PD Arts + Creative at the 'PD Day: Reimagining Urban Futures', 18 November 2025, Utrecht
The first PD Day Symposium gathered all Professional Doctorate domains at the Social Impact Factory in Utrecht for a transdisciplinary event of panel discussions, keynotes, and workshops that enabled cross-pollination and exchange of ideas towards a fruitful and resilient third-cycle education.Titled “Reimagining Urban Futures”, the day was programmed around the subthemes of Equal Opportunities and Social Justice, Participation and Ownership, Sustainable and Inclusive Cities, Strengthening Communities and Urban Resilience, and Digital and Technological Accessibility.
This report was written by PD Arts + Creative Programme Researcher Carolina Valente Pinto, and reflects on only some sessions hosted.
Welcome & Introduction Panel
Participants were welcomed by host Petra Stienen, author, speaker, and former diplomat with a strong focus on international politics, human rights, and diversity. Before the first panel, Petra invited a “meet your neighbor” moment, engaging the audience in a participative and curious attitude for the day.
The introductory panel, also moderated by today's host Petra, welcomed Eelco Eerenberg, alderman of Utrecht; Daan Andriessen, lecturer and representative of the Professional Doctorate; and Dana Feringa, lecturer at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, with expertise in societal impact and urban resilience — who together discussed questions on creating cities that are inclusive, safe, resilient, and ecologically sustainable through practice-based interventions and participatory approaches. Dana Feringa highlights that, first, we should ask for whom the city should be livable, and not only for now but for generations to come, and for non-humans. Through the space, time,and transdisciplinary collaboration given in the Professional Doctorate for research, we can build impactful responses for urban futures. For Daan Andriessen, this is also thanks to the highly embedded nature of the PD — researchers aren’t just collecting data for a year, but immediately start working in the field, since they are already professionals and practicing. For Feringa, we still need to do more about impacting the future, and not just the world as it is today, working towards changing systems and structures.
Invited into the conversation, Eelco Eerenberg adds that we are currently still engaged in self-interested forms of participation, whereas we need to be more provocative and imaginative, using experiences and embodiment1 towards connection — such connections are also provided by days like this, in exchange and co-learning. Concluding the panel, Dana Feringa urged the public promotion of Universities of Applied Sciences’ impact and projects, who combine research and action.
1 The PD Arts + Creative Strategies of Resonance, which stem from artistic practice and its potential for creating impact/resonance through embodiment, imagination and co-creation, among others, can offer more insights into this aspect. Also see “Notes on Resonance”.
Keynote 'The river speaks: public interventions on de Nieuwe Maas'
By Sophia Bardoutsou, together with Maud van den Beuken
Liza Swaving, Programme Manager of the Arts + Creative domain, who, together with Barbara Sassen (Health and Well-being) initiated this PD Day, welcomed this session, which related to the subtheme Strengthening Communities and Urban Resilience. In her keynote The river speaks: public interventions on de Nieuwe Maas, Arts + Creative PD candidate Sophia Bardoutsou (Codarts) and collaborator and artist Maud van den Beuken shared the insights and artistic methods developed through their projects around the Nieuwe Maas — exploring how we might move beyond observing the river as something outside ourselves, and instead engage with it as a living presence we are in relationship with. When we imagine sustainable cities, we may picture leafy streets and abundant greenery in beautifully rendered images of ambitious urban development projects. But beyond those visual promises, we face a deeper challenge: How do we foster genuine, mutual connections between people and the ecosystems around them — instead of mainly exploiting nature for our needs? How do we learn to listen - truly listen - to our natural environments, and make space for them to shape us, teach us, and invite us into dialogue about our cities?
Shifting gears towards artistic and embodied research mode, Sophia and Maud open the session with a vocalization performance, emerging the space that had been an event room suddenly into the river, inside its stream, near its shores. Their presentation consisted of walking the audience through two projects, which explored how artistic research opens new ways of embodying, imagining, and caring with and for the natural elements within cities. The first project is Resonant Cycles, a series of labs curated by Sophia exploring ecologies and “ecoresonance” through experiencing the river as a living entity, that carries body and language, understanding it beyond the productivity highway of container ships. The labs, organized in collaboration with Buitenplaats Brienenoord invited participants to experiment with voicing the river, which relates our own bodies with it, particularly the mouth, where the voice takes shape. What gates, thresholds, are voiced in the mouth of the river through our own collective voices? In building this river lexicon together, Sophia relates to different thinkers and disciplines, in thinking with Maori philosopher Carl Mika, “by wording the world, we also re-world it, letting new realities emerge”, in understanding sounding and voicing as multisensory with musicologist Nina Eidsheim highlights that, “to focus on vibration is to listen not only to what is said, but to how bodies, human and more-than-human, are touched and moved by sound”. The term ‘Cuerpo-territorio’, which has been common to many indigenous communities within Latin- and North America but also New Zealand, tells us that the body and territory do not exist separately from each other, but are being understood as a collective body which focuses on their interdependence2.
