Exciting news! EUNIC Netherlands has secured funding for the second edition of Zoöp Connections in 2026, and we’re thrilled to be part of this new chapter.
What is a Zoöp?
Zoöp is an organisational model, a learning process and a basis for collaboration. In a Zoöp, human and other-than-human life work together to foster a practice of ecological regeneration.
Zoöp comes from the word Zoöperation, which combines:
zoë = life
cooperation = working together
So it means: working together with all life, not just humans.
How can we make choices that are good for more than just humans?
A Zoöp does this by involving a so-called Speaker for the Living. This person watches and listens to what nature might need, and helps the group make choices that are good for all living beings.
Note: Language is important in this project. We want to move away from the idea that humans and “nature” are separate. This way of thinking has led people to treat nature as something outside of us, something to use, control, or exploit. In reality, humans are part of ecosystems.
We shape them, and they shape us. The health of one affects the other. To avoid this separation, we do not use the word nature. Instead, we speak about ecology, relationships, ecosystems, the living world, or more-than-human life.
Where did this idea come from?
The Zoöp model began in 2018 during the Terraforming Earth workshops at Nieuwe Instituut, a public research program that explored how to make the planet sustainably livable for both humans and non-human life. After this, Nieuwe Instituut became the first-ever Zoöp and the spawning ground for the Zoönomic Institute, the organisation that nurtures the Zoöp network and employs the Speakers for the Living.
Even though the term Zoöp is quite new, the idea of living in balance with ecosystems isn’t. Regenerative thinking and ecological practice has been around for a long time and is not new to many non-Western indigenous communities around the world.
What makes Zoöp different is that it turns these ideas into concrete organisational and economic models, building care for ecosystems directly into how an institution is structured and how it operates.
Although awareness around sustainability is growing, the reality is we are still facing massive ecological, social and cultural challenges that can’t be solved from a human-only perspective. Zoöp offers a way to rethink how we work, by including nature and other living beings in decision-making and by testing how that can function in real organisations.
What is Zoöp Connections 2026?
Zoöp Connections, initiated by EUNIC Netherlands, brings international artists to the Netherlands for residencies in Zoöps. During the residency, artists explore how art can engage with the living world, foster regenerative relationships, and amplify more-than-human perspectives to inspire climate action. Members of the EUNIC Netherlands cluster invite artists from their countries for temporary residencies in Dutch Zoöps.
In many non-Western and Indigenous traditions, there is no strict divide between humans and the rest of the living world. People are understood as part of nature, connected to plants, animals, land, and ecosystems. The Western separation between humans and nature has shaped the way we built our societies, often treating the natural world as something to control or extract from. This way of thinking is deeply linked to today’s climate crisis and biodiversity loss.
That is why we believe culture is the place where change can begin. Through its residencies, Zoöp Connections creates space for artists and cultural institutions to explore their relationship with the living world together. It creates space to question old assumptions and imagine new ways of living together. Moving from representing nature to working alongside it, and asking the question: How can we form and nurture regenerative relations through cultural practice?
Videographer Ruben van Zaanen created this video using footage recorded and captured by the 5 residents that took part in Zoöp in 2025. Kapinga Muela Kabeya, Estelle Zhong Mengual, Fabian Schäfer, Ashley Holmes and Estelle Zhong Mengual.
Meaningful change doesn’t happen after just one moment. That’s why we’re pleased with the opportunity to be part of the continuation of this project from 2025 with support of the EUNIC Global Cluster Fund, involving more artists and longer residencies.
There will be 6 artists chosen by the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, Goethe-Institut NL, Ukrainian Institute, Czech Centre, Instituto Cervantes, and the Romanian Cultural Institute.
Each artist stay up to four weeks, in one of the following Zoöps: Nieuwe Instituut & Buitenplaats Brienenoord (Rotterdam), Tetem (Enschede), Mediamatic & De Ceuvel (Amsterdam), Kunstfort Vijfhuizen, Creative Coding Utrecht and Kleverbergh (Erlecom).
How can you get involved?
Follow us on instagram and subscribe to our newsletter where we’ll regularly share Zoöp-related events, news, stories from the artists’ residencies.
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.
Learn more about Zoöp Connections in 2025 and 2026.