about my practice
my practice aims to investigate transformation processes and facilitate spaces for collaborative learning and designing pasts, presents and futures. With a academic background in sociology, architectural- and speculative-design, I am passionate about understanding how (social) structures are embedded in ever-changing global environments and how collective responses to ongoing (climate) emergencies look like.
I believe that exchange and discussion are key to opening up new possibilities of seeing and thinking and promoting heterogeneous coexistences.
You can download my CV here.
about my position
my name is Stella (she/her) - a transdisciplinary sociologist and artistic researcher. I was born and raised in Berlin as an able-bodied white cis person to a German mother and a Dutch father. Educated in Montessori and reform pedagogical schools, I have always tapped into different interests and passions. I have been involved in several development cooperation programmes dealing with human rights, especially education and the (re)construction and design of (social) infrastructure.
In my bachelor “Sociology” at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, I was drawn to the discussions on global social configurations that are constantly in making and transformation, especially in courses on intersectionality and philosophy of ethics. A few years ahead, at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, I enjoyed the practical approach towards tackling (social)spaces – working digitally with various programs as well as getting involved in makerspaces. I engaged in decentralising the human from the design process, recognizing the interconnected wholeness of the worlds in which we find ourselves. I questioned status quo narratives and engaged in decolonial writing and practice. As part of various faculty bodies concerned with representing the needs of students and minority groups, I worked to resolve conflicting interests and mediate space for open dialogue and freedom of expression.
At the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia in Barcelona, I participated in the „Master in Design for Emergent Futures”, that focusses on speculating and prototyping alternative presents. I investigated transformational processes and potential future scenarios that address the intersection of human expression and creativity with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. 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.
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.