Interspecies Park Life: Participatory Experiments and Micro-Utopian Landscaping to Increase Urban Biodiverse Entanglement. Issue 4 (November 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Knudsen, Britta Timm; Stage, Carsten; Zandersen, Marianne
• Is Part Of: Space and culture. Volume 25:Issue 4(2022)
• Page Start: 720
• Page End: 742
• Publication Date: 2022-11
• Subjects: biodiversity -- material citizenship -- participation -- micro-utopias -- events -- temporality; Human geography -- Periodicals; Spatial behavior -- Periodicals; Space (Architecture) -- Periodicals; Personal space -- Periodicals; Human ecology -- Periodicals; Comportement spatial -- Périodiques; Espace (Architecture) -- Périodiques; Espace personnel -- Périodiques; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1177/1206331219863312
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1552-8308

Abstract

This article analyses the design and outcomes of the research project Rewilding Lystrup, which involved a partnership with local authorities in Aarhus, Denmark, to merge two distinct processes: climate adaptation and the biodiversity transformation of a public park. Our key interest in the article is the potential offered by experimental participatory events to support the biodiverse transformation of public areas by creating micro-utopian entanglements of citizens and nonhuman organisms. The article will focus on three experimental participatory events enacted as part of the research project: (1) public dialogues and workshops, (2) the arrival on the scene of charismatic cows, and (3) pop-up events in the form of participatory playing. The article concludes that this kind of material citizenship is a powerful strategy for stimulating public engagement in building more biodiverse futures. The strategy thus materializes micro-utopian spaces where the importance of biodiversity can be rehearsed and sensed by local communities. In this way, a culturally transformative zone of dreaming while doing—or doing dreams—is enacted.