July 2025, Schalkwijk, the Netherlands
In July 2025, five members of the Eco-Feminist Art-Science (EFAS) Collective came together for their first in-person residency in the Dutch village of Schalkwijk. As early-career researchers working across disciplines, we share a commitment to exploring the social, political, and material dimensions of ecological change through creative, reflexive methods. Supported by the EASST Fund, the three-day residency provided a rare opportunity to step outside the pace of everyday academic life and to immerse ourselves in place-based research and collective experimentation.
Our aim was to investigate how pollutants such as PFAS and pesticides circulate through bodies and landscapes, and to consider how these movements might be mapped in ways that reflect complexity while foregrounding embodiment, situated knowledge, and care. To this end, we approached orientation as a deliberate research practice: walking village paths, kayaking along waterways, and engaging in close sensory observation of the local environment. These activities were complemented by structured collaborative exercises, including body mapping, painting, photography, and sound-based experimentation.
The residency was also a site for critical conversation. We reflected on the politics of representation, the ethics of working with communities affected by pollution, and the challenges of creating archives and exhibitions that are accessible, accountable, and meaningful to those they portray. We explored the concept of the postnatural and discussed how to connect local experiences of contamination to broader global systems, all while grounding our work in the shared space of the residency house and its surroundings.
Rather than producing definitive answers, the residency acted as a catalyst for ongoing collaboration. We left with a renewed appreciation for slow, open-ended research spaces where academic, artistic, and action-oriented approaches can meet. The connections forged in Schalkwijk continue to inform our projects, and we are already planning future gatherings to carry forward the methods, conversations, and collective energy generated during this unique time together.
The residency was organised by Lucy Sabin, who facilitated the gathering, together with participants Sofia Greaves, Christianne Blijleven, Shachi Mokashi, and Tabitha Hrynick.
