We are excited to announce that Vilma Vanhanen has been selected for the Zoöp Connections residency with Buitenplaats Brienenoord, Nieuwe Instituut and Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux. The residency takes place 1–30 September 2026 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The resident
Vilma Vanhanen is a Finnish multidisciplinary spatial artist, designer and a feminist whose work is driven by the question “why?”.
She is currently finishing her master‛s studies in Interior Architecture at Aalto University, with a topic on performance art as a research method—the politics of building demolition materials. Her work investigates themes around injustice, trauma, empathy and freedom combining activism, site-specific spatial installations, material exploration and neurodivergent bodily experience. Vilma found her true self after the realisation she could combine her spatial knowledge with contemporary visual practices.
Her performative work GROTE BERG 13 – Creating an urban duckweed farm in a vacant plot (2025) was shown in Oodi library, Helsinki as a part of an Ääniaalto art festival. Vilma has also performed her work Watch me on Insta live, when I discard myself!!! (2025) in an art festival in Itäkeskus, Helsinki. Last summer Vilma and her dear friend Sini Hintsala designed the Aalto university graduation exhibition of Baltic reed that was featured in Dezeen magazine.
The practice
Vilma‛s artistic process realizes itself through urgent obsession—whether through anger, curiosity, or a deep need for connection— where intuition often plays a key role. She gravitates toward overlooked or forgotten subjects, aiming to make them visible and foster understanding of complex issues and power dynamics.
The Zoöp residency
A Zoöp is an organisation that actively represents the interests of other-than-human life in its decision making processes. Zoöps consider themselves participants in ecosystems, and work towards restoring their health. Both Buitenplaats Brienenoord and Nieuwe Instituut are Zoöps.
Buitenplaats Brienenoord is located on a 20-acre island at the edge of Rotterdam, one of Europe’s largest port cities and a frontrunner in urban sustainability and water management. The site itself is a nature reserve and cultural destination, situated where the city’s industrial and living ecologies meet. The municipality of Rotterdam wants to add thousands of new homes while also expanding its green spaces. Right next to Buitenplaats Brienenoord, this tension is becoming very concrete: in the coming years, a new tidal park of 15 acres and a new neighbourhood of 4500 homes will be built directly adjacent to the island.
The residency will explore what it would look like if these developments were guided by Zoöp principles — not just adding green to an urban environment, but asking how humans can act as beneficial participants of the ecosystems they are shaping. How can we participate meaningfully in an ecosystem?
”Buitenplaats Brienenoord seems to be in a quickly changing flux – new homes growing alongside the special natural habitat with its different ecosystems, a topic that resonates with my process and who I am. What a dreamy environment to work with. Space and its political aspects have endless opportunities to draw from” shares Vilma.
We look forward to sharing more about the public event in September once the residency begins.
Buitenplaats Brienenoord. Photo Frank Hanswijk.
Residency partners
Buitenplaats Brienenoord
A rehearsal space for the future, situated on a 20 acre island at the edge of the city. Run by a collective of over 30 artists from various backgrounds – theater, visual art, photography, textile, dance amongst others – we try to envision different relationships towards time, care, generosity, space, people and nature. We do this through organizing events, workshops, gatherings, screenings, exhibitions, and creating new work. Given the location of the Island it offers a chance to step back from reality, without turning your back on it.
www.buitenplaatsbrienenoord.nl
Nieuwe Instituut
Nieuwe Instituut is the national museum and institute for architecture, design and digital culture, located in Rotterdam’s Museumpark. Through exhibitions, events, research and other national and international initiatives, we show how design ideas contribute positively to urgent societal and ecological challenges. Polyphony is also the foundation of the Zoöp, our organizational model in which non-human life has a voice.
www.nieuweinstituut.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: Vilma Vanhanen. Photo by Laetitia Delbachian.