of urban cultural policies. In this paper we explore the reasons behind the increased political policy attention …

The culture of fear seems to be increasingly embedded in today’s society, especially on highly social unequal countries, such as Brazil. The rise of the “condomínios fechados” (gated communities) on recent years expose how this fear shapes our cities. People are sold by the idea of isolating themselves …

The coronavirus crisis has forced us to rethink the demarcation between the public and private space in the city. Individual homes – stages for domestic life – have become office spaces and places for unusual social interactions. As people started working remotely en masse, they were also forced to expose …

Granite G682 is a yellow to pink color stone of the Precambrian period, the most famous yellow granite from China. I am from G682 granite town. I used to live in a village surrounded by stones. however, I never knew the beautiful and scary story behind it until I saw hundreds of abandoned quarries in …

Increasingly, adding trees to the city is a new goal on the urban agenda in order to fight climate change. There is an interesting contrast when looking at the average lifespan of trees in the city: 30 years. The reason is that trees are still being seen from a utilitarian perspective and as urban furniture …

Designers of the Anthropocene era have to work with and for nature in order to reintroduce its beauty and functionality into our everyday life. As humans, we are colonising every single spot on earth. According to the United Nations, 55% of the human population is currently living in cities and by 2050 …