PD Arts + Creative at the 'PD Day: Reimagining Urban Futures', 18 November 2025, Utrecht
The first PD Day Symposium brought together all Professional Doctorate domains at the Social Impact Factory in Utrecht for a transdisciplinary day of keynotes, workshops, and panel discussions. Under the title “Reimagining Urban Futures”, the programme was organised around five subthemes: Equal Opportunities and Social Justice, Participation and Ownership, Sustainable and Inclusive Cities, Strengthening Communities and Urban Resilience, and Digital and Technological Accessibility.
This report, written by PD Arts + Creative Programme Researcher Carolina Valente Pinto, reflects on a selection of sessions from the day.
Welcome & Introduction Panel
Host Petra Stienen opened the day by encouraging participants to “meet their neighbour”, setting a tone of participation and curiosity. The opening panel featured Eelco Eerenberg (alderman, Utrecht), Daan Andriessen (lecturer, PD), and Dana Feringa (lecturer, Fontys), who discussed how practice-based interventions and transdisciplinary research can contribute to cities that are inclusive, safe, and resilient. The discussion centred on livability (for whom, and for what kinds of futures) and on the role of PD candidates as embedded professionals enacting change.
Keynote 'The River Speaks: public interventions on de Nieuwe Maas'
By Sophia Bardoutsou and Maud van den Beuken
In this keynote presentation, PD Arts + Creative candidate Sophia Bardoutsou and collaborator Maud van den Beuken explored how artistic and embodied research can reshape our relationships with urban ecologies. Through a vocal performance and two interrelated projects (Resonant Cycles and Where the River Is) they shared how sound, material, and movement invite us to listen to the river as a living presence.
Resonant Cycles, developed by Sophia Bardoutsou in collaboration with Buitenplaats Brienenoord, was a series of artistic research labs inviting participants to experiment with voicing the river as a living entity. Through embodied practices connecting voice, body, and ecology, the sessions explored how our mouths (as thresholds) can carry and shape collective resonance. The project drew on Indigenous concepts such as 'Cuerpo-territorio', and ideas from Carl Mika and Nina Eidsheim, to reflect on how sounding and voicing create multisensory knowledge and re-world our environments.
Where the River Is, initiated by Maud van den Beuken in collaboration with TENT Rotterdam and the Port of Rotterdam, brought mud from the riverbed into the public realm. Participants became mud guardians, engaging with the material as a way to reflect, listen, and be with the river. Sophia Bardoutsou contributed to the project by creating musical instruments made from the mud, which were played in the closing procession, We Carry the River. This performative moment carried the project’s insights into movement and sound, making visible and tangible the often unseen relationships between humans and their urban ecologies.
Workshop 'It Happened Tomorrow: participatory climate fiction with cultural collections'
By Carlo De Gaetano
This workshop, led by Arts + Creative PD candidate Carlo de Gaetano, introduced one of his core research methodologies: participatory climate fiction. It Happened Tomorrow is a series of workshops designed to imagine ways of living with climate change and rising sea levels. Drawing on archival materials, hand-drawing, and generative AI, participants collectively developed speculative narratives in response to ecological risk, displacement, and community resilience.
Carlo began the session by introducing the conceptual framework behind his research. Climate change seems to face a crisis of imagination, dominated by techno-optimism and uncertainty. Through participatory storytelling, fiction becomes a tool to explore multiple futures without relying on fixed predictions. The workshop, tailored for PD Day, asked: how can we tell new stories of urban life under climate pressure? What can we learn from heritage and collective memory when imagining future cities? Collaborating with Beeld & Geluid, Carlo uses public archives to explore how historical relationships with water can inform alternative futures.
Participants were invited to create “postcards from the future” by visually and textually imagining how their home or favourite place might look in a climate-altered future. These fictional postcards, built on fragments from the archive, were then shared in pairs and donated to an ongoing participatory collection, establishing storytelling as a relational, situated practice.
The session foregrounded imagination as a shared, embodied capacity and showed how artistic research can reposition climate futures not as abstract, global narratives, but as intimate and plural experiences tied to place, memory, and community.
The plenary panel discussion brought together candidates from Arts + Creative and Health and Well-being: Nadja van der Weide, Frank Antonissen, Lieke Dalstra, Chico Taguba, Conny van Oudheusden, Sarah Ros-Philipsen, SoemitroPoerbodipoero, and Philippine Hoegen.