For Where The River Is, a collaboration that also involved TENT Rotterdam and the Port of Rotterdam, Maud van der Beuken initiated a series of gatherings inspired by the concept of the river as an entity, with its own legal personhood3. Reflecting on her own memories and experiences of the river, Maud brought participants in the port of Rotterdam to talk about, listen to, and be-with the river: by bringing the mud removed from the riverbed everyday into this space and transforming participants into mud guardians4. Throughout the installation, which gathered events and artistic research, Sophia collaborated on this project by building musical instruments made from this mud. At the end, the procession We Carry the River combined all outcomes from the space, with participants carrying the mud with their bodies, playing the instruments, showing how artistic research projects engaging with ecology establish new relationships between the human and non-human beings in urban environments. This was confirmed when answering Liesbet van Zoon’s question (how did participants experience this?), when Sophia said how they understood the river differently as a body, as this project made elements previously invisible more present and seen.
2 Quotes and references shared directly during Sophia’s talk.
3 Some countries already granted this status: examples include New Zealand's Whanganui River (2017), the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India (2017), all rivers in Bangladesh (2019), and Canada's Magpie River (2021).
4 Sand is regularly removed from the Maas River near Rotterdam through a process called dredging, primarily to maintain deep channels for large ships in the port and Rhine-Meuse estuary.
Workshop 'It Happened Tomorrow: participatory climate fiction with cultural collections'
By Carlo De Gaetano
For the second round of workshops, Arts + Creative PD candidate Carlo De Gaetano welcomed the symposium participants into what is now one of his core methodologies: a participatory climate fiction workshop. It Happened Tomorrow is a series of workshops to imagine future ways of living with a changing climate and rising sea levels, repurposing archival materials, and utilizing drawing and generative AI to support participatory storytelling. Since its launch in 2022, the workshop has taken place in the Netherlands, Italy, and Portugal, involving 77 participants from diverse backgrounds (from policymakers and researchers to poets and art students) to collectively imagine speculative futures.
For the PD Day, the workshop was tailored to explore how we can imagine climate-altered urban futures, opening a space to think through social justice, displacement, ecological risk, and community resilience in cities affected by environmental changes. Rather than producing fixed predictions, the workshop employs fiction as a tool for surfacing ambiguity and plural perspectives, contributing to the imagining of inclusive and sustainable urban futures, while acknowledging, remixing, and possibly repairing stories from archival collections.
In the introductory talk, Carlo guided us through his research process and main concepts. He has identified a few challenges of climate change visualization and design: it faces a crisis of imagination; it is inundated with a techno-optimistic approach; and it is filled with uncertainty, leaving it difficult to properly communicate how exactly our world will be in some years. With climate fictions, collective concerns are turned into shared stories. But how do stories function? Carlo introduced the famed 1983 Berger and Sontag debate on storytelling, where it is exposed as connecting both to the truth, but also to fiction, imagination, and invention. Interestingly, climate change and heritage can also be seen under this lens: they both carry facts but also projections, expectations, and narratives. Traces from the past can function as hooks to imagine the future and tell other stories. Together with his work field partner at Beeld & Geluid, the Dutch media archives, Carlo uses this public archive to explore the relationship the Dutch population has had with water and the ocean, using it towards future climate fictions: through “postcards from the future”, tiny climate fictions on rising water levels can be explored. What future scenarios can we imagine with living with high waters? Thinking through the postcard format, we invite intimacy and smallness, thinking of one place at one time, bringing back relationality, countering one unifying narrative, and working through fragments and ambiguity.
We were welcomed into the future by two video works that explore two future scenarios based on past workshop stories, so that we could get inspired and then get to work. Each person was invited to complete the white space around a small fragment of an image, imagining how their favourite place or their home would be in the future. In pairs, we shared our experience and our postcard, and after writing a short text on the back, just like a postcard, we could donate our fiction to the ongoing participatory fiction collection.
Plenary panel dicussion: co-creation for sustainable embedding
From the Arts + Creative domain: Nadja van der Weide and Philippine Hoegen
The last plenary panel welcomed to the main event space candidates from both domains that co-organised the symposium, 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, this conversation explored how healthcare and social work can contribute to a livable society, and what this requires in terms of how we collaborate, through statements the candidate commented on and that touch upon the core of their research and practice with each other and the audience. The audience was offered new insights into potential connections between domains and what lessons we can learn from each other and shape a livable city and society together.
The panelists discussed hierarchies of knowledge within care and community work, recognizing that experience is still not valued in the same way as a professional. Though emotional labour is an important source of knowledge, it is quickly forgotten in the midst of participation and work fatigue. It is therefore key to bring the “tapestry”, diversity into the city and communities, with room for tensions, new knowledge, imagination, and collaboration. These networks of connection are essential for health and well-being, as they also shift responsibilities towards communities of learning and of practice, rather than just single individuals. Caring responsibilities are also at the center of the PD programme, and candidates must reflect on what happens when they leave, a project cycle is ended, and how to continue taking care.
Keynote 'Improving housekeeping jobs with ergonomic technology'
By Klaas Koerten
This keynote session welcomed Klaas Koerten, who is a PD candidate with the domain Leisure, Tourism & Hospitality, working on the subtheme “Digital & Technological Accessibility. Liza Swaving, introducing the speaker, reminded us that during this PD Day, we’re asking how practice-based research can help make urban life more inclusive, equal, and sustainable, including the everyday labour that keeps cities running. In his project, Klaas Koerten (from Hotelschool The Hague) investigates how technological interventions can reduce the physical strain on housekeepers, improve working conditions, and contribute to more dignified, sustainable labour practices in hospitality. Projects like this can bring visibility and recognition to labour that is so often overlooked, yet absolutely essential.
Originally a mechanical engineer, Klaas is partnering with Hotelschool, TU Delft, a robotics company, and a hotel chain to bring research in further improving the well-being and work of hospitality staff. Since he didn’t come from this field, his initial research process was all about understanding the problems the industry is facing. Talent/staff shortages are quoted as the main issue, and technology is already tackling this through technological, automated solutions such as robots. When it comes to the tasks of a waiter, the robot can carry several heavy plates, which was described as the least enjoyable task people face as part of their job. Though this technological solution doesn’t quite fit when it comes to housekeeping jobs, where most strenuous tasks are still performed by people with little assistance or ergonomic solutions in place. Out of his research, Klaas concluded that making beds is by far the hardest task and most strenuous on workers’ health, a task that they often perform alone, several times a day.
Though some tests have been made with, for instance, adaptable beds, hotels haven’t been able to adopt a solution that would be both beneficial for staff, efficient,andpleasing for guests. Klaas decided, therefore, to leave the high-tech solutions aside and focus on a lower-tech solution, a research process he is engaging with a student. They came up witha design for a duvet lifter (the average duvet in a hotel weighs 5kg), using ergonomic principles to support the physical well-being of housekeeping staff. In the future, they hope to make more contributions, such as rethinking the cart design and spreading these innovations to more hotels. During the discussion part, the audience pointed mainly at the problems at the root of understaffing – the working conditions and low salaries. Klaas recognizes that more should be done in valuing the workers, but he hopes his contribution can not only make a difference in workers’ health, butalso give their issues more visibility.
Workshop 'Living Lab: Empowering Community-based Organisation'
By Soemitro Poerbodipoero, together with Dr. Peggy Anijs, Delano Hoost, Ethel Braams, and Anja Breslau
Soemitro Poerbodipoero, a PD candidate from the domain Health and Well-being, hosted a session together with his project collaborators, Dr. Peggy Anijs, Delano Hoost and Ethel Braams. In this workshop, they presented Soemitro’s case study, the Kraktie Foundation, an informal community-based organization located in Southeast Amsterdam. In collaboration with stakeholders in practice, education, and research, the foundation works to strengthen initiatives that promote health and well-being among senior citizens.Together, hosts and participants were invited to reflect: how can we meaningfully support these organisations in realizing their full potential? What does authentic, just, and ethical engagement truly entail?
The organisation was already a living lab, so the PD research in this case comes towards the needs and everyday life of the community it is working with and impacting. Focusing on prevention interventions in the community, Soemitrois asking:how does Kraktie’swork impact the well-being of the community members? How can they improve their resilience? In researching for and with the community, he employs methodologies such as action research and communities of practice, and is working towards a manifold of outcomes from research articles, to a documentary, symposia, and exhibitions at the center (not to mention the direct impact and daily life outcomes such collaborative research engages with). To conclude the introductory talk, Soemitro shared the perspectives of seniors and social workers on his research and the host organisation — they find meaning and a sense of home there. The researcher reiterates: innovative ideas on well-being are already here; they are ancient and human. It is society that needs to transform and look at health differently.
The participants welcomed Peggy Anijs, a social worker from Karktie, in an online, pre-recorded session moderated by the other hosts as well. We were invited into a guided meditation, which was experienced by some as calming and light, while others gave in to tiredness. Overall, connecting to the breath made everyone stop for a moment. During the discussion, participants wanted to know more about how the group and community function — Ethel explained how, beyond the mindfulness and other activities at the center, people develop a community that goes beyond, into their daily lives and homes, looking after one another. Soemitro is precisely mapping all these entanglements and complex systems, using this organisation as an example of people-centered care, with accessibility and trust at the center. Through his position as a researcher, he hopes to learn and bring knowledge to the community of practice, empowering it.
Before all participants enjoyed more informal exchanges at the end of the day, the moderator closed the day in the same way we started: some people shared, around the room, what they learned and took out of the day. Liza Swaving and Barbara Sassen thanked everyone, concluding the first PD Symposium Day, with a collective wish to continue the cross-domain exchanges into the future.
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.