About Zoop Connections
Zoöp Connections is designed to spark regenerative relationships and integrate more-than-human voices into our awareness with the larger goal of taking climate action.
Biodiversity loss, soil degradation and societal polarization on environmental issues in the Netherlands show us that ecosystems of all kinds are degrading, with some on the point of collapsing. Climate action and innovative ecological governance are needed at scale to regenerate these systems. Propelled by this purpose, Zoöp Connections creates opportunities for European practitioners—artists, ecologists, architects, anthropologists, designers, and community organizers—to engage with five pioneering cultural organisations in the Netherlands. Through the Zoöp model, participants will explore how principles of ecological regeneration and co-governance with non-human entities can show cultural organisations’ role in this larger transformation.
Who's connecting?
Initiated by EUNIC Netherlands and coordinated by DutchCulture and Nieuwe Instituut in collaboration with the Zoönomic Institute, five EUNIC members (European cultural institutions) will invite a creative climate professional to the Netherlands to stay for at least a week of focused exchange at a local Zoöp-partner, all of which are Dutch cultural organisations committed to ecological and social regeneration.

These are the duos:
- Zoöp Kunstfort bij Vijfhuizen and British Council Netherlands
- Zoöp Stichting Bodemzicht/'t Gagel and Vlaams Cultuurhuis de Brakke Grond,
- Zoöp De Ceuvel and Goethe-Institut Niederlande
- Zoop Creative Coding Utrecht Instituto Cervantes Utrecht and Zoop Nieuwe Instituut and Institut français NL

Objectives and outcomes
The residencies, hosted between April and September 2025, will serve as spaces for reflection, experimentation, and knowledge exchange. Visiting practitioners will work closely with the hosting Zoöp sites, learning from local initiatives and contributing to ecological projects. Each residency will culminate with participants sharing their findings and proposing innovative solutions to environmental challenges. Artistic public programmes about the project will take place in the fall, with de Brakke Grond and Nieuwe Instituut as important sites for discussions. The focus is on establishing new and regenerative relationships. In designing the exchange, and in the selection of participants, we reflect a commitment to long-term connections.

Kapinga Josephine Muela Kabeya
Kapinga Josephine Muela Kabeya has been invited by De Brakke Grond to participate in the Zoöp Connections residency from July 24 to August 2.
Born in Ostend in 1995, Kapinga lives and works in Bruges. She engages with spirituality, femininity, rituals, and the exploration of existence. Her work, playful and naïve, reflects her search for connection with nature, claiming her own space, and asserting her right to exist as a queer woman of colour. With a profound reflection on her roots and a call for grounding, she focuses on sharing her own story and healing the earth within the universe she inhabits.