The winners: 2nd call Public Engagement Seed Fund

Sven Gins - Monstrum: het middeleeuwse coöperatieve bordspel

In Monstrum, an educative board game based on original bestiary research from the ongoing NWO Homo Imperfectus project, players cooperatively explore the diverse medieval animal kingdom - including human species - from an ecocentric perspective. How did humans relate to real and imagined animals in the Middle Ages? How did they envision and depict these animals? What insights does this immaterial heritage offer for present challenges such as biodiversity decline?

The Public Engagement Seed Fund allows us to realize a publishable prototype of Monstrum in collaboration with Dutch schools (vwo/havo/vmbo). Students can think along about the game design, research game elements, and/or playtest the game itself. In so doing, they actively reflect on (our relations with) animals in and since the Middle Ages, and how dehumanization/animalisation can contribute to the marginalization of certain (groups of) people.

Alberto Godioli and Tjeerd Royaards - Cartoons in Court: A Traveling Exhibition

Due to their compact format and visual creativity, cartoons can be a powerful way to comment on societal and political issues. For the same reasons, cartoons are also often at the center of legal cases revolving around freedom of expression and its limits. How do courts of law deal with cartoons in different geographical and cultural contexts? And what international mechanisms are in place to protect the rights of cartoonists? By addressing these questions, this traveling exhibition aims to promote an open, inclusive debate on humor and free speech.

Karène Sanchez Summerer - A Dutch Lawrence of Arabia? Netherlands, Arabs, Jews, and the 'Holy Land'

This project uncovers the relations between Dutch, Arabs and Jews since the first half of the 20th century via the commemoration of the Dutch and queer Jewish poet, writer and journalist Jacob Israel de Haan (Smilde 1881-Jerusalem 1924), his network and his impact. De Haan, who was assassinated in 1924, durably impacted the links between the Netherlands, Palestine and Israel. This project questions this complex and influential figure from different angles (historically, politically, artistically) via three intertwined activities:

1. An itinerant photo exhibition (with pedagogic panels on Palestine 1900-1948, the different branches of Zionism, Arab nationalism, different Dutch people active in the 'Holy Land' and their activities, and the queer presence in the Middle East
2. A theatre piece (on De Haan’s life, his intellectual and political commitments and the role of religion in the public sphere)
3. A workshop on his multifaceted recently published biography (incl. a digital exhibition of archives about the links between the Netherlands and historical Palestine).

Leoni Von Ristok, Maaike de Heij and Prof. Klaus Hubacek - Visuality - a concept of visualizing science for connection

We want to develop an exhibition in which science primarily speaks to the public through images on societal issues and their solutions. We will use artistic photographs to showcase and document the implications of scientific findings in the lives of people, and thus visualize societal or environmental issues which have been investigated by University of Groningen scientists. 

Through this exhibition we want to develop a space where people of different worlds meet, creating more understanding towards one another. We want to show the consequences for those who are actually affected by the issues involved, a side of scientific research which is often ignored. Furthermore, the exhibition aims to show how science and scientific findings could contribute to valuable solutions.

Stefano Bertorini, Niels Faber and Gjalt de Jong - Deep Design in Agriculture

This project contributes to the agricultural transition to nature-inclusive farming in the North of the Netherlands. The project puts a new tool for business modeling based on Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics into practice. It facilitates the generation of transformative ideas based on regenerative and distributive principles. In a series of workshops, we aim to help farmers innovate their business models in line with these principles, helping them to develop actionable plans. Simultaneously, the workshops will generate valuable data that will contribute to action research for a PhD thesis in the Sustainable Entrepreneurship in a Circular Economy (SECE) department at Campus Friesland.