Moderated by Petra Stienen, the discussion focused on care, community, and co-creation. The panel addressed the value of lived experience, the emotional labour of care work, and the importance of building sustainable networks of collaboration and responsibility beyond individual researchers or project cycles.
Keynote 'Improving housekeeping jobs with ergonomic technology'
By Klaas Koerten
Klaas Koerten (PD candidate, Leisure, Tourism & Hospitality) shared his research on improving labour conditions in hospitality through ergonomic innovation. Collaborating with Hotelschool The Hague, TU Delft, a robotics company, and a hotel chain, his project focuses on reducing the physical strain on housekeepers and improving the sustainability of their work. Originally trained as a mechanical engineer, Klaas began by exploring the main challenges faced by the hospitality industry, particularly staff shortages and physically demanding tasks. While robots have been introduced in some service roles, he found that housekeeping remains largely unsupported by ergonomic solutions.
His research identified bed-making as one of the most strenuous and repetitive tasks in the sector. Together with a student, Klaas designed a low-tech duvet lifter, applying ergonomic principles to support the physical well-being of housekeeping staff. In future stages, he aims to improve trolley design and expand the implementation of these tools across more hotels.
The keynote emphasised how practice-based research can make tangible contributions to overlooked forms of labour in urban life, and bring greater visibility and recognition to essential, yet often undervalued, work.
In this workshop, PD candidate Soemitro Poerbodipoero (Health and Well-being) presented his case study of the Kraktie Foundation, an informal community-based organisation located in Southeast Amsterdam. Collaborating with Dr. Peggy Anijs, Delano Hoost, and Ethel Braams, the session explored how practice-based research can meaningfully support community-led health and well-being initiatives.
The foundation already operates as a living lab, and Soemitro’s research engages directly with its daily practices and relationships. Using action research and communities of practice, his project investigates how Kraktie contributes to resilience among senior citizens, and how their work can be made more visible and sustainable.
The workshop included a pre-recorded contribution by Peggy Anijs, who led a guided meditation, inviting participants to reflect, pause, and connect through breath. This embodied moment was followed by discussion, in which participants expressed interest in how the Kraktie community functions beyond the centre’s activities, extending into mutual support in everyday life.
Soemitro’s research maps these relational networks and forms of care, positioning Kraktie as an example of people-centred, trust-based health practices. Through research outputs such as articles, a documentary, symposia, and exhibitions, he aims to both learn from and contribute to the community, empowering its members and recognising their knowledge.
Other contributions
- “Niet over, maar mét mensen met dementie” (Frank Antonissen; Dr. Rens Brankaert; Dr. Eveline Wouters, PD Health & Well‑being )
- Learning histories als sleutel tot duurzame steden (Emely Meijerink with Demi Spaander, PD Learning & Professionalization)
- Organisatieleren als antwoord op grootstedelijke uitdagingen (Karin van de Lagemaat with Dr. Marco Snoek; Bart Steur, PD Learning & Professionalization)
- Huissleutels voor duurzame oplossingen (Kirsten Foumani‑Luijendijk; Anke van Erp; Tjitske Wijzenbeek; Lonneke Siegers‑Quast; Winne Kramer‑van de Wal; Caroline Smeets; Sander Houdijk; Rowie van Drie; Jenny Zwijnenburg, PD Health & Well‑being)
- Short Presentations (Roos Gerritsma; Erik Slingerland; Bastienne Bernasco, PD Leisure, Tourism & Hospitality)
- Samen toekomst maken: waarderend onderzoek in actie (Bert van Velthoven with Dr. Loek Schoenmakers, PD Learning & Professionalization)
The day concluded with collective reflections from participants, followed by closing words from Liza Swaving (PD Arts + Creative) and Barbara Sassen (PD Health and Well-being), who initiated the symposium. Their joint message: to carry forward the energy and insight of this first PD Day into future cross-domain collaboration.
For any questions about the PD Day, the report, or the Professional Doctorate Arts + Creative programme, feel free to contact us at:
www.pd-arts-creative.nl | https://www.professionaldoctorate-pdday.nl/home/
Photography
Pictures are taken by Barbara Medo: https://www.barbaramedo.com/
PD Arts + Creative is a joint effort by Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU), Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (AHK), Hogeschool van Amsterdam, University of the Arts The Hague, Hogeschool Rotterdam, Codarts Rotterdam, Hanze UAS, Avans Hogeschool, Buas Breda Universit of Applied Science, Fontys Academy of the Arts, Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE), Zuyd Maastricht Institute of Arts, Artez University of the Arts, Hogeschool InHolland, and HZ University of Applied Sciences.