Inside the Zoöp: meet the residents

Practical information:

Date: October 1, 2026
Time: 16:00 - 18:00
Location: Mediamatic, Dijksgracht 6, Amsterdam
Language: English

How do you attune to an ecosystem and let it change how you work? On 1 October, meet the residents of Zoöp Connections and learn about their time in Vijfhuizen, Brienenoord, Mediamatic, and De Ceuvel.

Zoöp Connections was born out of a simple but urgent question: as biodiversity loss and ecological degradation increase across Europe, how can cultural practice contribute to the health of the living world? Through the Zoöp model, the programme pairs European creatives with six pioneering Dutch cultural organisations (Zoöps) for 4 weeks of exchange, observation, and shared learning.

The event opens with a conversation between the four residents and their hosts — an informal reflection on what they encountered, what surprised them, and how their time in the Zoöp has shaped their thinking and practice. This will be followed by an open exchange with the audience. More details on the programme and speakers will be shared closer to the date.

Vilma Vanhanen is a Finnish multidisciplinary spatial artist, designer and feminist whose work is driven by the question “why?”. She is currently finishing her master‛s studies in Interior Architecture at Aalto University, focusing on performance art as a research method—the politics of building demolition materials. Her work investigates themes around injustice, trauma, empathy and freedom, combining activism, site-specific spatial installations, material exploration, and neurodivergent bodily experience.

Vilma has been invited by the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux and will be in Rotterdam with Zoöps Nieuwe Instituut and Buitenplaats Brienenoord from 1 September – 1 October 2026

Mia Milgrom and Ella Prokkola are staying with Zoöp Kunstfort Vijfhuizen from 15 September – 15 October 2026, upon invitation by the Czech Centre Brussels and the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, respectively.

Mia Milgrom is an artist and curator based in Prague, Czech Republic. In her work, she is fascinated by the tension created by unstable and troubled environments, systems of support and the increasingly exhausted relations of the human and nonhuman world. Her sculptures and installations oscillate between the fragile moment of falling apart and an intuitive symbiosis of the elements. Her works have been exhibited at GHMP, Fait Gallery, Rudolfinum, the 4th Tbilisi Triennial, at the Cooper Union in New York and others. She co-runs an independent artist space and gallery in Prague, Garage Gallery.

Ella Prokkola is a landscape architect who graduated from Aalto University, Finland, in 2023, following studies at Aalto and ENSP Versailles in France. Her work focuses on the climate and biodiversity crises, exploring the impacts of the posthuman paradigm on landscape architecture and advocating for multispecies thinking within construction culture. Her practice involves participating in collectives and working groups for projects with partners such as the Helsinki City Museum, Finnish Architecture Museum, Saari Residence, Vares Space, EASA network and the Sheaf Porter Trust. As an educator, she has taught landscape architecture at Aalto University and conducted workshops for both students and professionals in the UK, Switzerland, Estonia, and Finland. Her current projects examine cartography, model making and architectural graphics as tools for multispecies storytelling. She is a laureate of the IN SITU program 2024-2025 at Cité Internationale des Arts.

Maryna Levchenko lives and works in Lviv. She works with visual media, including graphics, painting, photography, video art and installations. Her practice explores space, human fragility, memory and the feeling of home. Her work often combines architectural and natural heritage with traditional crafts, textiles, plastics, and recycled materials to investigate the relationship between individual experience and nature. Maryna studied graphic design at the Lviv Polytechnic National University and architecture at the Taras Shevchenko State Art School, then continued her studies through international programmes and courses in visual art, urbanism, and video art.

Maryna has been invited by the Ukrainian Institute, and her residency takes place at Zoöp de Ceuvel and Zoöp Mediamatic from September 24 to October 23, 2026.

A Zoöp is an organisation that includes more-than-human life - plants, animals, ecosystems - as a stakeholder in its own decision-making. Building on a successful first year, Zoöp Connections returns in 2026 with six international residencies hosted by Dutch Zoöps.

Initiated by EUNIC Netherlands in collaboration with the Zoöp network, the programme invites artists, designers, curators and researchers from across Europe to spend up to a month embedded within organisations that are learning to act in reciprocity with the living world. Together, the residents explore how cultural practice can contribute to regeneration — not by representing nature from a distance, but by developing new ways of noticing, observing, designing and collaborating as part of a shared ecology. The residency is organised in collaboration with EUNIC Netherlands and DutchCulture, with support from the EUNIC Global Cluster Fund.