TERRESTRIS aims to encourage and enable creative professionals, citizens, and experts to jointly realise projects that apply ecological regenerative principles and methods to improve the quality of the living environment.
Our ambition is to inspire people in a positive and imaginative way to actively participate in eco-regenerative practices that can benefit nature, ecology, biodiversity, water, soil, and air quality. The key to our approach is the idea that we must think and live inclusively with other life-forms.
The alarming deterioration of ecological conditions that affect climate, biodiversity, and liveability, urgently requires creative ideas, new knowledge and innovative practices for environmental recovery. To advance our mission we establish partnerships and initiate collaborations with different experts and stakeholders across a broad spectrum of professional disciplines, organisations and local communities.
We build upon the quickly evolving practices of regenerative design and art. We are deeply convinced that art and design can play a crucial role as catalysts to promote and implement regenerative principles, and to engage diverse groups of citizens into eco-regenerative activities.
Our approach and working methods are based on ethical principles inspired by the growing Zoöp movement that makes the interests of all life-forms part of organisational decision making. We follow the cultural governance codes and expand the common understanding of diversity and inclusivity to include the multiplicity of more-than-human life in our processes.
Activities which TERRESTRIS focuses on are:
- art and design projects that involve experts and local communities in ecological regeneration,
- interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder collaboration,
- supporting and conducting research and experiments,
- building and disseminating knowledge,
- facilitation of educational experiences,
- direct engagement of public through citizen-science and other participatory methods,
- organisation of public events to make these eco-regenerative practices visible,
- media productions.
What is ecological regeneration?
Ecological regeneration refers to all the practices that aim to improve the ecological conditions and integrity of a particular place or process. Beyond sustainability and circularity, ecological regeneration works towards the restoration, revitalisation and favourable development of local ecological conditions for all forms of life. Central to this effort is a human-inclusive understanding of ecology, not just around us, but also inside of us: a fragile space that all life-forms share, but also one on which humans exert an exceptional influence and therefore bear a special responsibility for.
Where is TERRESTRIS active?
We are based in the South-Holland province of the Netherlands and operate across the Green Heart region, a fascinating and diverse region where ecological challenges, pressure on a historic cultural landscape, and new rural-urban relationships converge in the so-called “Green Metropolis”—a green ecological core surrounded by the urban agglomerations of the Randstad. This green core is under severe pressure due to increasing urbanisation, tensions between recreational and natural functions, and because traditional forms of agriculture and horticulture, which have characterised the region for centuries, are increasingly under ecological and economic pressure. The Green Heart offers an excellent context for putting regenerative culture into practice, for exploring more sustainable relationships between rural and urban contexts, and for developing new perspectives on and for the region.
Contact us:
Want to learn more, follow our activities, share your ideas and collaborate?
Please get in touch with us via our contact page.
Support
Terrestris is supported by:
