We are pleased to announce that Ella Prokkola has been selected for the Zoöp Connections residency with Kunstfort Vijfhuizen and the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux. The residency, landscape notations, takes place 15 September to 13 October, 2026 in Vijfhuizen, the Netherlands.
The resident
Ella Prokkola is a Helsinki-based landscape architect, artist, and educator. She graduated from Aalto University in Finland and completed additional studies at École nationale supérieure de paysage de Versailles in France.
As an educator, Prokkola has taught landscape architecture and multispecies thinking at Aalto University and the Estonian Academy of Arts, and has led workshops for students, professionals, and the wider public in the UK, Switzerland, and Germany. She is a fellow of the IN SITU Platform for the 2026–2027 season.
The practice
Her work explores the implications of post-anthropocentric thinking for landscape architecture. Her current projects focus on the possibility of representing landscape’s hidden movement, notating the choreographies of care and the multispecies rhythms shaping them.
The Zoöp residency
Kunstfort Vijfhuizen is a former military fortress transformed into a space for contemporary art. It is a monument and, as part of the Defence Line of Amsterdam and the Dutch Water Lines, a UNESCO World Heritage site. At Kunstfort, exhibition spaces, studios, workshops, offices, guest rooms, bio-based houses, and a gin distillery can be found, among others. The fortress island is inhabited by hawthorns, nettles, blackberries, moles, mice, carp, geese, coots, pheasants, outdoor works of art… and many more!
As a Zoöp, Kunstfort explores principles of ecological regeneration and collaboration with its immediate surroundings. The island and its historic buildings are cared for with the help of volunteers, as is the nearby biodiversity field. Here, artists are invited to conduct research and create activities that prompt us to see, experience, and reflect on the world from different human and more-than-human perspectives.
”At Kunstfort, I’m looking forward to continuing the work on developing methods for mapping more-than-human assemblages through collaborative fieldwork and ephemeral landscape assemblies. If we take seriously the premise that landscapes are sites of motion and metamorphosis, how might their representation shift towards documenting these movements, encounters, and events?
During the residency, I will use architectural drawing as a tool of synthesis, bringing together personal observations with situated knowledge shared by local experts and residents. The methodology draws on anthropologist Anna Tsing’s concept of the art of noticing: an attentive, embodied, and sensuous engagement with place, and with the lives and lifeways that shape it. I’m also interested in discovering the Zoöp network, and how this organisational model contributes to the flourishing of the residency site’s ecosystems” shares Ella.
We look forward to sharing more about the public event in September once the residency begins.
De Hoorn des Overvloeds’ Hans Koetsier, photo Simon Trel,© Kunstfort.
Residency partners
Kunstfort Vijfhuizen
Kunstfort Vijfhuizen is a UNESCO world heritage site and contemporary art space located between Amsterdam and Haarlem. The fort combines a rich historical landscape with an active programme of visual art, ecology, and community. With its biodiversity initiatives, artist studios, and deep ties to the surrounding natural environment, Kunstfort operates as a living site of cultural and ecological practice.
www.kunstfort.nl
Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux
The Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux creates sustainable connections and work opportunities for culture and art professionals between Finland and the Benelux countries, and promotes the visibility of Finnish culture in the Benelux region. We work with artistic projects as well as societal questions, and aim for long-term partnerships and connections to produce and support sustainable, contemporary and cross-disciplinary cultural initiatives.
www.finncult.be
EUNIC Netherlands
EUNIC Netherlands is the framework through which European national cultural institutes and other cultural representatives of European countries in the Netherlands co-operate in the development of unique multilateral cultural projects and initiatives. It is the Dutch cluster of EUNIC, the European Union of National Institutes for Culture, which groups together European national cultural institutes or other cultural representations collaborate around the globe.
www.eunic-netherlands.eu
Zoöp Connections
The residency is part of Zoöp Connections, a networked knowledge exchange programme connecting Dutch Zoöps and European cultural institutes, realised by EUNIC Netherlands in coordination with DutchCulture and supported by the EUNIC Global Cluster Fund. Taking place within the Zoöp framework developed by the Zoönomic Institute, the programme creates one-month residencies in 2026 for artists, thinkers and practitioners from across Europe to learn from, live with, and work within living ecosystems. It prioritises process, learning and shared inquiry over predefined outcomes, and is centred on co-creation, care, listening and reciprocity.
Cover image: MFO Park. A Choreographic Inquiry (2026) Photo: Lewis Beauchamp / ILEA The Institute for Land and Environmental Art.