more about me

I am Stella (she/her) – an interdisciplinary artist and researcher based in Barcelona trained in sociology and architectural design. I am deeply invested in the intersection of technology, human creativity, and its interconnections with (social) spaces. I was born and raised in Berlin to a German mother and a Dutch father as able bodied, white cis person. I finished high school from Montessori and reform-pedagogical school career with 18, and ever since then, I have been on a journey of exploring different interests and passions. Today, my interests lie in imagining collective solutions to global challenges, specifically in addressing structural inequalities in social configurations.

Currently I am pursuing the masters „Design for Emergent Futures” at the Institute for Advanced Architecture Catalunya, that focusses on speculating and prototyping alternative presents.

After finishing high school, I traveled to South America for a year and then started a Bachelor of Science in “Sociology” at the Universiteit van Amsterdam while working in a night café. I was drawn to the discussions and presentations of the social configurations that are constantly in making and transformation, especially in courses on intersectionality and philosophy of ethics.

However, I found the rigid and conventional structure of academia to constrained my wish to work in productive collaboration, so I enrolled in the fine arts academy Gerrit Rietveld Akademie in Amsterdam to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in “Architectural Design”. Here, I enjoyed the practical approach towards tackling social space-related issues and developed an interest in working digitally with various programs and techniques while getting involved in makerspaces. During this time, I was also part of various faculty-bodies that dealt with representing the needs of the students and minority groups, where I worked on resolving conflicting interests and mediating room for open dialogue and expressive freedom.

Theoretically, I became more engaged in writing about decentralizing the human from the design process and recognizing the interconnected whole of the worlds we find ourselves in. I also began questioning status-quo narratives and engaged in decolonial writings and practices.

Continuing my path at the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona, I became part of the Master’s program “Design for Emergent Futures” that provides me with a space to explore and prototype alternative futures as speculative fictions. Here, I am introduced to the open-source world and the whole idea of freedom and collaboration the internet was based on. I become more and more interested in the technological part of human development.

Currently, my research deals with the intersection of human expression and creativity with artificial intelligence and the emerging technologies that become more and more interdependent. I continue to work with narration and speculative fiction while trying to facilitate space for voices that are often being overheard in the societies I live in.

Through my work, I aim to explore transformation processes and investigate possible future scenarios. I believe that despite the very distinctive worldviews, people are interconnected and interdependent in a global environment that cannot be overviewed as such. I am convinced that the thorough study of how human and non-human structures learn and unlearn will feed into our understanding of how they are embedded in a global ever-changing environment - and how possible reactions to these changes could look like. By studying the uniqueness of these contexts, we start to question and (re)evaluate future options of cohabitation of humans on Earth. Therefore, it seems important to me to examine with critical curiosity various beliefs and certainties that depend on their immediate environment.

Statement

I think being part of the worlds I move in comes with a responsibility of finding tools and methods to help navigate the complexities that our neoliberal capitalist system imposes on its people. Together we need to develop a sense of belonging and caring - practices that facilitate spaces for sharing and imagining knowledges that do not yet exist. These spaces must draw on decolonial and ecofeminist thought to combat white heteropatriarchy and oppression.