S+T+ARTS Repairing the Present Residencies announced – Penelope Cain and Grow Your Own Cloud are our fellowship winners

After reviewing over 300 eligible applications from artists based in 40+ countries, each of the 21 S+T+ARTS Repairing The Present residencies has found a match. As In4Art, we our proud to share the two winners for the S+T+ARTS residency ‘Repairing the Present’ in the Netherlands, that will start their experiments and explorations in February 2022.

The selected projects are ‘Urban Data Forest’ by from Grow Your Own Cloud and ‘Repairing with Lichen’ by Penelope Cain. We are excited to host these amazing artists and learn how we might learn to live with nature in the city of The Hague.

The fellows, supported by the Repairing The Present Consortium partners & its network of experts, will soon start exploring the challenges, to imagine and propose innovative solutions to help realise the European Green Deal and the New Bauhaus ambitions. They will work in close collaboration with fellowship partner Witteveen +Bos with as a case study the Environmental vision 2040 of the city of The Hague.

Grow Your Own Cloud – Urban Data Forest

The jury decided to select Grow Your Own Cloud as a winner of the Repairing the Present Fellowship at Regional S+T+ARTS Centre In4Art because their project Urban Data Forest acts on the forefront of a biological cloud revolution which will reformulate our relationship with urban nature and with data in ways beyond imagination. Under the name Urban Data Forest, the collective aims to re-imagine the data cloud by creating the worlds first biological data centre within the city of The Hague. Urban Data Forest is a very creative and imaginative project, raising ethical, technical and societal questions around data storage and their environmental consequences. The potential of technical, social and economic innovation, which lies at the heart of this project, fits perfectly with the S+T+ARTS and New European Bauhaus vision of art manifesting at the forefront of new possibilities and the European Green Deal targets for sustainability and greening European cities. Read more on the project and the team.

Penelope Cain – Repairing with Lichen

The jury decided to select Penelope Cain as a winner of the Repairing the Present Fellowship at Regional S+T+ARTS Centre In4Art, because the project Repairing with Lichen proposes a novel and innovative way to merge the physical with the virtual world in order to engage people to their direct urban environments. The project ‘Repairing with Lichen’ investigates a new layer of imaging the city through the lens of one species: the lichen. It addresses sustainability challenges related to biodiversity within cities, with new appreciation for existing flora, but also through monitoring the carbon uptake and nitrogen sequestration. By introducing the concept of micro rewilding in the ‘least natural sites’ of the city, Penelope proposes a project which allows for extensive public involvement and scaling throughout cities and urban areas everywhere. The jury sees that the potential impact of this project is enormous, since the number of surfaces where it can be applied is huge. Through both physical interventions and digital storytelling, the project aims to realize a mental model shift where lichen can be seen as positive contributors to city life instead of a form of decay. The jury decided to select Grow Your Own Cloud as a winner of the Repairing the Present Fellowship at Regional S+T+ARTS Centre In4Art because their project Urban Data Forest acts on the forefront of a biological cloud revolution which will reformulate our relationship with urban nature and with data in ways beyond imagination. Under the name Urban Data Forest, the collective aims to re-imagine the data cloud by creating the worlds first biological data centre within the city of The Hague. Urban Data Forest is a very creative and imaginative project, raising ethical, technical and societal questions around data storage and their environmental consequences. The potential of technical, social and economic innovation, which lies at the heart of this project, fits perfectly with the S+T+ARTS and New European Bauhaus vision of art manifesting at the forefront of new possibilities and the European Green Deal targets for sustainability and greening European cities. Read more on the project and the artist.